A Thought For Tonight

MY LATE FATHER was immensely proud of the fact, when he finally retired (early) from the National Coal Board, after 48 years service to the coal industry, he had been the last of the pre-nationalisation “coal company” managers from William Baird & Company, later Bairds and Dalmellington, still in harness. {I still have his NCB long service certificate – but it says much about the management abilities of the nationalised industries that it took them four years to get it the 400 yards or so from the area offices to his house, following his retirement.}

He had been appointed Area Traffic Superintendent when the NCB was established in 1948, he, with the aid of a Traffic Foreman, was responsible for making sure their lorries and “pugs” (shunting engines) kept the 40 pits, two workshops, and various offices within the designated area running.

When he retired, 20 years later – by now Area Transport Manager – there were only two pits, one workshop area and one area office still working. His staff, however, had grown to himself, an assistant, a foreman driver, and a clerical assistant.

At nationalisation, the coal industry was the backbone of the local economy: several haulage companies sub-contracted trucks to the NCB, local companies supplied goods and services, but, by the time Dad retired, much of the out-sourcing was done to larger companies, based in Glasgow or even further afield.

I can still recall, as a Primary schoolboy, seeing the local mechanics doing complete overhauls of pugs and lorries, in the two maintenance pits “garage” next to Dad's office. If they needed a special part, there were guys in the workshop who could manufacture it on-site. All that expertise and the we can fix it locally culture vanished as decisions were taken centrally, either in Edinburgh or in London. The costs rose and the coal industry was destroyed.

Dad used to quote the example of the electrical cables which were so essential in powering the equipment underground, running the railways, powering the coal cutters and the conveyers. He would insist, the foreman electrician at each pit could tell, almost to the foot, how much cabling he would need each year and order accordingly.

However, there was a better than even chance, the guy processing the orders in the area office would err on the side of caution and perhaps add five or ten per cent, before passing the order up the line to Edinburgh, where the procurement manager would add his five or ten per cent; the result, an awful lot of unused cabling cluttering up central stores and excess costs, which helped fuel the coal industry's losses.

As a side bar to these losses, I can remember working on a local Opencast Coal Mine and from our site, we could see the head gear of the two still-working local collieries. The 150 of us on the Opencast were producing more coal than the 1500 miners down the two pits – that, as much, if not more than as political decisions made in London, did for deep mining in Scotland.

OK, I hear you say – what's this got to do with Scottish Rugby? Well, I'll tell you. It could be argued that the coal companies such as Bairds made money until the lack of investment caused by World War II, plus the election of a Labour Party which, unlike today's lot, genuinely believed in Socialism, forced them into nationalisation.

Dad was a true “Baird's Man” - that company ran a tight ship, Dad reckoned every man toiling at the coal face was carrying five guys (and women) on the surface on his back, metaphorically speaking. By the time he retired, 20 years of nationalisation had in his words meant: “every miner was now carrying a minimum of ten people on his back.”

Well, I reckon you can now take that story of things going wrong with nationalisation and use it to explain the pickle the SRU has got itself into. Back in the amateur era, enthusiasts from James Aikman-Smith to Bill Hogg ran the SRU efficiently and well with the minimum of staff and the absolute minimum of fuss.

Today, we have a bloated army of apparatchiks strutting around Scottish Gas Murrayfield in SRU uniforms, doing what seems to be the norm in nationalised industries and national institutions – keeping their noses in the feeding trough and under-delivering.

OK, there are legends from the amateur days of committee-men, Special Representatives and the like, who did rather well out of the SRU. There is the tale of the former internationalist who described himself as “a dairy farmer” - because he was milking the SRU for all he could get. But, these guys had in most cases bled for the cause and got to high office via deeds on the field.

There are people with seeming sinecures inside the Murrayfield Junta today who have quite literally risen without trace. If you've seen that currently popular social media meme, which describes Donald Trump as a “fence post turtle” - “You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, he's elevated beyond his ability to function and you just wonder what kind of dumb-thinking individuals put him up there to begin with.” I could name one or two Murrayfield insiders who meet all these criteria.

