SATURDAY FOR ME meant a long day of Rugby watching. I passed on Japan v South Africa, but still managed three matches back-to-back. On the whole it was an enjoyable day.
The problem with the first course – England v Australia was – the commentary, with the TNT Sport going flat out to prove, when it comes to over-hyping and boosting Engurlund, they can outdo the perennial front runners, the English Broadcasting Corporation and ITV Sport. The Sprite I can tolerate, his occasional flashes of wit and wisdom negate his stupider pro-Engurlund bias to a degree, but Craig Doyle's increasingly desperate efforts to succeed the late Sir Terry Wogan as Broadcasting's House Paddy are really starting to offend.
The game wasn't bad and in truth, England deserved to win, among other reasons, because they played referee Nika Amusakeli better then the Wallabies did - but the commentary made it tough going.
GREGOR TOWNSEND was on a hiding to nothing when it came to the Scotland v USA game. This was one he and his squad were expected to win, and win well. This they did, but, they will get little credit from their critics and in particular those within the broader Scottish Rugby kirk who believe it is time we had a new Head Coach.
So a 13 tries to nil win and a clean sheet were never going to cutt Coach or players any slack from the critics; however, think on this. Not so-many years ago, full-strength Scotland teams were struggling against and sometimes losing to Tier Two nations such as The Eagles. There is a chance that no more than seven or eight of the starting XV against the Americans will start in the tougher Test against the All Blacks on Saturday.
That the fringe players should contribute to such a comprehensive win, to me, demonstrates the strength in numbers we now have. Youngster Liam McConnell had a storming debut, under-scored by his charge and off-load in the build-up to Duhan van der Merwe's opening try. Jamie Dobie was a deserved Man of the Match, while some of the other lesser lights: Ollie Smith, Darcy Rae, Marshall Sykes and Dylan Richardson made telling contributions.
MATCH THREE – the Chicago meeting of Ireland and the All Blacks was given the full Hollywood treatment, and it didn't disappoint. I have felt, watching the All Blacks in the recent Southern Hemisphere Rugby Champions games, they were frustratingly not quite as on-point as you expect from them.
There were still some rough passages on Saturday night, but, the longer the game lasted, the more they began to look like the ABs – which is not good news for us, looking to next week. However, as I know from personal experience, jet lag after flying from the USA to Scotland can take a few days to wear off, so, who knows how it might unfold.
This match demonstrated the good sense of the 20 minute red card, dished-out to Tadgh Beirne after only three minutes. Had Ireland been forced to play 77 minutes a man short, it could have got nasty. As it was, we saw a much-closer game thanks to the law change.
The Irish are now further into a necessary rebuild, which offers their coaching team a huge challenge; from a Scottish perspective, the All Blacks are still not quite there, Saturday should be interesting.
OK, LET'S DESCEND from the rarified air of Internationals to the Club Game, where most of us dwell. There was but a single meaningful game over the weekend – the Scottish Cup clash between Ayr and Glasgow Hawks.
By the way, is this season's Scottish Cup sponsored? If not why not? This is another example of Murrayfield apparatchiks not doing their jobs. Mind you, if it isn't sponsored, perhaps just as well, since entry appears to be optional – and, as seems to happen regularly, the Borders clubs seem to think it's their ba' and they're not playing with it.
There were a couple of interesting BTL comments on The Offside Line's story of the game – probably sparked-off by Head Coach Gruntz Anderson's post-match comments.
The first came from that wise old owl, Grangemouth's Dom Ward, who commented:
“I appreciate this is the Scottish Cup article but the crisis is all over the cup competitions. 21 matches are off in National Cup, Shield and Bowl comps.
“The Shield in particular has been decimated.
“The question must be – do clubs want these competitions or not? Either commit or decline at start of season. It also suggests strength in depth at clubs is seriously lacking. Lose a few first team players and clubs calling off as they don’t have experienced players and it’s a safety risk.”
More on this thread came from another of Scottish Rugby's deeper thinkers – the legendary man of Heriot's, Edinburgh, Scotland, The Lions and Barbarians – Iain “The Bear” Milne, who commented:
“There is a massive difference between the strength of club squads to the number of players prepared to play each week. We should be asking ourselves why don’t players commit to every game over the season and why?”
Bear has been campaigning for some time, for greater numbers of average players to be kept involved in Club Rugby and he makes an excellent point in that comment.
If we look at Dom's and Iain's comments, we should be asking ourselves:
Why, while we appear to have a lot of enthusiastic kids playing Youth Rugby, are we failing to keep sufficient numbers involved through the transition to Adult Rugby?
Should we not be looking seriously at the whole seasonal calendar, so we can fit-in League games, Cup games and, given the SRU has now suddenly re-discovered Sevens, putting the short form of the game back into the mix?
The governance of the game is in a bit of a mess – shouldn't we be sorting things out?
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