Follow The Way Of The Warriors

NOT a bad start by the wee Australian to his term as interim Scotland Head Coach. I can find little fault in his training squad selection and positively welcome his call-up of young Sean Kennedy for instance, whilst the re-call of Johnnie Beattie was long overdue. As I have often said as regards young Beattie - form is transient, class is permanent and, if we have a half-decent Six Nations, which I feel we might have, he could be a Lion come June.

The naming of so-many present or former Warriors in the squad shows just where the core of Scottish professional rugby now sits. They won't like that in the pubs and clubs of Edinburgh, or in the Borders, although, of course, some of the chosen Warriors are Borders boys.

I am actually reasonably-confident about our chances of avoiding our seemingly annual arm wrestle with the Italians for the wooden spoon taking place this season; however, I have been confident of this before and been wrong!!!

I also quite fancy our chances of causing an upset at Twickenham, first time out. In fact, I would go as far as to say, how he prepares England for the opening game, might be something of a challenge for the impressive Stuart Lancaster.

The feeling in Englandshire is likely to be: "It's only the 'Sweaties' and, having "demolished" the All Blacks - that lot will not cause us too-much bother. In which case, unless Mr Lancaster gets his men properly focussed, the combination of crowd expectation at HQ, a myopic press corps talking-up his men, and a Scottish squad, fired-up to impress their new coach, just might be an unavoidable banana skin.

We are overdue a win at Twickenham, just as surely as the All Blacks were over-due a loss in the northern hemisphere. Is it too-much to hope for?

SOME years ago, when I was covering football rather than rugby on a regular basis of a Saturday, I was in the press box at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock; the press seats were then in the back row of the directors' box and this particular Saturday, Killie were playing hosts to the members of the International Board, football's supreme laws-making and amending body, who were holding their annual conference at Turnberry Hotel.

The International Board delegates, other than Herr Blatter, who was in the front row beside the Killie chairman and the SFA president, were seated in the row in front of the press and it was clear, from the outset, that FA secretary Graham Kelly wasn't too-hapy at being that close to the press.

However, as the game progressed, the ice melted and by half-time, Mr Kelly passed on the Killie pies and Bovril to chat to we hacks. As he left at the end, he thanked us for the banter and remarked that we had been quite unlike the English hacks he normally had to deal with - we Jocks seemed to care about the game and were able to speak sensibly on football matters. I should point out, most of that scribble of reporters have now retired!!!

Any way, that incident, I believe, shows-up the essential difference between Scottish and English sports writer, whatever the sport. We Scots care, the English only go along to criticise and I can guarantee that, even if England does win at Twickenham, unless they have given us a real doing, Lancaster and his squad will be given a hard time by the Play-Up Peregrines of their press corps. Let's hope this happens.

There was a great example of the two-facedness of the English rugby-writing fraternity this week, when the English Rugby Writers Club named England captain Chris Robshaw as their Player of the Year. Yet, even on the eve of the England v All Blacks match, the PUPs were describing Robshaw as: "at best a six and a half, not a true seven". Now, one win later, he's seemingly, at least in Englandshire, a shoo-in to be Lions captain. Let's wait and see about that.

Let's Lance The Scrummage Boil - Now

THE English rugby media has been getting their collective knickers in a twist this week about that festering boil on the face of rugby, the current refereeing of the scrum.

The scrum is a total mess, and the higher the level of the game, apparently the bigger the mess. Of late, our dear friends darn sarf have become almost as obsessed with scrummage domination as that other group of big, thick, square-headed neanderthals - the Saffers - have long been. Winning the scrummages is now some sort of badge of honour in Englandshire, just as it has long been on the high veldt.

What is to be done? After all, the scrum is supposed to be a means of re-starting the game following some breaks in play, not a match-defining test of machismo.

First things first; IF referees were to immediately insist on scrum-halves feeding the ball down the middle of the tunnel - which brings me to the apocraphyl tale, told in one of the English broadsheets recently, of the young scrum-half, promoted to the first team of an English Premiership side through an injury crisis, who forgot himself and sent his first scrum feed straight down the middle of the tunnel, where it sat in splendid solitude, since neither hooker could, or knew how-to, hook, they had never had to - it would immediately help. Bring Back Hooking, it's a good place to start.

I have seen too, the sensible suggestion that the referee brings-in progressive engagement: the two front rows bind, then the four locks come in, followed by the three breakaways, only when all 16 forwards are in place will the ball be fed-in and then, and not before, the rival packs can push.

Of course, as they do, coaches would immediately be looking for ways of circumventing the laws, which might bring presently unexpected problems.

