A Scotland Squad And Hope For The Future

BANG ON TIME, lunch-time Thursday, Gregor Townsend released the names of the Scotland squad to face France, in Paris, on Saturday night.

As-ever, Toony has kept changes to a minimum – our Head Coach appears to care little for appeasing his critics in the BTL Comments section of The Offside Line. Certainly, Jonny Gray ha paid the price for a somewhat ordinary tournament thus far, and has given way to Gregor Brown, while Matt Fagerson's cameo off the bench against Wales has got him into the starting XV in place of Jack Dempsey at Number Eight.

Elsewhere, Ewan Ashman retains the back-up hooker's number 16 jersey, quite clearly, if Johnny Matthews ever releases a memoir of his time at the top, he can borrow a title from The Eagles and call it “Hell Freezes Over” - the title of their ironic reunion tour. Gray is on the bench, one of six forwards, with Marshall Sykes and Ben Muncaster in there for their ball-carrying option and work-rate.

Like Ashman, the other two frontg rowers on the bench, Rory Sutherland and Will Hurd have been shown a big vote of confidence by the Head Coach, while in the backs, the 6-2 split perhaps explains Jamie Dobie replaces George Horne.

The full squad is:

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES – I just wonder which ones will surface once this new Super Competition involving Scotland's top schools and club sides gets underway. On the surface, the new conference looks to have been better put together than Super Six was, but, it still has to get past the hard power of Scottish Rugby's Deep State.

OK, we now know: Ayr, Boroughmuir and Stirling County are the three club sides who will take-on top school sides: Dollar Academy, George Watson's College, Merchiston Castle School, Stewart's Melville College and Strathallan School.

As things stand, these are almost certainly the eight programmes most people would have selected, but, I can already see some awkward conversations between some school Head Teachers and their Directors of Rugby, not helped by telephone calls from influential or concerned Old Boys, plus the odd parent, wondering how their school missed out.

As with Super Six, there is a definite Edinburgh bias and an overall geographical imbalance, with no representation from The Borders – the alleged heartland of Scottish Rugby. Dare I suggest forming a Southern Squires squad, or would that fail on the old drawback of local rivalries.

I will tell you, based on my knowledge of how things went in football when it went down to route of involving clubs to the detriment of schools – you will see even-more poaching and recruitment of promising players.

We all know that several current top-flight club players, and even one or two internationalists, were offered scholarships at schools involved in the new competition; this will increase and it's going to be a buyers market.

I can remember, when I was working on a small local newspaper, the local senior football team had a very-good reputation for youth development of mainly local boys, overseen by one of the directors – a local businessman.

He backed the wrong side in a board room spat and was removed from the board. Within a short time, instead of visiting promising local boys and telling them and their parents, they had more chance of making it in the local club's youth development system than by going to one of the two big Glasgow clubs, he was turning up in the blazer of one of those two clubs, telling the boys and their parents, of course they had more-chance of making it with their far-superior Academy.

Once you create an Elite competition, the clubs who are involved are only interested in recruiting and retaining elite-level talent. In a normal club environment, there is an acceptance that young players evolve at different rates and that has to be factored in. A boy who is struggling in one season, may undergo a growth spurt and the following season be a different and much better player.

Those keen young men, who don't have it to become First XV regulars, quite often turn-out, over the longer term, to become the backbone of the club. Doing the unglamorous back room jobs, organising the minor teams, coaching the Minis. If you leave them behind to concentrate on potential elite-level players, you are potentially facing problems further down the road.

These vagaries of human development can be addressed when the games are fun, but, in an elite competition, where results matter, there is little or no leeway – it's perform or perish.

I can see the three clubs – and who could blame them – recruiting and encouraging more Scouts, to trawl their neighbouring clubs in search of unpolished diamonds, this could cause friction.

What happens in the schools, when a naturally-talented boy, who plays rugby because he enjoys it, but is headed for Oxbridge, one of the professions, or a career in the armed forces is ordered to do less studying but more rugby training, so the school can win.