Back in the 1970s, the Scottish National Team had an “Advisor to the Captain” and a physiotherapist, for international preparation; today we have:

• Head Coach – Gregor Townsend

• Assistant Coach (Backs) – Pete Horne

• Assistant Coach (Forwards) – John Dalziel

• Assistant Coach (Defence) – Lee Radford

• Assistant Coach (Scrums) – Pieter de Villiers

• A Team Manager

• Physiotherapists (plural)

• Video analysts

• Strength and Conditioning Coaches

• A Media Manager

• A Kit Manager

This enlarged staff includes some excellent operators, but, are they all necessary? If Lee Radford, for instance, can fit his Scotland commitments around the day job with Northampton Saints, couldn't some of the Edinburgh or Glasgow support staff be seconded to Scotland for the international breaks – probably saving the SRU some money?

Similarly, if Tolwnsend has time on his hands to “consult” or whatever he is doing with Red Bull, well, clearly being Scotland Head Coach is not as full-time as we have been led to believe it is; and if we apparently don't need a full time Honcho, the question has to be – do we need so-many minions?

I have long said, since the game went open, we have seen the rise of the “empire builders” inside the Murrayfield bubble – people with big titles and small abilities, who need to have a staff around them to bolster their ego and supposedly assist them to do their job even semi-adequately.

For instance, while I am an admirer of both gentlemen, do we really need Al Kellock AND Kenny Murray overseeing our Player Pathway, with the usual legion of assistant coaches looking after the age group teams?

I honestly reckon the SRU could be run as well as it presently is, probably even better to be honest, if we had fewer Chiefs and more-comitted Indians wandering around Murrayfield.

Perhaps some club representative would like to make that point at tonight's AGM.

Matt Williams' Stupidity Finally Explained

I SEE MATT “The Stupidest Man in Rugby” Williams has been pontificating again. Following the Springboks' demolition of the Irish scrum in Dublin at the weekend, the greatest thinker since Homer Simpson has decided – the scrum needs to be “depowered”. Significantly, in researching this piece, I was unable to discover what position Williams played during his playing career, indeed, one database I checked out said simply: “he was never a rugby player”.

OK, that explains a lot, and he was never much of a coach either. You take the scrum out of the game and you don't have much of a game left. The scrum is one of the key components of Rugby Union. It doesn't need to be de-powered, what it does require, however, is, as a minimum, to be refereed properly. In addition, I would take the penalty out of the scrum, other than for serious foul play – that would greatly help the game.

As we journalists are becoming fed-up explaining: the scrum is in there to re-start the game after a break-down in play in which no penalty has been incured. The basic notion is, if you have a scrum, you effectively take the 16 forwards out of the game and create space for the 14 backs to do their thing.

The scrum is simply that, a means of restarting play, not a means of generating penalties. So, if World Rugby was to suddenly find a collective brain and do two things, a lot of the problems around the scrum would be solved. These two things are:

1. Go back to insisting the ball is put down the centre of the tunnel, and bring back hooking – the days of scrum halves feeding almost into the second row have to stop.

2. Again, apart from instances of serious foul play, do away with scrum penalties, make scrum offences punishable by a free kick; thus, the non-offending side could either kick to touch, where they would lose possession, or take a tap free kick, where they would then need to manufacture a line break.

Dominant scrummaging would still be rewarded, by the return of the strike against the head, while a lot of the nonsense of the “dark arts” being invoked to help an inferior scrum, would be done away with.

There is another innovation I would bring in for elite-level Rugby, where most of the ugly scrums take place, that is:

• Set the “Spider Cams” which can be seen at all the big games, directly above the two hookers' heads at each scrum – then the TMO could see when or if the props were pushing straight and advise the referee accordingly.

There is no need to de-power the scrum, simply tweak the Laws of the
Game and give clearer instructions to referees.

SPEAKING OF referees, I did love the two comments which I saw on Facebook, regarding Hollie Davidson's performance in Cardiff on Saturday. In the first former Welsh cap Mark Ring thought Hollie had had a poor game and was out of her depth. His criticism was immediately answered by commentator Myles Harrison, who felt Hollie had had an excellent performance. In this case, I'm with Myles – while Mark Ring was clearly speaing through his.

