Does He Look Scottish

THE current dispute between Scotland and Wales over the eligibility of London Irish centre Steven Shingler will exercise the brains of the IRB this week.

One might have thought that after the Welsh RU's problems over what is now known as "Grannygate" and Scotland's embarrassement following the discovery that Dave Hilton ought never to have been capped by Scotland, due diligence would have been exercised before Shingler was named in the preliminary Six Nations training group.

This was brought home to me this morning, while following She Who Must Be Obeyed round some charity shops in Ayr. My partner is a zealot when it comes to seeking-out real bargains in such establishments and the pair of brand new, leather gloves which she found for me today definitely comes under such a heading.

But, for me the real find of this morning's trawl was a book: 'The Rugby Union Football Book', published in 1968 by Purnell. The blurb on the front describes the book as: "Rugby's leading commentators on the modern game, the way it is played and its clubs, coaches and outstanding personalities" - edited by Jack Cox.

Cliff Morgan, Vivian Jenkins, JBG Thomas, Michael Green, David Frost, Rupert Cherry, they, and others contributed and already, I have found some gems in there. At £2, a veritable bargain - almost as good as the rare Jimmy Greenwood coaching book which I got for 50p in a second-hand book shop in Wigtown last year.

One article which had me chortling was on page 91. There was no by-line, which makes me think Editor Cox had written it, but this short article calls for revision of the qualification rules for international sides.

The story refers to how London Welsh teams of the time had a few players who were not "Welsh" in the accepted sense. There is a reference too to John Robins, who won a "Victory" cap for England in 1945, before in 1950, winning the first of his 11 Welsh caps and going on the 1950 Lions Tour as: JD Robins (Birkinhead Park and Wales), appearing in five of the Lions' international on that tour.

Then there was oor ain Dr Doug Keller, who played in all five internationals for Australia on their 1947-48 tour to the British Isles and France, remained in London and won seven caps for Scotland, even captaining the team.

So, dual-nationality internationalists are nothing new and, the fact that it was being openly discussed forty-odd years ago merely indicates two things - the Shingler case is not new and, it is way past time for rugby to tighten-up international eligibility rules.

Hot Stuff From Currie

THERE is an interesting piece on the Currie RFC web page at the moment, which I feel ought to be required reading for all officials of the top clubs in Scotland. The writer makes the point about the hit-and-miss nature of the fixture list since the end of RBS Premier 1 rugby in November and prior to next week's resumption of hostilities in Premier A and B.

The writer concludes that, with next season's format change to just two, ten-club Premier Leagues, things are unlikely to get better in the short term, indeed, the writer fears increased fixture chaos in years to come.

As someone who covers both football codes, might I suggest that senior rugby in Scotland is, today, in a similar position to where senior football was here when the Scottish League was formed in 1890.

Prior to that date, football teams were "clubs" - organised and run by committees, often the club officials and the players were the same people; there was a dependance on volunteers and while some playes were paid, they were in the minority.

In the Edwardian period these "clubs" by and large became businesses - and I appreciate here this timescale is a bit elastic - at the top level there was virtually no place for the amateur, regardless of his talent and we were at the head of the slippery slope leading to the depths wherein Scottish football is to be found today.

By holding back the process of professionalisation for a century longer than football managed, generations of rulers of rugby might be excused, as they look down on today's game from the great dirty bar in the sky, for wondering if it was worth it.

Aside from the fact that the men holding the purse strings are largely English, is there much difference between the English football and rugby Premierships? Both bodies are paying silly money for over-hyped players, the top clubs are in-thrall to benefactors who could withdraw their financial safety nets at a moment's notice and who are more concerned about their own wee kingdom than the overall state of the game in their country.

It's not as bad up here, or in Ireland and Wales, where the national governing bodies control the purse strings, but, our set-up is far from ideal.

On the one hand, Edinburgh and Glasgow, like Celtic and Rangers in football, are geared-up to competing in Europe, but, for the long-term, greater good of Scottish Rugby, we probably need at least one more, if not two more full-time professional sides playing in an expanded Pro12 and providing a home for our top players.