But, the scrum is just one area of concern in modern rugby. Given the IRB are unwilling to re-introduce real rucking of the Otago/Scottish Borders type, whereby, if you lie over the ball, you get what Finlay Calder so-memorably termed: "A guid shoeing", we have to sort-out the breakdown.

I remain convinced that nothing would sort-out the breakdown shambles faster than a few cha-chas danced on the torsos of persistent offenders - with today's all-pervasive tv and video cameras, the head-kicking thugs would quickly be eliminated - and the game would become faster, more-so if the use of hands was actively discouraged and the need for the ball to be played by a foot in a ruck was established.

Failing that, and referring again to the scrummage shambles, why doesn't rugby take a leaf out of the NFL book? In American Football at professional level, there are no less than SEVEN field officials, to monitor the behaviour of 22 players. That might be over-kill in rugby, but, to ask three officials to watch what's going on between 30 players, and cogniscant of the fact that some referees appear to play little attention to what their touch judges have to say, rugby should perhaps look at bringing in more officials.

Why not a specialist scrum referee - ideally a former prop or hooker? Might not a couple of officials, close to the action, sort out the rucks and make for a faster game? Surely, for the sake of the game's image, the IRB should be trying something different. Doing nothing isn't an option.

Attention To Detail Makes All The Difference

IN MY last post, I mentioned Richie McCaw's autobiography 'The Real McCaw'. In this excellent book, the All Blacks captain worte at length about the attention to detail which is the hall-mark of the Blacks' domination of international rugby - the player's hand book of Dos and Don'ts, the way every last small item is checked and double-checked.

I learned this week, how far off the pace, the SRU remains. On Tuesday night I took myself off to Millbrae to watch Ayr take on the Scotland Under-20 squad, currently in a training camp at the Invderclyde National Sports Centre at Largs.

This "bounce" game was sufficiently flagged-up for Ayr to mention it in the match programme for Saturday's home game with Melrose and for it to be plugged by Bryce the match announcer over the pa system.

A good crowd turned up and enjoyed an entertaining match, in which Ayr just edged the Under-20s by 21-19. However, the SRU's lack of attention to detail was only too-obvious.

The Under-20 squad of 30 players were there, as was Coach Sean Lineen, Assistant Coaches Simon Cross and John Dalziel, Manager Andy Miller and the usual plethera of physios, video analysts and so on. Indeed, one sarky old playing contemporary of mine remarked to me: "Seven guys in SRU tracksuits on the touchline, but no team on the park". The players, team management group, all their equipment and essentials were ferried from Largs to Ayr and back in one of Dodds of Troon's finest executive coaches - the one St Mirren normally use if I'm not mistaken, plus, they've had the run of Inverclyde for a week - which doesn't come cheap.

Why then, with all that financial outlay, did the SRU miss-out on a couple of essentials - two touch judges? It wasn't until referee Graham Wells came onto the park for his pre-match warm-up and asked: "Where are my touch judges?" that this over-sight was discovered.

I saw at least three members of the West of Scotland Referee's Society in the crowd, none had their kit with them, but two (who sadly didn't live in Ayr) admitted, had they known in time, they'd have been delighted to have officiated. As it was, a couple of Ayr members filled-in. Worse, West of Scotland Referees Manager Andy MacPherson lives in Ayr, couldn't he have helped out?

Bad show SRU, almost as bad as not numbering the squad. Some we in the press box could identify from watching them in the Premiership. Cameron McAllister from the SRU's Media department did a cracking job identifying the less-well-known and the Anglo-Scots, so, we got through - but, with a wee bit of fore-thought at Murrayfield, things could have gone better.

Here was a real chance to "sell" rugby in Ayrshire - where, admittedly, aside from a "tribal" atmosphere which rivals the Borders in intensity, Ayr are doing this rather well. Efforts should have been made to get mini and midi players from the Ayrshire clubs in there to hopefully be inspired  by seeing the likes of Mark Bennett - who was one such player a mere three years ago - in action. It was a chance missed, because Murrayfield didn't attend to detail.

 

He Glides Into Breakdowns - That's Why Ref's Never See Him

I HAVE just read, in one day, Richie McCaw's marvellous autobiography: 'The Real McCaw' - I feel it should be compulsory reading for anyone who cares about Rugby Union. I no longer see McCaw as a marvellous rugby player, but as a glider pilot who happens to work as a rugby player.