I also loved Nigel Owens' response to all the Bokke fans, who were howling for yellow cards for the Irish front row after the South Africans' scrum domination produced a Penalty Try. As Nigel pointed out, a yellow card could only be flashed after a Penalty Try, if the individual offender can be identified – such as the player who pulls down an advancing maul. In this case, since the entire Irish pack had been schooled, no yellow could be flashed.

Still on referees, I noticed some comments in the BTL section of The Offside Line regarding the absence of neutral touch judges for the big Under-18 Schools Cup semi-final between Merchiston Castle School and George Watson's College.

The thing is, neutral officials have to receive at least expenses and you cannot surely expect those poor under-funded and under-appreciated Public Schools to pay some pleb to come along and run up and down a touchline. Aye Right!!!

It reminds me of the black sheep of our school team – the one who finished playing and became a referee. I remember him telling me how poorly paid the Rugby referees were in comparison with their Footballing cousins. Even at grass-roots level, the fitba guys are much-better paid than our officials.

Perhaps the SRU and the other Unions should be addressing this problem as a matter of urgency, since there is clearly a shortage of officials in our game.

THE Tom Curry “tackle” on Juan Cruaz Mallia and its aftermath has sent Anglo-Argentinian relations to their lowest point since yon cross “played” Diego Maradona's hand and flew past Peter Shilton back in 1986.

Now, my view was, Curry's challenge was fractionally late and if anything merited no more than a penalty to the visitors, since the alleged confrontation with Felipe Contepomi happened in the tunnel and out of range of the match-day TV cameras, I cannot comment on it.

World Rugby has apparently asked for CCTV footage of the events in the tunnel, should these prove inconclusive or difficult to access – then, being Scottish, I have to say, Curry is guilty as alleged.

What I will say about Curry and some other English players – Earl, Pollock, occasionally Itoje, they do like to whoop and holler and celebrate even the award of a penalty – maybe time some referee had the cojones to reverse a decision against them: for behaviour against the spirit of the game.

 

Aye - No Bad!

AWAY FROM FITBA – it takes a lot to get the Scots excited. Anywhere else in the world a sporting or entertainment icon is looked up to and revered, in Scotland, the reaction is just as likely to be a dismissive: “Him – Ah kent his faither”. Other nations wax lyrical over triumphs, the Scots – we sniff and say: “Aye, no bad”; to us, that is high praise indeed.

So, how do we rate this afternoon's defeat of Tonga? “No bad” might be the reaction of some, others will be somewhat critical, since, although we won and kept a clean sheet, we didn't score as many points as we did in beating USA at the start of the Quilter Nations Series.

I long since stopped looking for superlative, champagne rugby from Scotland. I try to be Kiplingesque – treating triumph and disaster with equal disdain. I will take the win, but, it wasn't a great performance, particularly that lull in mid-game, when we went an hour without scoring, before, for once, finishing with a bang.

But, this game, was all about fringe players standing tall and showing they were ready for Tier 1 Internationals and to that end, perhaps nobody did better than Ollie Smith, who had a cracking afternoon in the 13 jersey. Of the other fringers, Tom Jordan, Man of the Match Magnus Bradbury and Kyle Rowe also did well.

Big Duhan, on near starvation rations, somehow we struggled to get the ball to him, was impressive under the high ball, before scoring a typical try to move ahead of Darcy Graham at the top of the scoring charts. The two young locks did well, as did Marshall Sykes when he got on, while Nathan McBeth had another impressive cameo off the bench, while Zander looked none the worse for his injury-induced break.

Given how little Rugby some of our guys have played of late, I could forgive a bit of rustiness. OK, we won, but – it wasn't a great game.

Tonga's well-known disciplinary problems again hurt them, but, they defended with spirit and asked a few questions on the few occasions they got into our red zone, but, really we won and “no bad” rather summed the whole day up.

FROM A SCOTTISH perspective, the main interest around Saturday's three internationals was: how did Hollie do? Our wee star referee did good; making the difficult decisions with clarity and speed and playing her part in turning Wales v New Zealand into a good game.