I doubt, however, if Scotland could support four full-time pro sides and, given what happened when it was tried in Edinburgh, long, careful and detailed consultations between entrepreneur and SRU would be needed before a home-based Brian Kennedy or a rugby loving David Murray put real money into another Scottish pro side.

The link between the two pro sides and the top clubs is improving, but we've got a long way to go to get it right.

But, to return to the top club sides - the likely lads who will be in Premier 1 and 2 next season. Might I suggest they need to up their game. These clubs are now more-reliant on sponsorship, gate money and the like than ever before. Their first XV players no longer have to pay a match fee (even if that's only to buy the beer). They get strips, boots, kit hold-alls, track suits and so forth provided - in my day, we bought our own. The expenses are much better, as is the physiotherapy care.

But, all this has to be paid for, which means better spectator facilities, better media relations, working harder and smarter.

Perhaps the time is nigh for the SRU, in consultation with the Premier Clubs, to set-down minimum standards for Premier clubs' grounds and other facilities. Given there doesn't seem to be a great interest in summer rugby, shouldn't the top teams, as happens with football's SPL, be required, as a condition of membership of the Premiership, to have pitch protection in place.

For instance, I spend a lot of my season covering Ayr. They are now the premier sports club in that town, but, while the Millbrae stand is newer and doesn't lead much (other than the annoying drip onto where I used to park my lap top case), it isn't as well-appointed a stand as the one at Somerset Park (which, if you believe the Glasgow media should have a preservation order on its ramshackleness). The standing facilities at Millbrae are worse than at Somerset Park, which is known as "The Piggery" by those upper class smarties who follow Kilmarnock.

Ayr are a top club, running it costs a pretty penny, but perhaps, were some of the funds to be diverted into a Millbrae upgrade, the club could, in the long run, make even more money and be even stronger.

That said, I know Billy McHarg, Jock Craig & Co are looking at perhaps moving to a new, purpose-built ground, as the cheaper and better option.

THERE is not a lot one can say about the squad which Andy Robinson has announced for the first two Six Nations matches - other than to (again) speculate as to what Johnnie Beattie has done to move so-far out of the international picture. To me the younger Beattie is the personification of that old adage about form being temporary, whilst class is permanent. I fear he might, like his father before him, finally retire without nearly as many caps as his talent deserved - without his father's excuses of severe injury and the emergence of Iain Paxton, a player every bit as talented.

I do, however, feel that Robinson has been over-loyal to one or two players who are if not past their sell-by date, at least on their "best before" limit. Simon Danielli, for instance, has to my mind seldom done his talent justice in a full Scotland jersey; his place might have gone to another, younger back.

Why is Dan Parks still there? He is 33-years-old now, I would rank him behind Jackson, Weir and Laidlaw when it comes to the number ten shirt - so, why, for all the points he has scored for Scotland, is he still being picked?

Up front, we must continue to pray for the on-going good health of the mighty 'Chunk', because, for all his running ability with ball in hand, Alasdair Dickinson, to my mind, isn't an international-class scrummager. Better I feel to promote either or Jon Welsh or Kyle Traynor, both of whom are younger, as back-up to 'Chunk' and give them game time in the final quarter to pick-up experience.

Ross Ford is so-comfortably ensconsed as our first-choice hooker than, it really is time we looked beyond him. The two back-up hookers will not improve, a chance to get a younger hooker - somebody like Glasgow's Pat McArthur in, as third-choice, has been missed. These points apart, as I have said, I don't see much wrong with the squad.

We now have to look at another point, the captaincy. I must admit to being an Al Kellock fan, but, the fact he isn't an automatic first point is seen by some as a problem. Well, what's wrong with having Big Al as the squad captain and, should he not be on from the start, the captaincy - how I hate that footballing affixation beloved of our younger rugby writers: "the arm band" - should maybe go to whoever is our starting scrum half, since whichever one of Blair, Cusiter, Laidlaw or Lawson wears nine will be well-nigh running things anyway.