 

It's the insights he offers into how the Blacks machine operates which intrigue me, these show where the rest of us are going wrong. To us, it's a game, even at professional level; to McCaw and the other GABs (Great All Blacks), it's much more, these guys do indeed live up to the Shankly maxim about that other form of football - it is more important than life or death. And that's why we cannot beat them.

 

 

 

SO, farewell Mike Blair and well done. Blair retiring now, before the Six Nations was a smart move by him and a good one for the SRU. With Blair out of the equation, new coach Scott Johnston can now move Greig Laidlaw up to nine, thereby freeing-up the number 10 shirt for a straight battle between Jackson and Heathcote, and maybe Duncan Weir. This season's Six Nations might not be simply our annual battle with Italy to avoid the wooden spoon. Let's hope so.

 

 

 

THE Herald broke with this season's precedents on Monday, they had reports on two individual RBS Premiership matches, with Kevin Ferry at the Dundee HSFP and Stirling County match-up and Alasdair Reid at Boroughmuir and Gala. Hitherto what used to be Scotland's top rugby paper has stuck to an insipid Monday round-up of the Premiership, plus a midweek club rugby round-up from a freelance who doesn't go to club games on a Saturday!!!

 

Welcome though the deployment of Kevin and Alasdiar was, they ignored the biggest game on the card and the one closest to the Herald heartland (if like me you consider Stirling County to be a Midlands rather than Glasgow side).

 

Surely the biggest game on Saturday's Premiership card was the one at Millbrae between Ayr and Melrose. Scotland on Sunday certainly thought this, despatching Ian Morrison to cover it.

 

I haven't missed a home Ayr league game this season and always, when I turn up, some of the Millbrae "Silverbacks" who sit around the press seats, enquire as to which paper I am covering for, then add, significantly: "I no longer read the Herald, it has given up on covering club rugby".

 

When this failure on behalf of its core constituency - the guys speaking are retired teachers, lawyers and accountants, who have bought and read the paper for half a century, or are still-in-harness Managing Partners in legal and accounting firms, or promoted teachers - it helps explain the Herald's fast-receding readership.

 

The last Herald editor - who is still apparently in talks about his release package, protracted talks which have delayed the appointment of his replacement - was, in my humble opinion as one who served under him, a half-wit; let's hope the new guy does better and leads the paper back to where it should be, as an authorititive voice in West-Central Scotland.

 

 

Good Luck Dean, But Let's Promote Scots Coaches

TO BE fair, Dean Ryan - the latest outsider to be called-up to try to solve the ills of Scottish rugby, does have a reputation as a straight-talking hard man who can produce winning teams. Moving to Edinburgh will either get him a gig in the English Premiership, or be the end of his career, so, I wish him well.

That said, I am not holding my breath for a turn-around in our fortunes; and I cannot help but feel, instead of giving Shade Munro the A team, which will in any case play just once between now and the end of the season, the SRU ought to have given him the job into which they have recruited Ryan. After all, big Shade has built one impressive pack at Scotstoun.

While I am at it, assuming MIchael Bradley doesn't get his Edinburgh contract renewed, I'd love to see Ayr's Kenny Murray and Gala's George Graham getting the Murrayfield gig for next season. Reluctantly, we have to accept that, because nobody likes him, wee Craig Chalmers's chances of an SRU gig have gone - good coach though he is.

Promoting Murray and Graham would send out a message - that Murrayfield does care about promoting Scottish talent. Continuing to maintain a chasm between the professional and amateur games will only, in the end, lead to a ruinous schism in the game up here.

I WAS at Ayr v Melrose on Saturday, what a cracking advertisement for the RBS Premiership - pity about the refereeing tough. Mr Van der Merwe was yet another referee with no idea about what was going on up front. He decided, Melrose were on top and nothing which took place in front of him would change that view.

Yes, Melrose did have the better of the scrums, but, fr at least one of the re-set penalties he gave in the lead-uip to awarding the first of 'Rose's two penalty tries, it seemed to me, a former front row player, that Melrose took the scrum down, not Ayr, and for another, Melrose popped up first, again he said Ayr.

I am now a convert to the idea of specialist scrummage referees being involved - former front row men well-practiced in the dark arts. The major bonus from this would be, no more Brian Moore commentating on England games; as a qualified referee,  he'd be in action as a scrum referee at another international. This alone should make the implementation of scrum referees an immediate innovation.



PRE-TOUR Lions hype is already growing and, to read the English-published papers, one would think, after England "destroyed" the All Blacks in the autumn tests, that, following their now nailed-on 6 Nations Grand Slam, there will be a distinctly white tinge inside the red shirts in Australia.

