It's Good To Be Back

AS a player back in the days of three-point tries, double banking in the lines out and hookers who actually hooked, I was never a huge fan of pre-season training. Our club had a captain who was an SAS veteran, he was followed by a gun runner: ie a former matelot who had been in one of the teams who took part in the annual Field Gun Display at the Royal Tournament.

Both these lock forwards maintained the necessary level of psychotic agression necessary for playing in the front five in Ayrshire rugby back then by training like Ninjas - a lot of the rest of us weren't so keen, me included.

But, I have never had a problem getting psyched-up for games, or for dishing-out (and taking) the gratuitous violence which was such a big part of rugby back then. Believe me, today's players while by no means softies, don't have to endure half of the things which went on 30 or 40 years ago -although they are a lot fitter than we were.

So, it was with a light heart that I trotted off to cover one of Saturday's opening Premiership games. A rather good one it was too. Lots of aggressive rucking and counter-rucking; three or four well-worked driving mauls; off-loading and continuation rugby of a high standard, some breathtaking long-range tries and one or two sublime pieces of skill and invention from the backs on both sides.

But - and you just knew a "but" was coming: once again the game was, to a certain extent, spoiled by the refereeing. You don't need to tell me that Scottish refereeing standards are poor - there is narry a Hosie, Fleming or Sansom to be seen today. The IRB clearly don't rate our whistlers - none will be on-duty during the World Cup. But, considering some of the Welsh wombles and Irish idiots we suffer in the Celtic League on an annual basis have made the cut - what does the IRB know about refereeing?

I have to say, the most-impressive referees I saw last season were a trio of English guys, who had charge of British & Irish Cup ties. Fit, concise, clear in their decision-making, in-tune with the game, they made even the alleged best of our bunch look poor.

We really MUST get our refereeing standards raised. Our players, the best of the best of the play mainly for fun club players, deserve better.

Meanwhile, as Andy Robinson and his boys settle into their Australian holding camp, let's hope they manage to avoid last-minute injuries and illnesses and cross the Tasman Sea in good heart for the World Cup.

I don't expect us to win the thing, but, I have one of those feelings - that we will qualify at least for the last eight - if that qualification is ahead of, or better still, at the expense of, the English - so much the better.



New Zealand Here We Come

WELL, all the conjecture is over - Andy Robinson has named the 30-man Rugby World Cup squad to travel to New Zealand. It's up to the 30-players and the more than 20-strong off-field team now.

They are certainly under pressure. Scotland expects, at the very least, a last-eight place - and when you consider that, on-paper we are only the third-rated side in our five-team preliminary group, that isn't going to be easy.

But, we are on a roll, we've won our last three games on the bounce and need not fear Argentina and England, indeed, without 80,000 Barbour-clad "Hooray Henries" harrumphing behind them, with the whole of New Zealand, not to say the rest of the world, digging away at them and with their own over-excited and over-demanding press playing their part, I fancy that an England squad, some of whom believe their own publicity, will fall apart and are very beatable.

But, we MUST pray for the continued good health of "Chunk" Jacobsen, hope that the line-breaking Lamont brothers can learn peripheral vision and agame-awareness and that we do not rue the absence of Johnnie Beattie.

We can, at least, make the quarter-finals. We will be the New Zealand public's "second team" - go fot it lads.

BACK home, the club game finally gets serious this weekend, with the first league matches. This promises to be a very interesting season, with the clubs vying for truly national status come 2012-13.

Over the last few seasons it has effectively been a three-horse race at the top: Ayr, Currie and Melrose being the big three. But, their success has come at a price, with several of last season's big club players moving up to the full-time professional game.

I watched Ayr being humbled by London Scottish on Friday night at Richmond. Admittedly Kenny Murray's squad was somewhat shorn of bulk and experience, but, they scrambled well in defence and caused Scottish some problems in attack.

Ayr are lacking in the front five, which is new, but their new new, more-expansive game, just might catch the rest out.

Invercargill Here We Come

FOLLOWING Saturday's late Murrayfield win over "an Irish XV" (this was no-way a full-strength Irish side), we can truly say the Scots are on the road to New Zealand and the World Cup, which for them begins against Romania, in Invercargill.

Never been there, but I can tell you it was just about Gordon Brown's least-favourite place in the world, and he had been to Dalmellington. The capital of Southland is apparently such a dreich place, redolent of areas of the Third World, the Romanians will maybe feel more at home there. That said, Invercargill was apparently founded by Scots emigrants, so our lads will receive an even warmer welcome than is the norm, even in that traditionally hospitable Land of the Long White Cloud.

There has been some debate about Andy Robinson's pre-World Cup schedule; some say he's playing too-few games; some say the build-up lacks intensity - all I know is: he's already coached one team to World Cup victory.

In truth, he has our two opening WC games, against Romania and Georgia in which to finally fine-tune his preparations. If we cannot beat these two, with the squad we've got - we might as well not get onto the plane. Matches against Italy, Romania and Georgia SHOULD have us nicely fired-up for the two which matter, against Argentina and Them - you know, the Common Enemy, that over-hyped lot in white.

