Aristotle's Agenda For Change - Part Three

AS THE SNP is maybe discovering, or maybe not – I have little regard for the people in-charge of that political party at the moment – advocating major change in any area of life in Scotland is a sair fecht. “It's Aye Been” is seemingly the natural attitude of the Scots. We steadfastly refuse to support The Conservative and Unionist Party up here, but, for awe that, we remain an almost religiously conservative country – happy to muddle along as we always have.

This attitude is particularly entrenched in Scottish Rugby, where forcing through change, even when that change appears necessary, is fraught with difficulties, not least the old Scottish drrawback of self-interest coming first.

I have discovered this this week, as I have attempted to call for major change to how we organise this great game of ours up here. Bill Faulds of Falkirk RFC has taken me to task for daring to advocate change. I fear Bill is not the only one, although, to give him his due, he has questioned me. So, Bill, here are your questions and my responses. Bill's questions are in italics, my answers in normal font.

1/ how many Regions? Or what’s an acceptable distance to drive for a match? 20 miles? Or 40? Or an hour / 60 miles? An hour sounds sensible, if you want to be “home for tea”?

If you had read Part One, you would have realised I am advocating six regions. These would, as happens in Ireland, be organised at a regonal level, with regional committees elected, giving the clubs in that region more control than at present.

I have based them on the current Regions, which means, Falkirk, your club, would be in Midlands Region. You could always, I suppose, opt to transfer to either the Glasgow Region, or the East Region, if you felt geographically, this suited you better.

2/ Leagues of 10, or 12, or 14?

I admit, I might have been out in some of my geography in the North Region, but, I envisage, initially, the top league in each region would be made up of the current National League clubs from that region. Ideally, I would go for ten-club leagues, but, I accept, not always possible. Below that top Regional League, the other leagues would be as localised as possible.

In Falkirk's case, yes, initially you would have to travel to Aberdeen, Inverness and Orkney, but otherwise, your furthest trip would be to Dundee. As things currently stand, your club is quite happy to travel to Berwick, Aberdeen and Newton Stewart – your three longest trips this season, so, I don't see what you are complaining about.

You mention “mis-matches”. How do you define a mis-match? Is sticking 50 points on another team a mis-match? Is the borderline 60 points, or 70?

You asked if I would let Newton Stewart into my West of Scotland (not Ayrshire) League, If you had read the piece properly you would have seen that fine club already in there – do pay attention.

3/ What about Orkney, Caithness, the Aberdeen sides? Should rugby just be a Central Scotland sport?

You say, for Falkirk to get “appropriate competition” you have to travel to Aberdeen and Newton Stewart, well, under my plan, you wouldn't have to travel to Newton Stewart. If that's a problem. You say staying local would not work. Well, provided your club remained in my proposed Caledonia League, staying local would not be a problem.

You asked for my proposals re Regional Leagues. Did you even read the piece?

Your failure of comprehension was particularly evident in your response to Part One.

To pick out some of your random thoughts:

“The I'm alright Jack Leagues.....Your set up seems simply about allowing those in the Borders, Edinburgh, Glasgow & Ayrshire to play against their old chums and be home for tea. Should you live out with these areas then your proposal offers no meaningful benefit - distance wise?

Part One visualised REGIONAL LEAGUES. If you had read it properly, you would have understood, NATIONWIDE club rugby would still be available, to the best players in each region, playing for their Region's representative team. Ordinary players would be playing against local rivals.

Unfortunately, because of the spread and perhaps a lack of talent, there are not enough National League sides in the North, so at the upper club level, there would need to be a single Caledonia League. I made that a 12-club league, because, right now, there are 12 National League clubs from Caledonia. That Caledonia League would be the starting point. With Regional committees, and greater local control, that committee might decide they didn't want a 12-club league. My proposed divisional set-ups are only my initial ideas – it would be up to the clubs, what set-up they wanted.

Secondly, looks like you’ve mercifully euthanised the S6 before some of those Clubs go bust.

Not at all, I still believe in Super Rugby, but, I didn't mention it because Super Rugby has nothing to do with Club Rugby. Super Rugby is part of the Performance Level of Scottish Rugby – run directly from Murrayfield. I will, however, tackle Super Rugby in the next part.

