YOU MIGHT think Scottish Rugby supporters, even those of us confined to the sidelines, watching our High Heid Yins struggle with financial problems and the need to right a listing ship, would be mindful of the problems facing the organisers of the 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, and sympathetic towards the difficult decisions they have had to make in arranging these Games.
The Glasgow 2026 Organising Committee are, we must never forget, engaged in a rescue mission. If Glasgow had not stepped in, there would not be a Commonwealth Games in 2026. Indeed, after the Australian State of Victoria decided they could not fund the 2026 Games, there was a very-real chance, we might never see another Commonwealth Games.
These Games are the highest level at which Scottish athletes across so-many disciplines can operate on the world stage, in a Scotland strip, as such, every four years we walk taller, courtesy of a long, long line of great Scottish athletes – from Dunky Wright, via Peter Heatly, Ian Black, Dick McTaggart, Jim Alder, Lachie Stewart, Allan Wells, Liz and Elish McColgan, Chris Hoy and Katie Archibald whose wins at the Commonwealth Games have made us that much happier to be Scottish.
It now falls to Scotland to show that hosting major multi-sports Games need not be a case of following the Viv Nicholson dictum of constantly spending more and more, that a Games, even on a smaller scale can still be a celebration of Sport.
But, in cutting costs, some individual sports have had to go and sadly, Rugby Sevens is one of the casualties. This has got some in the body of the Scottish Rugby “kirk” up in arms; however, criticising the Glasgow Games organisers for dropping Sevens is a bit rich, given how poorly the Scottish Rugby Union has treated a form of the game invented and nourished in Scotland.
If this blog was 'Allo-Allo' I would be saying this only once, but it isn't, so, I will repeat myself again – The SRU will ignore Sevens until such time as Scotland is again an Independent nation. Because Sevens is now an Olympic Sport, Sevens in these islands will be a Team Great Britain project. Sure, there may well be the occasional Scottish player or coach involved, but, Sevens will not be a part of the game which the SRU will take seriously – so get used to this.
When we take back our Independence, we will have the ability to enter a Scotland Sevens team into the Olympics – then, and not before, the SRU will have to take Sevens seriously.
INTERNATIONAL TEAMS are selected; therefore, by definition, the team is based on one person's opinion as to the best XV players to represent Scotland. At the moment, the guy who is being paid to give that opinion and present his opinion is Gregor Townsend.We all know: “Opinions are like erse-holes, we all have one”. Well, Toony is being paid big money to have his opinions tested in internationals – so let's not try to second guess him. His record as Scotland Head Coach is rather good.
HAVING KNOWN HIM since he was a pupil at Ayr Academy, I have a lot of time for John F Brown, the “Outsider” candidate to be the new Vice President of the SRU.
I believe the Murrayfield Junta would be nane the waur of an injection of new blood and fresh ideas and while I also have a lot of time for his opponent in the VP Election, Hazel Swankie, I reckon the eldest of Ayr's Brown Brothers, would be a breath of fresh air in the corridors of power in EH12.
This is John's statement of intent, I feel it is worth considereation:
You are obviously entitled to your opinion AA. I would gently suggest that if Scotland 7s had retained their place at the top table of competition, we would still have a team. Sadly the finance issue comes into play as does player numbers. We can only play with the appendage we process. And frankly it’s rather shrivelled. How independence changes that you nearly avoid answering.
ReplyDeleteI’m sure Mr Brown is a nice guy. But his flyer is rather long on aspiration and missing any detail on how he would go about doing those things. For a man with zero experience in SRU matters to stand is very courageous/stupid. We will soon find out which it is.