If we have to go for an automatic pick, then it has to be either Kelly Brown or John Barclay - although, given Ross Rennie's RWC performances Barclay's place is apparently no longer set in stone, with Ross Ford as the outsider.

I am looking forward to the 2012 Six Nations. I honestly believe we can make a winning start against what I feel will be a new-look and hesitant England and if we can kick-on from there, who knows. Celebrating a Grand Slam in Rome would be a spring treat to remember. 

A Happy New Year

NEW year, new resolution - to inflict my thoughts on Scottish Rugby on the public with a bit more regularity than in 2011. And why not, after the Rugby World Cup, there is a new air of hope abroad in the game up here. Sure, we will soon be losing Richie Gray to the fleshpots of Greater Manchester, but, the Lamont brothers have discovered - it's not always better away from Scotland, and we look forward to them bringing new resolution and strength to the Glasgow Warriors in the remainder of the season.

Glasgow of course won the two-legged battle for the 1872 Cup and are currently ahead of Edinburgh in the Celtic League. It is difficult to see either of our professional sides making it through to the knock-out stages of the Heineken Cup, but one or other, or if the results fall the correct way, both, may yet feature in the later stages of the Amlin Cup - an outcome which would be good for Scottish rugby.

We have for the first time in what seems like a while, some promising young players starting to emerge, but, we desperately need a good young, loose head prop - since, should any ills befall the esteemed "Chunk" in the remaining weeks of the season: we're up yon smelly creek without a paddle. Can I also offer a prayer here for the discovery, soon, of the real Johnnie Beattie - what a difference that would make to our Six Nations hopes.

Finally in this section - am I the only one who hopes for a good win, with two or three tries thrown in, from our opening Six Nations clash with England, at Murrayfield on 4 February. The pressure will all be on the visitors in this match, and if, as I believe we can, we send them homeward tae think again, it could kick-start something special for us in 2012.

MEANWHILE - in the everyday world of play for fun club rugby, Premier A will shortly kick-off; that frenetic seven game rush to the Championship. When Premier 1 closed down after the initial run of games, it seemed that the title was Melroses's to lose, with few, if any, commentators thinking of anything other than a second successive crown for Chick Chalmers and his merry men. Then Gala prised the McLaren Shield away from the Greenyards on Boxing Day and Selkirk gave Melrose a scare in an otherwise meaningless Borders derby, suddenly impressions are being re-evaluated. These next few games could be very interesting indeed.

Still on the club scene, Ayr, Currie and Melrose had their moments in the British and Irish Cup, but none of the trio made it through to the knock-out stages. It seemed to me that the revamped format this season was far from ideal - in fact, it struck me as almost a typical IRB balls-up, except the IRB had nothing to do with it. Well, that has to be a good thing, it shows that a new range of incompetent administrators is apparently being trained to take over, once the current lot are finally led, still foaming at the mouth, are led away to the eventide home for burned-out Bufties.

One of the good things to emerge from the B&I Cup, was the way the three clubs were assisted by the SRU, in getting otherwise resting pros from Edinburgh and Glasgow into their squads. This sort of co-operation offers a win-win situation for both parties and must be encouraged. Where once the professional sides were seemingly on a different planet from the clubs, today there is greater mutual assistance, which can only benefit Scottish Rugby.

BUT, enough of this positivity. There is still much to concern one about the health of Rugby - not least the on-going travails of referees. The scrum, even at top club level, is now becoming well-nigh unworkable. Between repeated cave-ins, squint feeding and the fact that most referees haven't a clue what is going on, what used to be one of the best things about rugby, is now a bloody great scar on its face - please IRB - get it sorted.

The same plea goes out too as regards the ruck. I played for a club which measured itself by the ferocity of the forward rucking and it fair makes me greet to see how this essential part of the game has been rendered unworkable by poor law, poorly-applied.

I accept, the English and the Welsh never have understood the ruck, have never liked it and want it done away with, but, surely it can be resurrected and brought back. With today's wall-to-wall TV coverage, certainly at the top end, the sort of stamping which used to go on cannot happen today. The stampers would soon be fingered and (hopefully) driven out of the game. So please, IRB, let's have proper rucking again.