OK, the 2025 All Blacks vintage is not a premier cru. There is a good team in there, but they are having difficulty living up to the AB's aura – or is just, good though they are, the Springboks are better.

Similarly, this is not seen as anything like a good Welsh side, but, on the evidence of Saturday, I think that is unfair. They may not be ready for the next World Cup, but, they may well be a force for the one after.

As a defence specialist, Steve Tandy will not be happy with some of the tries which they conceded, but, these failings can and will be addressed, but, ball in hand, they are a genuine threat.

JUST HOW GOOD a referee Hollie is was made starkly clear within minutes of the game in Dublin kicking off. The fact that Matthew Carley is a poor referee who has been grossly over-promoted is hardly news, but he didn't have to prove this so early on with his strange decision not to at least yellow card the Springbok ten for a high tackle.

That was when the wheels came off the Irish bus. I've seen it before once or twice in club games, when one side realises, this ref is out of his depth, he is picking on us and they lose the plot entirely. It can and does happen in the club game, it should never happen at elite level.

By the end, Carley was the least-popular Englishman in Ireland since Oliver Cromwell. I actually thought, by his standards, he had a reasonable game, however, the damage had been done.

The Irish let their discipline go, while the way they were taken apart up front clearly demonstrated, Andy Farrell has a major rebuild on his hands.

SINCE THE FOCUS of these critiques has been on the referees, can I just say, in Paris, Luke Pearce confirmed, he is now the top English official, the heir to Wayne Barnes' title. To his credit, he did try to speak French as often as he could, well done him.

As we expected from France and Australia, there were some cracking tries scored, that one from LBB, when he kicked ahead, gathered, skinned a defender and touched down – brilliant. Right now, in Rugby Union, we are blessed with a plethora of exciting wingers across multi-nations, and by coaches encouraging the other players to get the ball to them. This has to be good for the game.

THE WEEKEND ended with England just holding on to beat Argentina at Twickenham. Look, this is a reasonable England team, but, they are nowhere near as good as their media cheer-leaders try to convince us they are. Argentina played the better Rugby.

I still reckon we will beat them at Twickenham next year. That will really upset The Sprite and his mates.

Scotland And SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder)

A FRIEND OF THIS BLOG, like all of us, disgusted by Scotland's second-half melt-down at Murrayfield on Sunday, contacted me to make a point I had not considered. He suggested, we have never played all that well in Autumn Tests, so I though I should check the history – interesting.

Autumn Tests have only been semi-organised since the advent of professionalism. Yes, we had end of year internationals in the Amateur Era, but these usually featured the Southern Hemisphere heavyweights who were here on a traditional long tour.

I took the year 2000 as Year Zero for organised Autumn Tests and found out thus:

• Since 2000 to last Sunday, we have played 56 full Autumn Tests (these tend not to be played in Rugby World Cup Years)

• Of these, we have won 31 – a 55% winning ratio

• However, most of these victories have come in our games against Tier 2 or 3 nations, where we have won 20 of 21 games – 95% winning ratio. The single defeat was that Tongan Tragedy at Aberdeen which did for Andy Robinson.

• However, against the other Tier 1 Nations – our five Six Nations oponents, plus the Southern Hemisphere big guns, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, our record in 34 games is 11 wins – 32%

• Over the same period, in the Six Nations, we have played 130 games, of which we have won 43 – a 33% winning ration.

So, it seems clear – my friend was correct, while there is not much in it, we do not do as well in the Autumn Tests as we do in the Six Nations.

Our record against the individual SH big guns in this period of Autumn Tests is:

• Argentina – 4 wins : 3 losses – 57% winning ratio

• Australia – 4 wins : 6 losses – 40% winning ratio

• New Zealand – 0 wins : 8 losses – 0% wining ratio

• South Africa – 2 wins : 7 losses – 22% winning ratio

When I was mainly covering Football, I used to insist that Scotland ought not to play “Friendlies” or “Challenge” internationals – that we ought to stick to fully-competitive games, such as the old Home Internationals, European Championship or World Cup clashes; only when the game really meant something, such as Tuesday night at Hampden could we rouse ourselves to produce a truly Scottish performance, since our record in competitive games was better than in Friendlies.