\Take nothing away from England, they did beat the World Champions and deservedly so, but, they got the Blacks on a bad day and while they beat them, they didn't destroy them. I don't see England winning the 6 Nations, I favour France, and, as ever with England, several of their players are being over-hyped.

If Scott Johnston is as good as he's made out to be, we could have a surprisingly-good 6 Nations and get more than a token Lions representation. What about Al Kellock for Lions captain? They could do worse.

Scotland - Stuck In Reverse

WHEN I were nowt burra lad, the old amateur "Alickadoos" of the SRU revelled in their reputation as backward and out of touch - whilst generally acting for the best for the game in Scotland. Lest we forget, Scotland was the first country to inaugurate national leagues.

 

Today, Murrayfield is a model of corporate slickness and media-speak, and Scottish rugby's standing is going down faster than the Titanic did. Can we please see, in 2013, a turning of the tide and Murrayfield giving us something to be proud of and celebrate?

 

 

 

THAT said, I hae ma doots if it will happen. Basically, the two Scottish "professional" sides are now breeding grounds for the richer clubs in England and France, always ready to cherry-pick Scottish talent which shows up well in the RaboPro12 or Heineken Cup. This is simply because, we don't have the money in Scotland to keep world-class talent at home.

 

That said, we don't do too-well in bringing through our talent. For instance, Mark Bennett is definitely one for the future, and by that I mean the near future, not the middle distance future.

 

I thought it a great move when Glasgow Warriors brought him home from Clermont Auvergne on-loan and looked forward to his first appearance at Scotstoun. That was over two months ago and thus far, Mark hasn't even made the Glasgow bench and has had to content himself with games for Stirling County.

 

FFS, he was Man of the Match in the Scottish Cup Final two years ago, before he went to France. What he is doing messing about in the Stirling midfield is a mystery to me and isn't helping the development of a genuine superstar in the making.

 

If I was Mark, I'd be telling Gregor Townsend straight - play me or I'm off back to France.

 

 

 



Tim Visser - Was The Writer Taking the Piss Er

WELL, that's that, we've had our autumn tests, now it's back to the Heineken, then it's Christmas and New Year and, before we know it, it'll be Six Nations time, and after that Lions Time. Stop it Aristotle, you're wishing your life away.

 

I had to laugh this week, when the Chief Rugby Writer of the Tory Party's daily newsletter named his Lions Test XV, based on the performances during the autumn tests. Not unsurprisingly, for someone from within the London media bubble, he packed his team with Englishmen, while there was buy a single Scot - well not even that, the only Scotland player he named, and pardon me if I didn't detect a little bit of editorial over-view here: ("Look old chap, you haven't named any of the Sweaties and you know how they become upset if over-looked - why don't you pick that Dutch chap they've capped?).

 

Tim Visser, I mean Tim Visser - he shouldn't have a number on his back, rather an L plate, since he's still very-much an international work in progress. If our poor Anglo-Irish writer HAD to pick a Scot, why not Sean Lamont, who for me out-shone Visser, or either of our props, or Richie Gray or Al Kellock?

 

One thing I have learned in over 50-years of watching the Lions is - the Lions test XV which you name after the autumn tests is nothing like the actual XV which takes the field for the first test; in fact, the test XV which you name as the party boards the aircraft to fly south will be nothing like the XV which plays in the first test - always has been, always will be. To quote old Supermac, former Prime Minister Harold McMillan - "events dear boy, events". These are things for which you can never legislate.

 

 

 

OF COURSE, darn sarf, they have, as ever, gone into overdrive at the smallest sign of success. I had to laugh at some of the headlines, about England "smashing" the All Blacks. OK, fair play to Lancaster's men, they won and won well - but "smashed", come on, it was three tries apiece and for me, tries scored is still the measure of a game - there are so many potential penalties at every break-down, it's a lottery.

 

England were lucky, they got to face a tired ABs team, at the end of a hard season, and coming off a group-wide dose of the dreaded lurgy. But, they beat them, well done, I still hope to live long enough to witness the first Scottish win over the men in black - but, no-way did England "smash" the ABs.

 

One of Management's best pals is a charming Welsh lady, who generally gives me stick at Scotland's poor rugby record. So you can bet I've been chiding her gently about the fall from grace of her heroes; sure, she hit back about us being Tongaed, however, as I remarked: we've never (in rugby) had Wales's delusions of adequacy and are never far from disaster.

 

It goes without saying, the Welsh could come out in February and win another Grand Slam, but I prefer to believe, they've been over-hyped, almost to England proportions of late; last season was a one-off aberation and this time round, they'll get found-out, big time.