If we cannot, can we please get rid of the hapless Paddy O'Brien and the other referees who are holding back the game?

Let's Get Ready To Laugh At England

I'D hate to be English, particularly middle class, public-school-educated English; brought up in the certain belief that God is an Englishman, the Tory Party was created to rule, England still has an Empire on which the sun never sets and fair play and keeping a straight bat is the way through life.

It is often said that England's home games at Twickenham is the setting for the middle classes at play - actually I feel you'd probably find Murrayfield - "the largest old school reunion in the world" more-closely equates to the the definition: "the middle classes at play".

Enough, back to business. It is certainly no joke being English and in particular an English rugby player at present. Sure, they've got their World Cup campaign off to a good start, beating Argentine and Georgia in some style - but, being England, that isn't enough for the biggest bugbear to those nice middle classes - the English media.

Even before some of the players again displayed the certainty that boorish, over-paid middle class rugger buggers ought not to be allowed out of an evening in New Zealand, the knives were out for England - because they didn't score enough tries in skewering the Argies, or weren't clinical enough in blowing away the limited Georgians - no they didn't display the style those awfully nice folks back home demand of England teams.

Well, I've got news for them - the English don't do style and elan. These virtues were all but banned by the middle classes after those flash Harries in the Light Brigade made such a cock-up of things at Balaclava.

You want winning with style or against the odds - you get the Jocks and the Taffs in - the Charge of the Jocks at Balaclava - the foot soldiers hanging onto the stirrups of the Royal Scots Greys, or the Thin Red Line. You get the Welsh, Rorke's Drift and all that - but, if you want to see how England wins, you look at the wars of attrition - the old-fashioned infantry square - the years of industrial killing on the Western Front.

It's the same in sport - the guys who played with style and a smile: cricketers Botham, Gower and Co, were never quite trusted; England prefers solid yeomen - Boycott, Gooch, Barrington, men who will wear down the opposition.

In football the public loved the cavaliers - Greaves, Gascoigne, Matthews and Co, the "blazers" went for solid chaps who wouldn't rock the boat, Wright, Moore, Charlton, Scholes.

In rugby - Richard Sharp aside, England has never built a side round a genius. They want steady, solid types who will obey orders and do a job.

English rugby has always lacked imagination. They understand the maul, the ruck has always been a mystery to them. For years English forwards have been trained to trundle up to the breakdown, then fall down. Finally, in this World Cup, the referees have decided they can no longer do this - so they are penalising them, and England don't like it.

They will not change quickly. They will surely thrash Romania without having to change too-much, but, when they face Scotland, they will be asked questions which, on the evidence so-far, they are ill-equipped to answer - and Chris Paterson will make them pay for not learning to adapt to a changing game.

Then, the shit from groping blondes, dwarf-throwing and the like, will really hit the fan.

Can They Finally Nail "Bill" Down?

REGAINING possession of "Bill", as the Webb Ellis Trophy is known on both sides of the Tasman Sea is perhaps more an obsession than a cause to the inhabitants of 'The Land of the Long White Cloud', whose hosting of this seventh edition of the IRB Rugby World Cup kicks off today.

Rather like England with the football equivalent, the Kiwis, who consider themselves the guardians of rugby's flame, find it embarrassing that they have only won the thing once, and that was on home soil in 1987.

Of course, England's failure to add to their 1966 triumph is easily explained - they were lucky mince then, they've been ordinary mince ever since. The failure of the All Blacks to add to the Dave Kirk-inspired triumph in that inaugural World Cup is puzzling in the extreme. They have been the outstanding rugby team on the planet consistently since 1987, but, for about a month, every fourth year, they seem to lose it when the next tournament comes around.

Will it be any different this time round? Well, everyone in New Zealand hopes so.

Realistically the All Blacks are, at worst, a three-to-one shot to lift the trophy; it is difficult to see anyone other than they, the Wallabies or the Springboks winning the thing - unless France, as they are wont to, but never quite manage to carry through, suddenly find inspiration when on the verge of elimination.