Or, supposing a player, a third, fourth or fifth generation pupil at the school, relations on the Board of Governors, the family long-term funders of the school, is suddenly dropped for a more-talented scholarship boy, whom the Rugby Department feels is needed to keep them at the top.

He's never going to consider a full-time career in the game, but would quite like to keep playing socially. Might he simply give up and be lost to the game.

I note talk of expanding the new conference, hopefully taking it nation-wide. It's a start, I wish it well, but, as with most new initiatives in Scottish sport, it faces a hard baptism and some difficult early years.

 

In The Matter of Townsend v The Keyboard Warriors

THE HEAD COACH as the Son of God is a North American fixation. In their major professional sports – and in the mega-bucks First Division colleges, if you've got a Head Coach's position it's your show, until you mess-up badly. Then they crucify you.

On this side of what will surely soon be the Gulf of Trump, in our most-popular sport, they do things a wee bit differently. Association Football has “Sporting Directors” or “Directors of Football” to oversee items such as player recruitment and contracts and Academy recruitment, leaving the Head Coach to concentrate on putting a winning team on the field. The only area in which there is anything like the North American level of overall control is in national teams.

Rugby Union in many respects mirrors football – certainly at club level; but, in the international game, the Head Coaches remain close to God-like figures, in command of all they survey. But, they remain vulnerable, if actual performances fail to match expectations.

In this respect, the English, French and Welsh coaches are the most-vulnerable, their fan base demands success every season and in the case of the Welsh job, given the dog's breakfast the Union has made of running the game in the Principlaity of late, it's a particularly thankless task.

Being England coach is simply to hold a Poisoned Chalice; England Expects and if the Coach does not deliver these expectations – he's toast, regardless of the fact, their top clubs are actively anti the national team.

The French job appears, from up here, to be one which calls for, above all, political effectiveness, to bring together the many varying interests in the game there.

Coaching Scotland? To me, that is a funny one. We travel into each competition, be it the Six Nations or the World Cup, more in hope than expectation. We know we will be competitive, but, we don't really expect to be still there at the sharp end. So, as long as we don't embarrass ourselves, we are generally happy. We also expect, at some point, to be on the wrong end of an officiating boob – it's Scotland's lot.

Yes, his relative success at club level, and the way Franco Smith has kept that club in the forefront of the United Rugby Championship has perhaps put extra strain on Gregor Townsend, to win things. But, the reality is, he is never going to be under the pressure of expectation which has done for a stream of English and Welsh coaches in the era of Open Rugby.

Remember, Alf Ramsey, albeit playing every game at their home, Wembley, won a Football World Cup for England. Clive Woodward performed the more-difficult feat of guiding England to a Rugby World Cup win – in Australia. Both got the tap on the shoulders from the late Queen's sword, when they were winners – and were subsequently sacked by the Football Association and the Rugby Football Union after a comparative failure.

Scotland will almost certainly finish Fourth in this year's Six Nations – that's our expected position, but, if two refereeing mistakes had gone the other way, we might have been looking at third or even second spot. Toony might decide, at the end of the campaign, he has had enough of the negative carping from the BTL comments on The Offside Line and quit; he might be offered a big-money club job in England or France; but, he is highly-unlikely to be handed his jotters by the Murrayfield Junta.

We are relentlessly told: “professional sport is a results-driven business”, so let's look at the records of BRITISH Head Coaches in Rugby Union in the Open Era.

