A Wee Rant

I WAS sorely tempted to style this post as an open letter to TCD, but, since he has been doing Tam o Shanter impressions for years, and despising my lengthy, sage advices, I don't think he is going to allow my intelligent and carefully-structured pointers to tarnish his farewell Guinness Six Nations tour. So, I will have to settle for another Rant.

FFS TCD, your imminent departure has caused unprecedented joy and merriment across the realm. Don't let the main door of Scottish Gas Murrayfield hit you on your fat erse as you depart, by the way. It is pleasing to see you are taking Jim Mallinder, another “White Settler” who took our hard-earned groats and gave us little in return, with you as you head off.

I accept you have long ignored my advice, but, I am a forgiving man and humbly suggest, as a final act of penance for the many ills you have done to Scottish Rugby, you take Buddy the Elf with you too.

Few parts of the SRU are reckoned to work properly, but, it is seemingly ever thus in major sporting bodies – there are always critics within and without such organisations. However, as someone long involved in rugby media, I can assure you, few parts of the organisation can perform as badly as your Communications Department. Of course, mini-empires such as this department are only as good as the person at the top, and when that person gives the impression of being an over-promotd moron, then you've got trouble.

I first had an article on Rugby Union published back in the 1960s, but, I had my press credentials withdrawn by the SRU, because apparently writing a blog is: “not real journalism”according to Buddy the Elf. I cannot get a seat in the press box at Murrayfield, perhaps because they need these seats for the six or seven lassies who tweet for the various SRU social media channels. But, I'm not bitter.

I have been pointing-out the department's failings in one particular field, getting the weekly results out in time, since the work was taken in-house after the sad passing of the late Ron Evans. I can envisage Wee Ron, stomping around the great press box in the sky, fulminating at the way his carefully-built-up legacy of excellence in speedily compiling and having published the results each Saturday has been allowed to wither on the vine.

That one man built a system which worked, and worked well. Buddy and the Elves have laid waste to it in record time.

Back in the days, when newspapers worked and mattered beyond spouting right-wing pish and seeking clickbait for their websites, there was the position of Copy Taster. This was normally a somewhat cynical, veteran hack, who would look at every story which came in, either from stringers, freelance contributors or over the agency wires.

These stories were either “spiked”- immediately categorised as not worth bothering about and consigned to a large spike on his desk; or, if they got past that initial examination were sent up the line to be polished and eventually, they found their way into the paper.

The SRU could do with finding a copy taster, because, some of the stuff which makes it to the 'News' section of the website is little more than untouched and badly-written press release filler.

It would help too, if, when they do come up with a worthwhile story, the Communications Department put a bit of effort into what they write. For example, as of yesterday morning, the tenth story on the News pages of the website was this:

Glasgow Warriors claimed the first of two U18 inter-city derbies, picking up a 36-21 win at Hive Stadium on Sunday.

Selected from the FOSROC Regional Academy sides which played a festival across December and January, the two teams play the matches as part of the U18 development programme.

Tries for Glasgow from Lachlan Hodge, Joe Roberts, Kieran Todd, Harry Provan, Olly McKenna and Gregor Johnston were enough to grab the win, with Hamish McArthur, Chris Thomson and Miles McLaughlin on the scoresheet for Edinburgh.

A second game will take place at Scotstoun Stadium on Sunday.

Head of Pathways John Fletcher said: “The purpose of these games is to get the player wearing the Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors shirts and building on that sense of belonging to one of the pro teams and it also goes a long way to helping Ross Miller and his team select the Scotland U18 squad which will play in a Six Nations festival in Italy later this year.

“They got caught up in the occasion and lost their flow a bit, but there was lots of good bits from both teams and it was competitive throughout the game. The coaches will be working with the players to ensure we play a style of rugby that reflects what we are going after at U18 on Sunday.”

Including the heading, that comes to 222 words. OK, what's good about it? Well, they named the try scorers, as far as I know, their names were spelled correctly. They name-checked those try-scorers, well done; but, no mention of the kickers, and no mention of the clubs from which the boys came – although to be fair, if you scroll back a couple of pages, to an entry from 2 February, you do find a mention of the game, with a link to the teams and their clubs. OK, those were the selected sides, but, were they the XVs which took to the field?

However, of that 222 word match report, more than half, 117 words (I counted them), are a quote from SRU Head of Pathways John Fletcher. Yes, Mr Fletcher has an important job in Scottish Rugby, even though most clubmen you speak to have little regard for the Pathway and how it works, but, giving him more than half of the report space is the equivalent of having TCD on-point for a report of a Scotland game.

A real report, a better report, would have had quotes from the respective coaches, Robert Gibb of Edinburgh and Tom Johnson of Glasgow. Hopefully, one or two of the boys in that game will train-on to become full Scotland caps, but, for most, that just might be the pinnacle of their rugby career. So, give them their 15 minutes of fame.

That report was, as I wrote, on the first leg, The second leg was played on Sunday, 11 February. On Tuesday, 13 February, when I began the first draft of this post, there was nothing up on the SRU website until 3pm. Why the delay?

Was everyone suffering from a Six Nations Hangover? Something ought to have been up on the site before then. It simply isn't good enough.

The report of the second game was as lacking as the first. Try scorers – yes, conversion kickers, seemingly not important. Do they know nothing of rugby history – a Try is so-called because it allows the side scoring it to try to convert the touch-down into a Goal.

Again, the report lacked quotes from the coaches, but, to be fair, this time there was a link to the teams in the actual match report.

I think here of my old sparring partner (literally, since we once came to blows on the pitch during a game), the late Glen Stirling of Glasgow Sports Agency. When Glen was in his pomp, nobody farted in Scottish Rugby but Glen knew about it. He travelled near and far to cover all levels of the game, and he got his coverage onto the pages of The Glasgow Herald and The Scotsman, plus the “Scottish” editions of the English-owned papers of the time.

The papers no longer cover Scottish Rugby seriously, and while The Offside Line does a smashing job, and some of the rest of us weigh-in where we can, the fact is, the mainstream media has largely given-up on Scottish Rugby, so it is up to the game itself to become the media and fill the void.

The SRU has a Communications Department, it has a website, it has the staff to fill that void caused by the msm's withdrawal.

What a pity they are doing such a terrible job.

Or is a case that so-much of what happens on the ground in the game up here is unworthy of the attention of the Indians, never mind the many Chiefs, within the Murrayfield Junta?

The lack of interest-in and professionalism towards the players in the Pathway is also evident on the pages offering information on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Academy players. These are models on inconsistency and missed information, almost as if the people who should be writing-up the information and biographies cannot be bothered.

I dug a bit further, into the website. Go into the 'Teams' section and click on the Under-20 team. Only nine forwards and five backs are listed – not even a full XV. Ach! Who needs replacements, or even a full squad?

There isn't even a head shot (photograph) of a couple of the players, while the player biographies rank from non-existent to barely one sentence. This sort of work is slipshod and amateurish.

The devil is in the detail and detail is missing from much around the Communications Department.

I know there are some good operators in there, young, enthusiastic people who seek to do their bit for the betterment of Scottish Rugby.

As I see it, the trouble is, they are led by a talentless, lazy, time-server and that department is proof positive – a fish rots from the head down.

And, before I forget. We lost Gerry Tosh in a lot of respects “Mr Dundee Rugby” on Monday. I got the news from Facebook. I would, however, expect the SRU website to have marked the passing of a member of the Club Board with a short announcement by now. Certainly, any Communications Department where the Honcho was on top of the job, would have done this.

RANT OVER.