You can forget the other 16 nations, for varying reasons. Some, Namibia, Romania, Georgia, Russia, Japan, Canada, USA, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa don't have the depth of squad, experience or professionalism.

Others, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Argentina, Italy lack the X-factor - but could go far if they get the breaks - then, there is England.

Every other side's common enemy have the players, they have the money, they have the history, but, they will not win it. The sheer mental pressure, from the abuse they will take from all sides in New Zealand, from the unrealistic expectations of their own media and fans and from having to justify, on the world stage, the hype and build-up of that same media, which is simply licking their collective lips at the chance to put the boot into the failures, means, England will fail - and all hell with break loose.

In fact, I have a funny feeling Scotland will beat them in that final pool game in Auckland. Never mind, "Johnno" can always stay in his second home in King Country, "Wilko" will go back to France and making money, Tindall, Shaw and Thompson can retire, leaving the rest to pick up the pieces.

I do, however, feel, beating England might be our high point. But, on the basis that, some day we have to get lucky and beat the All Blacks, I quite fancy our chances of winning an All Blacks v Scotland final.

Well, a man can and has to dream.

But, realistically, I fancy the All Blacks to just beat the Aussies in the final.

Will We Be Having a Pyjama Party This Time Round?

I CAN still recall the surge of excitement which surrounded the inaugural Rugby World Cup, back in 1987. Then, travelling to New Zealand for the event was a real adventure, while back home, we waited and wondered - not least how ITV would fare, entering the previous BBC fiefdom of rugby coverage. In truth, thanks in no small measure to John Taylor's microphone presence, they did rather well.

So too did Scotland and had we not been caught cold by a typical Gallic piece of not-quite-legal sleight of hand, and been hampered by John Rutherford's career-ending injury: who knows how it might have ended.

Probably in the same way - beaten by the All Blacks.

That New Zealand v Scotland quarter-final gave me one of my fondest rugby memories. My club has a proud reputation for being "different", maybe it's because we keep the rugby flame alight in an area where: "real men play junior football - everyone else is a poof". Perhaps it's because we play by a rugby version of the specific ordnances of junior football in our neck of the woods - "If there's nae bluid and the bone isnae stickin oot o the leg, it wisnae a foul" - but, we don't exactly do: "play-up and play the game chaps".

Our credo is somewhat New Zealandish, except we have never quite - with a scant few exceptions, had the all-embracing winning concept of the lads from the Land of the Long White Cloud.

But hey, we know how to party and we did as we looked forward to that 1987 quarter-final, played in the middle of the night back here. Which is why, at around 4am Scottish time, on the day of the match, a couple of us, clad in pyjamas, Paisley pattern dressing gowns and sporting cravats, feet in slippers, were standing outside the clubhouse, engaged in conversation with two of Strathclyde's finest - who were quite properly wondering what three or four cars were doing turning into the rugby club at such an ungodly hour.

"We're having a pyjama party to watch the World Cup quarter-final, followed by breakfast", the polis were told - a response which seemed to go down well with them, as they got back into their car with the parting line: "You rugby club guys, you're all fucking mad".

We took this as a compliment, enjoyed the game, but not the result and the breakfast.

Twenty-four years on, as I write this, there are no plans for any pyjama/breakfast parties during this World Cup - but, the thing hasn't even got going yet, so there is time. Probably, if the timing is right, it will happen for the final group game against the Common Enemy, I hope so.

But, the excitement is about the same, as are our aspirations. With a wee bit of luck, we could go far in this World Cup. Andy Robinson has brought Scotland in under the radar, we've got almost the perfect itinerary, each game building and I honestly believe, on neutral ground, where we will have the support of the locals, we CAN beat England, avoid the All Blacks and maybe make the semi-finals, where anything can happen.

This squad is maybe a bit light at half back, we must all pray for Chunk's continued good health, but, I am hopeful.

And just maybe, we will be convening for another pyjama party sometime soon.