State Secrets v Transparency And Openness

THERE IS a page on the Scottish Rugby Union's website, in which they list the current vacancies within the organisation – except, they don't list all the vacancies/ For instance, we know my very-dear friend Mr Dodson – TCD as I reverently call him – is stepping down from his post as Chief Executive Officer in the Summer. At the same time, Jim Mallinder is retiring from his post as Director of Performance Rugby.

One might hope the search for successors in these two very-important roles would be ongoing, after all, rhe recruitment process for such highly-paid, not to mention high-profile posts usually takes some time. People in such positions usually have to work through lengthy notice periods, but, a look at the current vacancies within the SRU throws up just one opening – for an Account Manager with Glasgow Warriors.

Maybe what's happening over replacing Dodson and Mallinder is a Staate Secret, or, maybe the posts are being filled on a “jobs for the boys” basis. Either way, I would have thought a wee bit more openness would have been evident and welcome.

ELSEWHERE on the SRU website,I noted my observations regarding the posting of board minutes had brought about some action – with the minutes of the 18 October meeting of the Club Rugby Board now on the site.

You have to laugh at The Junta's obsession with secrecy. They list all those non-board members in attendance at the meeting; well, actually they don't, since the identities of several appear thus:

[NAME REDACTED] (XX)Head of Regional Development

[NAME REDACTED] (XX) Solicitor

[NAME REDACTED] (XX) Business Operations & Support Manager

[NAME REDACTED] (XX) Head of Competitions & Compliance

[NAME REDACTED] (XX) Child Wellbeing & Protection Manager

[NAME REDACTED] (XX) Head of Game Development

[NAME REDACTED] (XX) Head of People & Engagement

[NAME REDACTED] (XX) Head of Rugby Development Operations

Angela McCRacken – Head of Legan and Governance, gets name checked. OK, I can perhaps understand the attending solicitor having his or her anonymity preserved, but the rest? It's surely not a state secret that Julie Gemmell is Head of People and Engagement, or that Faye Henderson is Child Wellbeing and Protection Manager and Gavin Scott is Head of Rugby Development Operations, with Neil Graham being Head of Game Development.

These redactions scream: “We're doing this because we can”; let's hope, once TCD has left the building, we get some grown-ups in to take control of The Junta.

By the way – would somebody like to ask their nearest Club Rugby Board member, what is the difference between “Big Rocks” and “Stepping Stones” - I'm not that fluent in Corporate Bullshit Terms.

The meeting spent some time discussing the 2024 to 2028 Game Development Strategy. This was due to be finalised by January 2024. This might well be the Male Performance Pathway, announced in mid-February, but, I reckon a five-year plan should be a bit more detailed than this was.

One interesting titbit I picked up from browsing the minutes, was the suggestion that clubs which produce players who are awarded Academy contracts, or go on to win professional contracts should maybe get some monetary reward. This already happens in football, although, in that game you frequently hear complaints that the amount of such compensation rarely covers the cost input.

"'Big Rig' - member of Scottish rugby's high performance staff". Now that is one really-savoury item in the minutes which caught my eye and got me wondering: what is going on there?

IN FITBA, each year, when the national knock-out cup comes around, the cogniscenti get a wee bit excited. OK, in the good old days, when the SFA had their square ball and their oval ball, then invariably managed to keep The Bigot Brothers apart and provided one or other didn't meet a Berwick Rangers or an Inverness Caledonian Thistle along the way, well they would meet in the final.

Occasionally, one or other would trip up and some diddy team would have an inspired day and beat them, or, we ended up with two of the diddy teams in what would be dubbed: A People's Final.

The really diddy teams used to set-off on The Road to Hampden in the late Autumn and, like Scottish clubs in Europe, their journey would be over before Christmas, well short of the final destination. The thing was, and in many cases still is, these no-hopers all accept, tis better to travel hopefully than to arrive, and even if they know in their hear of hearts, they are going to get a right good doing at some stage, they enter and compete.

OK, I accept Rugby Union is a much more-physical game and in a Rugby mismatch, there is genuine danger of someone getting hurt, perhaps really badly, so, we have to take greater care around mismatches. But, it does worry me that one or two of today's proposed Scottish Cup games have been called off, because the side on the “We'll do our best but, even before the kick-off, we know we're going to get stuffed” half of the draw have scratched.

In fitba, even some junior clubs, who have no chance of winning the thing, enter and have a go. They even, on occasions such as Darvel v Aberdeen, give the big boys a bloody nose.

Auchinleck Talbot and Cumnock Juniors both play in the West of Scotland Football League's Premier Division; this is Level Six in Scottish Football's pyramid. Both are SFA licenced clubs so can play in the Scottish Cup.

Cumnock Rugby Club, who draw their members from both these wee toons, play in West Region Division One of the Scottish Rugby pyramid. But, whereas “The 'Bot” or “Scumnock” (as I like to call them) could potentially face one half of the big two in the Scottish, there is no way their local rugby club would be allowed a crack at the likes of Hawick in Rugby's national knock-out competition.

So, maybe the SRU should make eligibility to compete at that level even harder. Clubs withdrawing, even when it is taken for the best of reasons – to prevent possible injury top their players, demonstrates, I feel, my oft-quoted belief that we really need to put a lot more effort into raising standards, because we clearly have too-many “National League clubs” unworthy of that description. In truth, even more-so than fitba, our game suffers from a surfeit of “diddy teams” as these withdrawals demonstrate.