Might the same problem be affecting our Rugby team? After all, since 1707, if England has had a problem with Dagos, Krauts, Frogs, Waps, Wogs, Towel Heads, Fuzzy Wuzzies or any nation which doesn't meet their standards of breeding and behaviour, their first action has generally been to send a Division of Jocks in to quell the uprising. We Scots don't do non-competitive sport.

I CAN ONLY assume there are cost factors involved in making games such as this week's Emerging Scotland v Emerging Tonga behind closed doors events.

I dare say that prominent local government official L Fin Safety wishes to stamp his authority on matters, insisting on a division of Jobsworth & Co being on-hand to ensure, no member of the public could get in to potentially enjoy themselves.

But, we have a game to sell here, one which sits at least second in the Scottish public's sporting affections – and losing ground after events at Hampden on Tuesday.

The Scottish team on Monday may well have included The Next Big Thing in our game up here, imagine the boost it could have given, had several spectators been there and been able to return to their clubs and say: “I've seen the future, such and such a boy will be the next Finn Russell or Darcy Graham.” Of course, that might put unacceptable expectation on the kid, but hey, that's part of elite sport.

Another sport, yes, but, no less an authority than Jock Stein insisted: “Without the fans, Football is nothing”. Well, that rule applies to our brand of Football – Rugby Union – as much as to his.

That Emerging Scotland XV was a bit of a mixed bag, being mainly Under-23 players. If we are to have such a large group of senior players together each Autumn, plus the young tyros, then surely we should be organising other internationals, be they branded A, B, Under-23, or Emerging.

Google provides an interesting listing of all the Autumn internationals;this features such fixtures as: England A v An All Black XV, England A v Spain, matches invovlving The Wolfhounds and Munster taking on international opposition, indeed everyone seems to be playing lesser representative games but us – why not?

OK, Murrayfield thinking seems to be based around: “We've got to make The Hive pay, and we are paying a big rent on Scotstoun, so, we have to have games there.” But, lesser games, played at the better club grounds, with the club's own volunteers doing the hard yards to make it happen, in return for a cut of the gate take, would enhance Rugby's profile in Scotland.

And, on an adjacent subject, instead of rumours of a possible game against Sweden, why don't they get the Club XV sorted out, playing regular games and further heightening Rugby's profile.

We simply do not work hard enough at selling our great game.

 

Monday Mourning

I AM AT A LOSS in trying to get a handle on Sunday's Murrayfield Melt-Down. OK, it's Scotland, at my advanced years, I ought to expect the “Disaster For Scotland” headline, I've seen enough of them over the years. Maybe it's just a Scottish thing, no nation has greater triumphs, or worst disasters on a sporting field as us – it's hard-wired into our national DNA.

Sunday's game was never going to be easy. We went into it ranked eighth in the world, Argentina arrived ranked sixth. So, allowing for us having home advantage, we could expect a tight game.

This closeness is reinforced by a look at the two nations' records in this calendar year:

Scotland:

• P 11 – W 5 – D 0 – L 6 – 315 for – 256 agnst – 45% wins – 28-23 median score

Argentina:

• P 12 – W 5 – D 0 – L 7 – 327 for – 340 agnst – 41.7% wins – 27-28 median score

However, Argentina have faced tougher opposition than us this year, since they have faced Australia, New Zealand and South Africa home and away in the Rugby Championship; they also took-on a British and Irish Lions XV in Dublin, and while they did have one relatively-easy game, against Uruguay, our fixture list included four games against Tier Two opponents, assuming we rate the Maori All Blacks that highly.

We have, however, had a better record against common opposition this year. We beat England and Wales, but lost to New Zealand – two wins out of three games; against the same opponents, Argentina's 2025 record is two wins from five games.

So, I am not going to join the clamour for Gregor Townsend's head. As I keep saying: If not Toony – who? Being Scotland Head Coach is a poisoned chalice, not as rough a gig as having the equivalent England job, but, still almost impossible in meeting the nation's expectations while working from a flawed management model. The Scottish Rugby Union as presently organised and managed is a deeply-flawed organisation and until the flaws are eliminated, we will continue to trundle along where we currently sit.