• World Cup winners – Clive Woodward (England) – 2003

• Six Nations Grand Slams – Woodward – 2003

• Mike Ruddoch (Wales) – 2005

• Declan Kidney (Ireland) – 2009

• Martin Johnson (England) – 2011

• Andy Farrell (Ireland) – 2023

• Six Nations wins without a Grand Slam – Woodward – 2000 : 2001

• Rob Howley (Wales) – 2013

• Farrell – 2024

• Five Nations Grand Slams (1995 – 1999) Jack Rowell (England) – 1995

• Five Nations wins without a Grand Slam – Rowell – 1996

• Jim Telfer (Scotland) – 1999

So, if we are looking for the top British Rugby Union National Coach in the Open Era, the answer is Woodward: one World Cup, one Six Nations Grand Slam. Plus two further Six Nations wins. Yet, Woodward was universally condemned as a failure when given the bigger job of coaching the British and Irish Lions.

I have read Woodward's books on his time in Rugby Union and he never considered himself as purely a coach – he thought of himself more as a manager/expediter, making the whole system around the England team work better to the extent they won the things they wanted to win.

I mentioned the Lions a couple of paragraphs ago. It is interesting to compare the records of the 12 men who have coached this multi-national outfit, since Irishman Harry McKibbin was the first actual Coach appointed, for the 1962 Tour to South Africa. Their records are:

• Harry McKibbin (Ireland) - South Africa 1962 – overall 64% wins : Tests 0%

• John Robins (Wales) – Australia and New Zealand 1966 – overall 66% wins : Tests 43%

• Ronnie Dawson (Ireland) – South Africa 1968 – overall 75% wins : Tests 0%

• Carwyn James (Wales) – Australia and New Zealand 1971 – overall 88% wins : Tests 50% - won series

• Syd Millar (Ireland) – South Africa 1974 – overall 95% wins : Tests 75% - won series- the undefeated Invincibles

• John Dawes (Wales) – New Zealand 1977 – overall 81% wins : Tests 25%

• Noel Murphy (Ireland) – South Africa 1980 – overall 83% wins : Tests 25%

• Jim Telfer (Scotland) – New Zealand 1983 – overall 67% wins : Tests 0%

• Ian McGeechan (Scotland) – Australia 1989 – overall 92% wins : Tests 67%

• McGeechan – New Zealand 1993 – 54% wins : Tests 33%

• McGeechan/Telfer – South Africa 1997 – 85% wins : Tests 67% won series

• Graham Henry (New Zealand/Wales) – Australia 2001 – overall 70% : Tests 33%

• Clive Woodward (England) – New Zealand 2005 – overall 64% : Tests 0%

• McGeechan coached the midweek “Dirt Trackers” side on this tour and posted a 100% winning record, played five, won five. If you separate the two coaches' results, Woodward's actually becomes – overall 33% : Tests 0%

• McGeechan – South Africa 2009 – overall 80% : Tests 33%

• Warren Gatland (New Zealand/Wales) – Australia 2013 – overall 80% : Tests 67%

• Gatland - New Zealand 2017 – overall 50% : Tests 33%

• Gatland – South Africa 2021 – overall 67% : Tests 33%

So, in 17 tours in which a Coach has been appointed, on only three occasions has the Test Series, the yardstick as to whether a tour is a success or a failure, been won – in 1971, 1974 and 1997. Only the last of these series wins being posted during the Open Era.

Do we perhaps ask a bit much of our Head Coaches, since clearly, even when united under the British and Irish Lions identity, we struggle to beat our colonial cousins.

Maybe we British Isles rugby folk are just not absolute top-flight. After all, while there are plenty of Argentinians, Australians, New Zealanders, Pacific Islanders of various hues and South Africans kicking around in our two professional leagues – there are not that many Brits travelling in the opposite direction. Club bosses here, if they find themselves unable to dig up a local player of the required calibre to fill a vacancy in their squad, can always contact their nearest friendly agent and get a foreign mercenary to fill the void.

That vacancy-filling isn't so simple for Gregor Townsend, unless the man he is after happens to have a granny from Greenock, or be prepared to work a five-year qualifying period.

So, let's ease up on criticising Toony. The figures may be somewhat slewed by wins over Tier Two opponents, and he has not yet got us over the line against the All Blacks, but, he's still, statistically our most-successful National Coach.