I honestly fancy we can top our group, if we get a fair crack from the referees - something which will be more-easily accomplished since the men with the whistles in New Zealand will not have the advice of 80,000 Barbour-wearing Hooray Henries when we play England.

But, although we beat the Irish, we still have an edge to find. Wee things to tidy-up, subtle changes to make. However, a World Cup campaign isn't like a one-off international, it is even more intense than a Six Nations tournament. But, Robinson's been over the course before and I am sure he will have us firing on all cylinders from the word go.

At least, we won on Saturday - and, we scored a try. Let's be thankful for small mercies and trust that the build-up continues without incident. We need a morale-boosting World Cup and I think we will get one. 

The Pulse Quickens

WITH the announcement of the Scotland team to face Ireland in Saturday's pre-World Cup warm-up game, the pulses are definitely quickening and the big show in the Land of the Long White Cloud will soon be upon us.

Andy Robinson's team is pretty-much as expected: inasmuch as nobody really had a clue as to what it would be, other than we expected one or two of the outsiders for a place on the aircraft to New Zealand to get a run out.

I would suggest that, by their restriction to the bench the youngsters Denton and Cuthbert will be challenged to make a serious impact off the bench, or reconcile themselves to watching the World Cup on TV. Likewise, big Jim Hamilton has to hit the ground running or he's toast.

Johnnie Beattie should still go, class is, after all, permanent - but he needs a biggish game while Dickinson, when he comes on, also has to get up to speed immediately or risk missing out.

I am looking forward to an entertaining game, which will hopefully lift our spirits on the build-up to the tournament and, for once, performance is more-important than the result.

I HAD to laugh at some of the English press coverage of the Phillips/Tindal nuptials in Edinburgh over the weekend. Talk about printing p!sh, it was wonderful.

Leaving aside such bad manners as referring to those of the Royal Family who have both Scottish and English titles by their English titles - rather than the Scottish ones and the hilarious use of the word "altar" for the communion table inside the Canongate Kirk - these merely reinforce my belief that Scotland is a small, far-off country of which those in the London media bubble know little and care even less.

What really got me laughing was the insinuation that the mainly English rugby players who filled the Tindall side of the kirk were up there on an old-fashioned bender.

Aye right - I am certain strong drink was consumed, but any notion that those England World Cup squad members who were there went at the bevvy in the manner of an Old Fartingers Extra B XV on an Easter Tour to the West Country, circa 1960, were surely wide of the mark.

Today's top players don't bevvy like it's 1974 - such is their level of fitness, the demands made on them as regards training and conditioning, they couldn't possibly live with an old-style team in the bar - just as the old-style team couldn't live with them on the park.

I am told by several old-timers, who are still inside the game as coaches, directors of rugby and so forth that today's players are either fully TT or drink so little that a whiff from a newly-opened bottle of 18-year-old Glenlivet would flatten them immediately.

Black is Black

YOU have to admire the Rugby Football Union. I appreciate the name resonates with the time of that body's inception - when Britannia really did rule the waves, and most of the globe; when there was a certainty around London that here was indeed, the centre of the Universe and that God was indeed an Englishman.

Absolutely no need to put English before the three words Rugby Football Union - of course not, theirs was the only one.

Nearly 150 years later, the world is a much different place. England is a peninsula, the greater portion of a small offshore European island. Of course, the English politicians still think of themselves as running a global power, England still gets involved in global conflicts - but these they can no longer afford, in spite of the input to their treasury from the ungrateful Jocks above them on the map.

The RFU is still involved in the global body running their sport, only, today it is adminstered from Dublin and the Celts, the colonials whom the English once patronised and those damned French, not to mention Argentinians and Italians now seem hell-bent on denying England the say in anything.

But one thing is constant - the ability of the "57 Old Farts" (copyright W Carling Esq) to get it wrong, as witness their convolutions as regards Sir Clive Woodward, their ability to misplace, lose and generally undermine administrators and their frequent ability to make use of something seen in association rather than Rugby Union football - the own goal.

Admit it, let's all laugh at England is a game we all love in the Celtic fringes of this green and pleasant land, but seldom have I laughed as much as during the current furore over England's "away" strip for the forth-coming World Cup.

Bad enough that the strip is black; but it is the basic premis of an "away" strip that gets me.

You would think, somewhere within Twickenham, there was somebody with enough knowledge of Rugby Union practices to say: "Hang on, we don't actually need a change strip - and in any case, in Rugby Union, when there is a clash of colours the protocol is that the HOME team changes (Scotland/France/Italy all wear blue but in the Six Nations the home side always changes).

"If we are, by some luck of the draw, the home side against Fiji in the World Cup, then we will need a change strip, but let's face that hurdle when we come to it".

But no, guided probably by some budding genius in either theirs, or more likely Nike's PR department, a black strip has been produced. This is nothing more than a blatant money-grabbing exercise; the strip produced in the certain knowledge that the poor saps who will follow England to New Zealand for the World Cup will buy the new item in enough quantity to further swell the RFU coffers.

