Alexander Who?

THE ANNUAL game of 'Toony Tombola' arrived a week late, with the announcement of the add-ons to the Scotland squad for the Guinness Six Nations

And there was a definite call of “House” from anyone who had Alexander Masibaka, or “Alexander Who?” as he is no doubt being referred to across the nation this week as a potential Scotland call-up. Twenty-three year old Alexander, who plays flanker for Soyaux-Angoulême in France's Pro D2, is the latest recruit from the Australian branch of the Caledonian Diasporo, owing his Scotland qualification to his Paisley-born mother. He comes in for Josh Bayliss, who sustained a groin strain on Sunday in Bath's win at Sale.

The other four call-ups were less of a shock. With our current shortage of middle row “donkeys”, it was no surprise to see Leicester's Cameron Henderson and Oyonnax's Ewan Johnston back in the squad, while Euan Ferrie's good form for Warriors has seen him called-up, alongside Ollie Smith, who demonstrated his recovery from a long injury absence, and his versatility, in Warriors' win over Connacht on Saturday evening.

My take on the call-ups is this – Toony is already looking towards the next World Cup. You might have expected the likes of Sam Skinner and Alex Craig to have got the call to fill the lock vacancies, but no, the Coach has gone for the younger candidates, and when you consider those who are missing, we certainly appear to be well-covered in those positions moving forward.

I am starting to worry about these Six Nations, even with skipper Sione Tuipulotu missing, we are in a good place, which is never a comfortable sign for Scotland fans.

THE SCOTTISH FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION was incorporated in 1872/3 and by 1890 the top clubs, anxious to ensure they would get regular games against each other had formed The Scottish Football League. Its member clubs were all members of the national governing body – the SFA – but, they managed their own competition, which has grown from the original 12 clubs to today's 42 clubs.

The Scottish Rugby Union was formed at the same time, but, here the top clubs were quite happy to organise their own fixtures, refusing to have anything official to do with leagues for 100 years – although, even the most-establishment of “The Establishment” (generally city-based clubs) were quite happy to acknowledge wins in what they would sniffily refer to as the “Unofficial Newspaper Championship”.

Since the SRU initiated those official National Leagues in 1973, the governing body has maintained a firm grip on the management of the competition – no prospect, even in the 30 years since the game went Open, of allowing the country's top club sides to manage their own affairs, under a benevolent “overseeing” eye from Murrayfield. This I have long felt is a weakness in the way we manage our game.

I reckon its time for the top clubs to get together and form their own Scottish Rugby Union League, aligned with Scottish Rugby Limited, rather than the Club Rugby Board, with pre-determined standards of ground and club infrastructure in place, and a CBA or Collective Bargaining Agreement in place, to drive up standards and align our top clubs more with the fully-professional sides managed by Murrayfield. The current approach to governance is far-too amateurish for an Open game.

THE TERM G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) is very-much a North American concept – since they have no history of their own, they have to invent one. In reality picking a G.O.A.T. In any sport is a matter of opinion, and opinion is a huge part of any talk about sport or games.

In the world of Professional Boxing, when it comes to discussing the G.O.A.T. there is a distinct elephant in the room – Muhammad Ali – you can argue for whoever you like, but, it still comes down to this, nobody has ever had the effect on the Noble Art that Ali had. Anyone else branded The G.OA.T. and you might as well put * after his name and add: “Ali excluded from the debate.”

I firmly believe, in English Rugby Union at the moment, they are having a somewhat lower scale version of the Boxing G.O.A.T. debate, when it comes to choosing a Man of the Match in games involving Bath RFC. It's almost as if those stout English yeomen, and wannabe Englishmen, who make the choice for TNT Sport are under strict instructions, something along the lines of:

“Look chaps, we know Finn Russell pulled all the strings and ran the game. We know he's from a different planet, but,he's not English, so we cannot give it to him – pick someone else.”

It certainly looked like that at the Salford City Stadium on Sunday, when “MacMessi” scored 12 of Bath's 32 points, had four try assists and produced some text-book tackling in defence. The writter media journalists at the match hailed his performance as: “A world-class masterclass” yet, the TMT team gave the Man of the Match accolade to his team mate Miles Reid.

I fear, in this case, they don't collectively have enough TNT to blow their bunnets off.