This season he has had wretched luck with injuries and poor officiating decisions, also, he is having to operate within a deeply-flawed SRU system.

Yes, perhaps the players would react differently to another voice. But, there are no guarantees that dumping Toony would see Scotland's fortunes improve – they could well go the other way.

Toony might well benefit from a bit of a hand when it comes to man management, or sports psychology. But, he definitely needs more of a hand, via an SRU whose management methods and systems are fit for the 21^st century.

 

The Great Escape

WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL famously described Russia as: “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” - being a Harrow-educated, Upper Class Englishman what to make of Scotland was beyond his intellectual capacity, although, having commanded the Sixth Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers during World War 1, he probably knew we Ayrshiremen are a rum lot, who when not fighting Germans liked nothing better than to fight among ourselves.

Another weel-kent Tory: Donald Finlay KC, famously described the Fife mining village from which he sprung as having: “a population of 8000 and only 4 surnames.” The men Churchill commanded in France emerged from a similar gene pool. I don't think we can help ourselves; our brightest and best have been fleeing the country for generations, so it stands to reason, what's left isn't nearly the best of us.

So, our best people, our top-quality cattle, our finest sheep and the absolute best of the Clydesdale Horse have all been shipped out to improve things elsewhere – that helps explain Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney and a few others in authority in Scotland in 2025.

It might also help explain the reaction to yesterday's defeat of Wales at Scottish Gas, Murrayfield. OK, it's hold my hand up time; I genuinely feared for us in this one. Seventy years of watching Scotland teams in both Football and Rugby Union, including witnessing a few beatings, have taught me to never, pre-game, assume a case of us only having to turn up to win. I had this one down as a banana skin waiting to trip us up, so I was happy that we managed to get over the line in one piece.

We have never in my life-time, and I turned 78 last week, in either code of football, had an absolute top-line team. We've had some good teams yes, but, never in all that time have we had a team of which we could honestly say: “given a fair wind and the rub of the green, we can win a World Cup.”

We have occasionally travelled in hope, but we have never been guilty of harbouring the level of expectation which has done for various England Head Coaches over the years. At least, they managed to get it right, twice, which is twice more than us, so cut them a wee bit of slack.

No, perhaps the best we could say about our best Football and Rugby Union teams is: “we could have been contenders” - remembering perhaps that, in boxing terms, from whence that fictional quote materialised, a contender is only a challenger who might have what it takes to win the big one.

To continue the boxing theme, we always have: “a puncher's chance” - we can, when Finn Russell tugs on the correct string and the likes of Blair Kinghorn, Darcy Graham or Huw Jones identifies the signal as they should, cut a team to ribbons, but, we don't appear to have the forward power to grind down teams to the extent that we crush them.

The 2025 Scotland back line just might be the best combination we have ever had, but our pack is still a bit lightweight for the modern game. While our beef cattle may provide the finest steaks and Sunday roasts, you don't see Aberdeen Angus, Highland or even those nasty bar stewards Galloway bulls being used in bull-riding competitions on the North American rodeo circuit.

Above, I mentioned English expectations. Well, since some of our top Rugby Union-playing schools – you know who you are, caters to what I call the mainly Edinburgh-based “North British” market – still churning-out the future District Commissioners for an Empire which collapsed 75 years or so ago, I suppose we have to endure a sort of diluted level of expectation around our Rugby team.

Listen, there are guys in the current Scotland squad, good, honest journeymen professionals, who would be nowhere near the international team if they had to try to get selected for some other nations.

We are Avis – trying harder to stay upsides with the much-bigger Hertz; Crosse and Blackwell competing with Heinz, or in sporting terms, Jim McLean's Dundee United - “a corner shop competing with a supermarket.”

OK, at half time on Saturday, we held a 20-point lead, 28-8, at full time that lead had collapsed to six points, 35-29. So, we lost that second-half 7-21. Yes, we scold the team for the poor comparison, but, this is Scotland – I can think of past Scottish teams which would have lost that game.

