No Press - The SRU Just Might Be Happy

FORTY YEARS ago, in the Summer of 1985, I took a punt and agreed to, as a freelance, cover the Scotland Rugby Tour to North America. The touring party, under Manager Doug Masson and Coaches Colin Telfer and Derrick Grant and the Captaincy of David Leslie played matches in Victoria, Vancouver Island; Vancouver, Seattle, Edmonton and Calgary. It is now referred to as: “The Forgotten Tour”. Needless to say, touring Omerta applies: “What went on on-tour, stayed on tour”; but, those of us on it had a ball.

Back in 1985, the Press Party – in the phrase of the time: “With but not of the Scotland touring party” consisted of the late Bill McMurtrie, covering for the then Glasgow Herald Group, and Me, covering for everyone else – even the Daily Rhanger was taking daily epistles, phoned-in from North America. We travelled everywhere with the party, sitting, with “the Blazers” who included SRU President Hamish Kemp, at the front of the team bus. It worked very well.

Yesterday, the Scotland Party flew out of Edinburgh on the Skyscanner Summer Tour. No Scottish press representatives were flying with them – that is how much Rugby Union has fallen from grace among the bean counters who now dictate what you might read about, see, or hear about in the nation's greatly-reduced mainstream media. Some Zoom calls have been arranged through Murrayfield for the duration of the Tour, and I dare say, some of the bigger media groups will have arranged local coverage through contacts in New Zealand, but, the truth is, the Scottish Rugby public is being short-changed.

BBC Shortbread has sent Tom English to Australia tocover the Lions' Tour. Pardon me, but surely Pacific Quay should be covering the Scotland Tour, leaving the Lions to the big boys in London?

For all the sterling efforts of David Barnes and The Offside Line team, our game is not being covered as well and as deeply as it deserves to be and I honestly worry about the future of our game; because it needs a vibrant press corps, keeping the blazers on-track and honest and that isn't happening.

What we will get back from this year's tour is “The Authorised Version”, via the SRU Communications Team, a bunch who – with at most two or three exceptions – could not have spotted the story had they been travelling on Titanic. We need hand-off rather than hands-on coverage, we are not going to get it.

Back in the 1950s, when I first got into Rugby Union, Lions Tours were generally covered by a three-man press pack, JBG Thomas looked at the Tour from a distinctly Welsh perspective, while his countryman, Vivian Jenkins and Terry O'Connor looked after everyone else – this trio were so-good, the agencies and the papers, other than their principal employers knew they could trust them for freelance coverage – and it worked.

By the 1970s and 1980s the press pack had expanded, Bill McMurtrie had a virtual team photograph of the press pack from one Lions' Tour to New Zealand which he covered. This meant that while Thomas, Jenkins and O'Connor could travel in the team bus, by the time Bill & Co were travelling, the press corps needed their own coach and by the time of the last New Zealand Tour, in 2017, they even had unpaid interns such as Ayr RFC's Callum Kerr along for the ride and posting social media stuff.

What I have been reading about the current Tour to Australia, there's been another subtle – or not so subtle – change, everything we get from the Tour has to be spun to suit the agenda of what we must still call: “Fleet Street”; i.e. this is, as the mainstream media sees it, an England tour with some Celts along for company.

There is a lot of hype about English wunderkindt Henry Pollock. Now, young Henry is clearly a decent player, or he would not have been picked. However, like so-many English players, he's not nearly as good as their media cheer-leaders have built him up to be. I don't see him as a Test starter, he will have to elbow his way past a few more-experienced and equally-skilled operator to get either the 6 or 7 jersey for the Tests. Still, this will not prevent the English media from bigging him up.

By the way, I did find myself nodding in agreement with the BTL commenter on The Guardian's website who put the Lions' loss in Dublin down to: “Farrell selecting too-many average Englishmen”. Although, I must admit, Ellis Genge has come on as a scrummager over the closing weeks of this season and is no longer the scrum liability he was.

A TIP for a team to watch this season – keep your eyes on Cumnock. My old club may have missed-out, for the moment, on persuading oor ain Mark Bennett to finish his playing career back where it started – he will be playing in France next season, but, they have surely won a watch, by appointing Bruce Ruthven to become their new Head Coach, succeeding Steve Rabey, who is now part of the coaching group at Marr.

 

Bruce has moved to live in Prestwick and is keen to be involved with a grass-roots club. The early signs are good, the players and the club management team are enthused. Who knows, I might yet live to see Cumnock in the National Leagues.

RUTHVEN'S ARRIVAL at Broomfield is just one of several interesting new appointments in God's County. Gordy Reid has accepted what we hear on the County grapevine is: “silly money” to become Director of Rugby at Kilmarnock. Up the coast a bit, at Ardrossan, Craig Redpath is back in Coaching with Ardrossan Academicals, while we hear of other interesting appointments coming up elsewhere.