Mind you, I fear that after a couple of days of: "Thanks for the compliment guys" and "Good on you Poms - imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" in the Land of the Long White Cloud, the black shirts will be quietly put away and the old white shirts will be back on the pbi's backs.

I see the new shirts will be unveiled in the pre-World Cup warm-up match against Wales - how many on either side will be smashed out of the World Cup in that one? A "friendly" it will not be. In any case - why? It's not as if England need to change. But, once again, money doesn't so much talk as shout. Suppose Wales win - might the "unlucky" black strips be binned?

I cannot help re-calling how, not that long ago, when the touring Fijians turned up to play England at Twickenham, flying in the face of protocol, England insisted THEY HAD TO WEAR WHITE - after all, they were England, and the visiting Fijians were forced to change into a black and white hooped "Barbarians" number.

That's more like it, arrogant England we can all live with - that sort of stuff makes them indeed: 'the common enemy' which has ever been England's role in the sporting life of the world.

Cheap publicity stunts built around money-grabbing "away" strips do nothing to change that mind set from elsewhere around the globe.

Hawick - We Have A Problem

IT IS written in stone, probably in whichever vault the contents of the Scottish Rugby Union's museum currently lie: "A strong Scotland needs a strong Hawick". The Terris have been having a terrible time lately, so has Scotland. So, is there any sign of a new McLeod or Renwick appearing from the mists of Mansfield Park to lead us to the promised land of Six Nations, far less World Cup glory?

Apparently not, if this week's reports from the Borders are true. These tell us of defections from Hawick to Kelso by some players and of others apparently about to set-out on that drove road which leads from the Borders to Edinburgh. This is serious.

Harsh economic times have hit the Borders hard; the market for the top-quality woolens and cashmeres which have for so long underpinned the economy in the dales of the border country has shrunk like a badly-washed cheap sweater. The mills have closed, the sunrise industries which came in have seen the sun set on them and the young are increasingly moving out - an exodus which has also hit the rugby teams which have for so long been the heart beat of the communities.

We hear there has almost been civil war in Hawick for some years now - the green shirt is no longer the be-all and end-all of every Hawick boy.

Some say the rot set-in shortly after Bill McLaren retired from teaching, this view I can understand, the effect a single, totally-dedicated teacher can have on a sport has long been under-estimated and, in truth, McLaren (if he ever could have been) was never adequately replaced.

Also, the expansion of the National Leagues, now thankfully turned around by the SRU's annual meeting, perhaps gave Hawick's smaller clubs notions above their station. Whereas the men who ran Trades, YM and the other lesser Hawick clubs were once content to smooth-off the rough edges, before sending their young men up to try for the green shirt, recently, they have had their own visions of National League success divert them from their long-established and honourable task of bringing through the next generations.

For Hawick's sake, perhaps a retrenchment into regional rugby will see The Greens again become the sole focus of the town's rugby ambitions.

One thing is sure, with the restricted number of truly Scotland-wide league places on offer from August 2012 on, a few big name clubs will find themselves out of the Premiership picture. I don't see Hawick as losing out, but, if Hawick men are happy to move to Kelso, their task in rebuilding the notion of The Green Machine will be that bit harder.

However, I am sure, Hawick will rise again, and when it does - just watch Scotland go.

On Your Marks

THE new rugby season will soon be upon us. The club sides are back in training, just as the professionals have been for over a month. And this promises to be a very important season, after the changes agreed at last month's SRU annual meeting.

This new season is all about one thing on the club scene - securing a club's position prior to the decrease in the number of sides playing nationally from the autumn of 2012.

I am from the school which believes the centralisation of control of Scottish rugby into Murrayfield, which followed the move to professionalism, was a very bad move. It has taken Scottish rugby a long time, too long, to realise this, but I honestly believe a more regionalised approach will finally see Scotland move forward.

It will all depend, of course, on what the clubs decide - but if the Glasgow District clubs get their act together properly by the time the new set-up kicks off in 2012, there could be some tremendous local leagues on the go in the West.

IF THERE is one club facing real challenges in the new season, then that club is Ayr. Skipper Damien "Skippy" Kelly has returned to Australia, Glen Tippett has hung up his boots, Mark Bennett has gone off to France and Gordon Reid has secured a full-time Glasgow contract and certainly, until after the World Cup, will be heavily involved at Scotstoun and Firhill.

Of course, Ayr has a fantastic youth development programme, but, to quote Alan Hansen: "you win nothing with kids". So, recruitment will be a major task for the Think Tank of Jock Craig, Kenny Murray, Billy McHarg and Peter Laverie. But I don't mind betting, they'll pull a couple of crackers out of the bag and if the new boys gel quickly with the solid core of returning regulars, Ayr will still be in the trophies mix come the end of the season. The fact they've landed some potentially cracking British & Irish Cup ties could prove a useful recruiting tool for the Millbrae Men as they fill the gaps.