In Club Rugby, even at the professional level, if you don't have a specialist player of the required ability, you can always go out and buy one. In the International game, while you may be able, in Scotland's case, to mine the exiles diaspora for a Tuipulotu or two, or a White or a Jones; or if you are willing to wait, recruit a van der Merwe or a Schoeman. You can even use the small print of the regulations to recruit a Dempsey.

But, if your Union doesn't have in place a player development pathway which works and enables all the cream to rise to the top, there will be times, when you need full-fat playing squads, that you can only provide skimmed, or at best semi-skimmed, and the recipe will not work.

Gregor Townsend might not be a Gordon Ramsey, far-less a Michel Roux or a member of the Blanc family. He is working with some top-class ingedients, but in a third-rate kitchen and he's got the Michelin inspector coming to assess him next week.

Sacking Toony and putting Franco Smith in-charge might work in the short term, but, the reality is, we need to undertake a complete rerstaurant renovation if we are to get that second Michelin star, far less a third one.

And that will be a very-expensive undertaking, involving the level of management expertise which I do not detect among the upper levels of The Junta currently running Scottish Rugby.

We may not be entirely shite – but we know we are not as good as we need to be and that is sad.

 

Chick Young And Phildelphia Lawyers

THE TERM “Philadelphia Lawyer” has been in the public domain since the 18^th century. Originally it was a term of praise – for the skill and learning of the members of the Philadelphia Bar Association – these days it is something of a term of abuse, for members of the legal profession who are proficient at manipulating the clauses and sub-clauses of laws to their client's advantage.

For the purposes of this post endeavouring to make sense, let's go somewhere in the middle of these two definitions of “Philadelphia Lawyer”, because, on a browse through the world-wide web, using the most-common search engine, while researching this post, I definitely detected the work of several of these ladies and gentlemen from “The City of Brotherly Love.”

Where am I coming from, and where am I going here? I am looking at squaring the circle between having a sufficiently-large squad to cover all eventualities in the professional game, with ensuring that those fringe players are getting sufficient game time at club level to keep them up to speed.

My own feeling is – we are 30 years into Open Rugby Union, and we here in Scotland still have not got it right, and, a big part of that failure is down to too-many clubs and club officials still being wedded to the belief – when it comes to running Scottish Rugby, some things: “have aye been and aye will be.”

Except, things haven't aye been, over the 150-plus years of organised Rugby Union football in Scotland, things have changed an awful lot. At this point, I would commend to the House, the Wikipedia entry on the Scottish Unofficial Championship, which covers the years from 1865 – 1973; it makes interesting reading. What Graham Bean, the current Head of Sport for the paper would give for instance for the power of the man who held that title in the 1870s, when The Scotsman decided which was Scotland's Champion Club.

In time, the Glasgow Herald's man was given his say in the matter, before other journos got to have their opinions accepted. But over the years the Unofficial Championship evolved, from being an Edinburgh-only, then an Edinburgh-Glasgow affair, before those rough Borders types were admitted.

In 1909 the championship was contested by: Edinburgh Academicals, Royal HSFP, Edinburgh Institution FP, Watsonians, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh Wanderers, Stewarts FP & Heriots FP. Glasgow Academicals, Clydesdale, Greenock Wanderers, West of Scotland, Kelvinside Academicals, Glasgow HSFP and Glasgow University and Hawick, Gala, Jed-Forest Melrose, Selkirk, Kelso and Langholm.

Hillhead HSFP joined the championship in 1913–14. The championship was unchanged until 1929 when Dunfermline became the first club from the North and Midlands to be included. The 1930s saw St Andrew's University added to the championship; in 1936–37, Edinburgh Institution FP renamed as Melville College FP, following the school's relocation in 1937–38, and in 1938–39 Hutcheson's GSFP and Allan Glen's FP ascended to the championship with Glen's heading the table in their first season.