That said, what was unacceptable on Sunday was to allow a 21-0 lead to be eliminated and over-turned in something like half an hour. It's easy to hammer Finn Russell for that intercepted pass – however, the interception was made some 20 metres from the Argentinian line, our defence had 80 metres in which to recover.

Toony had done all his talking at the interval. He presumably said something like: “OK, we're 14-0 up, get a third try early doors this half, then close-out the game from there.” We got the third try, then fell apart. We keep hearing of our on-field Leadership Group – where were they when the wheels began to come off.

It's not as if Rugby Union is a game where Coaches can call time-outs, get onto the park and pull things back together in crisis moments. That works in North American sport, it doesn't work at places like Murrayfield.

What was said behind the posts as we awaited the conversion of their first and subsequent tries. Yes, perhaps Toony didn't use his replacements as well as he might, but, that apart, I don't see what he could have done differently to turn things around.

And if he doesn't think he has replacements he can call into action when crisis management is called for, is that his fault? Does he have oversight of them at club level? No. Does he have oversight of the Player Pathway to ensure, by the time the players get into the National Squad, they are ready for International Rugby? No. I do not blame the Coach for players giving away stupid, needless penalties that would get their erses kicked at third XV club level.

I could indulge in crudity here, but, for once, I will not – the fact is – he is not as well endowed with quality far less quantity, as other National Coaches and, until we sort out this failing, Townsend, of his successors, whoever they may be, are not taking us to the heights some people in the Scottish Rugby family seem to think we ought to be inhabiting.

Either that, or the SRU insists and writes into the Heads of Agreement around every Scottish Rugby International that:

• Scotland's opponents shall wear all-white kit, with a red rose on the left breast of the jersey

• Their pre-game anthem shall only be God Save The King

That way, we might have a chance of winning more games like this.

But, the biggest disappointment from Sunday is this: we had home advantage against a team we could beat. We knew, before the game, if we won it, victory would ease our task in the next World Cup – the challenge was there and the players could not lift themselves to grasp it. That's not Scottish.

 

Nobody Loses Like Us

I'VE BEEN going to Millbrae for 60 years now. In that time, I've accumulated some good memories, some bad ones and a lorra lotta laughs, as the Sainted Cilla used to say. But, only twice have I enjoyed “What the fuck was that” moments.

The first was in the early 1970s, when Ayr Captain Jim Wilson – a man years ahead of his time as a Rugby thinker – got it wrong; he decided the way to keep the young Andy Irvine quiet was to kick the ball to him deep inside the Heriot's 22 and keep him well away from the Ayr line.

Any way, some ten minutes in, as we stood behind the posts waiting to see if Andy could convert the second Heriot's try, both scores initiated by his broken-field running, I asked Jim what Plan B was – since Plan A had proved fruitless.

The second came two or three years back. Ayr beat Hawick fairly comprehensively, however, the two stand-out players on the pitch that day were both in green jerseys. Bruce McNeil just did Bruce McNeil things, in achieving near parity in a somewhat uneven back row battle against the combined might of Tommy Spinks, Blair Macpherson and Pete McCallum.

However, a couple of times, the Greens moved the ball wide and an unheralded teenager named Darcy Graham lit-up that part of Alloway in a way it has not seen since just before Tam O' Shanter cried out “weel din Cutty Sark”.

I knew then, I was seeing someone special and I just knew, the Scotland caps would come. Today, that same Darcy Graham won his 50^th Scotland cap – there are a lot more to come.

Below, I show my match notes, just as I made them, during Sunday's game – they are shown in italics.

Four minutes in – yellow card to Argentina but no penalty try -Andy Brace does Scotland – again.

Terrible pass by Kinghorn to Steyn in next attack.

What a pass from Finn for Dempsey's opening try. But great line by the scorer.

“Turning Pumas into road kill” - one of Jamie Lyall's better lines.

Sad for D'Arcy Rae – limps off with ankle injury.

Julian Montoya is Willie Miller-like in the way he manipulates referees

Some slick handling from Argentina.