Your failure of comprehension is again evident in your lengthy rant about the seasonal structure. As I have already explained – these are broad brush strokes thinking, how it finally is organised is down to the local clubs, acting at Regional level. Smaller leagues would allow the return of County or Regional Cup competitions, what's wrong with that? It's local rivalries which keep the pot boiling.

If you think Falkirk is so-much better than the other clubs around it, well, you could always opt to switch to the East Region, I'm sure the “Edinburgh Posh Boys” would love having you.

NOW FOR PART THREE - read this, in fact, read all three pieces. Or, better still, have someone who understands, read them to you. I can recommend a guy from a nearly club who might be willing to help.

I APPEAR to have been channeling my inner Billy Connolly, when I suggested we might improve Scottish Rugby by taking lessons from Ireland and giving more power over the community club game to the Regions. This suggeston went down like a fart in a space suit.

The alternative to more regionalisation is to stick with central control from Murrayfield, and have national and regional leagues, the status quo. Except, I remain convinced, five national leagues, involving more than one-third of the clubs playing competitive rugby, that's too-many national leagues.

OK smart-arse, I can hear you saying; how many leagues should we have?

I honeestly believe, a Scottish National League ought to be restricted to the absolute top clubs. The question is, how many clubs would comprise an elite? Do we say 10% - 15 clubs, or do we become even-more elitist and go for 5% - 8 clubs; or is the preference for 10 clubs?.

There may well be a case for something radical, such as a 16-club National League, split into two conferences, with a Grand Final to settle The Champions. However, I feel, having an elite 8-10 club national league would also solve another problem – what to do about Super Rugby.

Why not re-brand our National League as the Super League?

By all means keep what would become Regional club leagues strictly amateur, but, if we allow the Super Rugby clubs to be semi-professional, we could solve one or two problems.Although, I will never be convinced there are sufficient players of the required quality to support three franchises in Edinburgh – and the way they have poached players from the Borders clubs would seem to back this up - good luck to anyone suggesting one of the franchises ought to gracefully withdraw. So, we would have to assume the current six franchises: Ayrshire Bulls, Boroughmuir Bears, Heriot's Rugby, Southern Knights, Stirling Wolves and Watsonians would be in there. Where else might we look?

Since one of the objectives of Super Rugby was to form a bridge between the club game and the professional one, while another was to give our brightest and best young players a platform on which to demonstrate their quality, why not a place for Edinburgh A and Glasgow A teams – with the condition, the bulk of their match-day squads comprise Academy or First Year Professional players.

That's eight places filled – surely, finally, we could get a franchise from beyond the immediate north shore of the River Forth, while, in an extended Super Rugby format, surely Hawick would fancy their chances.

I would hope the SRU would enforce strict infrastructure parameters on the teen clubs. This was supposed to happen with Super6, but, as we now know, some of the hoped-for infrastructure criteria was quietly ditched.

A review of Super Rugby is currently underway. If The Junta was prepared to listen and sort-out the current failings, Super Rugby could work as the elite level of the club game, albeit more of a Performance Level league. However, we all know the potential draw-back – the involvement of The Junta.

In Wales, below their Premiership, all club rugby is localised. OK, Scotland is a bigger geographic area than the Principality, but, we too could have competitive Regional Leagues. We could also have cross-league play-offs each Spring to produce an overall Champion below the Premeirship.

I accept, the usual suspects will shout from the rooftops about mis-matches. Hell, it's a sporty, you get mis-matches in every league, always will. However, by and large, as the leagues matured, I am sure there would be fewer mis-matches and, with the added spark of local rivalries, better games.

Of course, as more than one critic has taken pains to remind me – the biggest draw-back to a rosey future for Scottish Rugby is the seeming reluctance of today's young men to play the game once they had discovered the alrernative charms of wine and women.

Make the club game more localised, sell it better, coach it better and be more positive about the game, and I am sure, in time, we can get more players playing at club level.

These are my thoughts, so, what do we want - totally regionalised, a mix of National and Regional leagues, or, the status quo - Discuss.