The post war years saw Kelvinside and West of Scotland combine until 1950–51 whilst Musselburgh and Aberdeen GSFP were newcomers to the championship. By the middle of the decade Boroughmuir FP had joined the table with Trinity Academicals, Jordanhill and Ayr following in the 1960s. By 1972–73, the final season prior to the introduction of league rugby, Leith Academicals, Broughton FP and Perthshire were recognised as championship clubs.

So, when the SRU bit the bullet and instigated official leagues in season 1973-74 the above were the “Senior” clubs in Scotland, 36 in all. Today, we have 49 so-called “Senior” clubs playing in our National Leagues – down from the 50 at the start of the season by North Berwick's unfortunate withdrawal.

OK, even in 1973 – 52 years ago now, the landscape in Scottish Rugby was a lot different. Back then, we had full internationalists, Lions even, playing regularly in our club leagues, while today, the big names are all playing in fully-professional leagues. Today, 26 of the 36 clubs in the final Unofficial Championship standings are still playing in National Leagues, some as part of amalgamated clubs.

These changes to the landscape have landed us with several questions, which I fear have not, as yet, been properly answered.

For instance, without the big-name internationalists, clearly, the club games is not as attractive to the public and in particular to potential sponsors and the media as it once was. So, why, given the SRU is attempting to sell a less-attractive product, has the governing body allowed that product to expand by 39% in terms of participating clubs?

It is patently obvious:

• we need fewer National Leagues, containing Fewer but Stronger clubs

• we need to codify and impose minimum standards on infrastructure and finance for National League clubs

• we need a third fully-professional club playing in the United Rugby Championship

• we need a proper, strictly-enforced protocol for movement between these clubs and the Premiership clubs, to ensure our professional players are kept match sharp

• we need a better pathway for young talent

• we probably need to have a look at the seasonal calendar

• given how well Cricket has introduced new forms of the game such as 20-twenty and the 100, should we be looking at boosting forms of our game other than 15-a-side

This is where those Philadelphia Lawyers come back into play. We need one or two to re-write the SRU's participation rules. We need strict protocols in place so we can properly grow the game. We need proper CPAs – Collective Participation Agreements – agreed and enforced for each level of the game.

Scottish football used to have three tiers at adult level:

1. The Senior game – which demanded a certain level of club organisation and infrastructure

2. Junior Football – which made lesser demands on the clubs in terms of organisation and infrastructure, and which was organised on a Regional level, but with an over-riding national governing body

3. Amateur Football – again organised on a more-local level, but very-much grass-roots orientated, with most clubs playing on local authority pitches, again with an over-riding national governing body.

The Scottish Football Association had overall governance responsibility, which id devolved to the various other bodies:

• The Scottish League effectively ran the senior game

• The SJFA along with the Highland, East of Scotland and South of Scotland Leagues ran the adult non-league game at a semi-professional level

• The Scottish Amateur FA, along with the other minor bodies – Welfare, Schools, Women, etc ran everything else.

The various boundaries for responsibility may have blurred somewhat over the years, but, it is still the same basic organisation model which is in place. Oh! And the SFA does have one body which the SRU really ought to introduce as a matter of urgency.

This is the Scottish Football Congress, which meets four times per year and has representatives from every level of football in Scotland – even Chick Young, (pictured) is a Congressman, as the representative of the Scottish Football Writers Association.

Re-organise the SRU to be more like the SFA – and yes I know the SFA isn't perfect, but that is down more to the numpties they elect – we might have a game better fitted to the 21^st century.

 

The Team Has Been Named

THERE THEY WERE a good few Rugby Union writers, a significant percentage of the keyboard warriors who post on the various forums, the general consensus being – changes had to be made for the Welsh game. So, what did Toony do? He only picked the squad most intelligent people would have gone with.

I am not going to argue against the team shown below, it should be good enough to handle the Welsh. However, I have already made my fears about this game known, I don't look forward to it. This Welsh team could surprise us.