Good first half, apart from the offside penalties

Half-Time: Scotland 14 – Argentine 0

Second-Half

Darge head-contact, well-refereed by Andy Brace – but, he should have told his TMO to concentrate more.

Ashman is dynamite in the final two or three metres

Am I the only person who gets annoyed at commentators saying “Argentines” rather than “Argentinians”?

Have the match officials been instructed to particularly watch-out for Offside; I don't recall as many calls in an international?

Some pick-up by Santi Carreras in the 80 metre Argentinian break-out, but what a try-saving tackle by Darcy Graham.

No complaints about the Argentinian try.

Or their second try – Santi Carreras has changed the game.

Good captaincy by Sione for the Russell penalty – Finn's first thought was a kick to touch.

John Barclay and Rory Hamilton admitting Argentina got that 75^th minute try to go in front – Ben Kay and the Sprite would never have been so even-handed if it was England being scored against.

First Half – Scotland 14 – Argentina 0

Second Half – Scotland 10 – Argentina 33

Yes, the “Toony Must Go” team will be calling for the Coach's head. But, he wasn't the guy not executing properly, making the bad decisions or conceding cheap penalties.

We may not need a new Coach, but, perhaps we need a good Sports Psychologist to get our players' heads right.

For all Toony is picking from a squad of over 40 players, we still, after 30 years of professional Rugby do not have 23 international-class players. We do not have the players who can come off the bench and change a game, we totally lack depth.

Man of the Match Santi Carreras just produced the best performance by an Argentinian in Scotland since Maradona in 1979.

For once in a game in which he was involved, I am not going to blame Andy Brace for bad decisions – the Scotland players were making the poor calls, not the referee.

I thought Saturday night in Greece was disappointing, that was seemingly a “haud ma beer” challenge for the Scotland Rugby team.

Yet another crunch game lost – Groundskeeper Willie got it in one - “Damned Scots, they've ruined Scotland.”

 

Still No Zander For Los Pumas

IT'S BECOMING A TAD CONCERNING CARRUTHERS – three games into the Quilter Autumn Tests series and Zander Fagerson still isn't ready to return.

However, on the glass half full basis, his absence from the team to face Argentine, at Murrayfield on Sunday means another start for oor ain D'Arcy Rae, who has fairly grasped his opportunity to show what he can do as the Lion's stand-in; you cannot have too-manmy Ayrshiremen in a successful Scotland side.

Toony has kept changes to a bare minimum, Rory Darge is back, he has named two back row replacements in his 5-3 bench splits, which hints at Gregor Brown doing an 80 minute shift.

Blair Kinghorn has survived the calls for his head, while there is still no place for Duhan van der Merwe beyond the bench, while Jamie Dobie now seems to have displaced George Horne as the back-up scrum-half.

The team is shown below:

 

 

 

I AM NOT a fan of podcasts, but, I am coming round. Just this week, I happened upon Stuart Cameron's excellent Scottish Club Rugby Podcast, mainly because, he had that annoying wee ynaff Gruntz Anderson on as guest.

Now Greenockians are an acquired taste (wee story break: Billy Stark and Peter Weir – both St Mirren legends – were appointed as the Morton management team and had to meet the fans. Peter Weir jumped straight in, acknowledging their time with The Buddies but, assuring the fans, they would give everything to Morton. One fan replied: “Naw Peter, it's nothing personal about St Mirren – we don't even like they bastards frae Port Glesca.”

So, they are a wee bit different and Gruntz is no exception – he can be, and often is, an awkward bar steward; but, his opinions are always worht hearing and in this broadcast, along with Stuart Cameron and Robin Purdie is an absolute gem.

Gruntz, Stuart and Robin are too gentlemanly to say it out loud, but, reading between the lines of their conversation, the biggest problem we have in Scottish Rugby these days is – we've got a lot of absolute numpties, both elected officials and paid administrators, inside Murrayfield who are not fit for purpose and could not run a menauge.

Listen to the episode – you will be entertained, educated and in no way disappointed.

 

If You Know Their History - You Will Care

I FOUND MYSELF in distinguished company on Facebook, on Tuesday. Former Herald Rugby Honcho Derek Douglas, that man of many by lines in assorted papers: Alasdair Reid; Hawick's finest – John “Pundy” Thorburn, of the Bill McLaren Foundation, the esteemed David Ferguson and I had all commented on a post which Douglas had put up – Jody Harrison's Herald profile of archivist Laura Tinch, the lady charged with bringing order out of the chaos of how badly the SRU has mis-handled the artefacts of its 150 year history.

For the benefit of those who thought Rugby Union was invented when the game went open in 1995 it didn't. Over the years, the SRU had gathered quite a collection of memorabilia – trophies, old caps, old strips and other equipment, programmes, minute books, artefacts presented to or donated by touring teams, you name it, they had it.

These were lovingly tended by John Davidson; the great Adam Robson was a firm supporter of a Museum, then Mike O'Reilly battled to keep the dream alive, before the entire collection was moth-balled, more than a decade ago, with vague promises of a re-opened, enlarged and enhanced Museum to come – Aye Right!

It became an annual cameo in the Union's AGM, for George Russell of Moray House RFC to ask what was happening about the Museum, and for TCD to find some way to punt the question into the long grass.

Hopefully, with the timing of the Harrison piece, and the support of some of us who still care – some club delegate will pick-up the challenge and bring the disgraceful lack of a Museum up at this year's AGM.

Here's a thought. We have a woman – Jody Harrison – giving the issue the oxygen of publicity. We have another woman – Laura Tinch – doing the hard yards of cataloguing and organising the existing collection. And we have a third woman – incoming SRU President Hazel Swankie – taking charge; if three Scotswomen cannot get the Museum off the To Do list and actually built – then I fear we are well and truly fucked.

A properly established Museum could be a money-spinner around Murrayfield Tours etc. John McGuigan and Alex Williamson have repeated been quoted on the Union having to better monetise the Murrayfield Campus.

At the other end of the M8 the SFA does rather well out of visitors to the Hampden Museum, the SRU has as interesting a history as their hooligan cousins, so surely a Murrayfield Museum could be a money spinner.

As Kevin Costner didn't quite say in Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come,” but, he just might be right.

I UNDERSTAND the Go Fund Me appeal to raise money for Gavin Lowe to have his hip replacement surgery raised even more money than was actually required. I am delighted with this success. Gavin is one of the good guys and I sincerely hope he can quickly have the surgery and be able to get on with the rest of his life.

The fact he and his former Sevens team mates had to go down this road, however, does the image of the SRU and Great Britain Sevens no good at all. The Bufties who so mis-managed things that this was necessary really ought to take a long look at themselves.

PERHAPS THE biggest debate this week, as we await the latest game of  Toony Tombola pre-Argentina, is to drop or not to drop Blair Kinghorn. Given his form among the other Galacticos at Toulouse, Kinghorn's ought to be one of the first names on the team sheet. But, that said, his effort to stop Damien McKenzie was, for a club, far-less an international full-back, embarrassing.

That's maybe the thing with Scottish Rugby, we have so few players and clubs, guys get capped while beind deficient in the basics. You might expect a player with Kinghorn's tally of caps to be able to do the basics of his jobs, which, for a full-back means bringing-off that try-saving tackle.

Now, back in the Amateur days, when even the top players were having to balance playing top-flight Rugby with the day job, you might be inclined to forgive the odd missed tackles. However, back then, before we adopted the Rugby League mantra of: “it doesn't matter how you do it – just stop them” which has ushered in some pretty unpleasant assaults on attacking players, being able to tackle properly was a big thing – we didn't have many internationalists who couldn't bring down an opponent using the correct technique.

One of the finest try-saving tackles I ever saw was one Gordon Brown pulled off on the flying David Duckham in the 1971 Centenary International at Murrayfield. If a big lump like Broon could tackle correctly – what's Kinghorn's excuse.

But, perhaps more tellingly, what have all those club coaches and defence coaches been doing all these years of his professional career – that he is still unable, under pressure, to tackle properly?

If a professional golfer is struggling on the greens, or in the bunkers, he goes onto the practice area, with his coach, and they go through the motions until they have worked-out the problem and sorted it. Might we not expect the same level of preparation and discipline from professional Rugby players?