 

 

And Forward tho' Ah Canna See - Ah Guess And Fear

TODAY'S SERMON begins in a familiar fashion, as I, once again, draw your attention to the continuing veracity of 'Renton's Rant' - “It's shite being Scottish”; (asking, as an aside) – why have I never until I Googled it while writing this post, seen tee-shirts or hoodies shouting what ought surely to be our national motto, should we ever grow the balls to ditch the wankers who have colonised us. I am convinced “It's Shite Being Scottish” tee-shirts should sell in their thousands.

I am just about over the way officiating mistakes cost us possession of the Calcutta Cup last month. OK, we didn't play well, but, still did enough to beat an England team that was as shite as we were, before a TMP howler and a referee howler tipped the balance their way. That said, not for the first time, the Scottish team forgot Jock Stein's Second Law of Team Management: “Don't give the referee a chance to make a decision which will hurt you” - a Law often shortened to: “Control the Controlables” - something we are not currently good at.

Now we move on to attempt to side-step the banana skin which is a Wales team which has forgotten how to win. I am worried about this one, because this year is the 70^th anniversary of “Arthur Smith's Match” - which was played on 5 February, 1955.

Wales, backed as ever by a huge Red Army, arrived on the back of a 3-0 Cardiff win over England - a penalty goal being the highlight of a game played on a mud-bath of a ploughed field, not uncommon back then. Scotland had lost 0-15 in Paris, their 17^th straight defeat in a run going back to 1951.

Wales went ahead early-on through an unconverted try from London Welsh winger Trevor Brewer, gathering what today we might call a Finn Russell-style kick pass from Cliff Morgan, for an unconverted try' the only score of the first half.

With the Scottish pack upping their work rate in the second half, the game turned on a moment of magic, which perhaps defined a career. Hawick's Adam Robson fed debutant winger Smith, who ran some 30 metres into the Welsh half, shrugging-off two would-be tacklers, punted the ball over full-back Edwards, then, hacked-on to touch down in the corner for one of the great Murrayfield solo tries.

A dropped goal from Glasgow High's JT Docherty put Scotland in front, before South African-Scot Kim Elgie stretched their lead with a penalty goal. Brewer's second try, converted by Neath's Rees Stevens, made it a one-point game. But Scotland would not be denied and another of their four debutants, Royal High School FP scrum-half JA Nichol, pounced on the loose ball after Rees Willis missed Morgan with a hurried pass from a scrum, for the clinching try, converted by Elgie for a glorious victory to end the long list of defeats.

Now, I sincerely hope I am maybe being too-Scottish here, but, 70 years on, might we see another long losing run ended? At least, Scotland got a bit of a wake-up call on the weekend just passed, when an unrated Ospreys ended Glasgow's long unbeaten home run in the BKT United Rugby Championship. Might lightning strike twice on successive Satiurdays?

I do feel the fates have conspired against us. In the 1955 Calcutta Cup game, Gala's Tom Elliot was denied what appeared to be a clear try under the sticks – Scotland lost. Seventy years on, his grandson, Fin Smith, scores the match-winning penalty for England with a penalty which no Scot will tell you should ever have been awarded. I do not have a good feeling about Saturday's upcoming game.

FINALLY – The Observer/Guardian online has an interesting piece, by Michael Aylwin, on the latest shuffling of the Law Book deck chairs by World Rugby.

The recent annual tinkering with the tablets of stone by WR has done the game little good, and in fact a lot of harm, all in the interests of speeding-up and making the game more attractive.

The piece is an interesting read, but, for me, the paragraph which really hits home is a quote from Brian O'Driscoll, who said: “In the modern game, everyone is going to get sent off.”

I can only say, I fully endorse Aylwin's take on that quote: “What a desperate place for a sport to find itself in.”

 

Suffering On Sunday

PERHAPS THE VENUE – Cork rather than Thomond Park, was an issue. It might have been the absence of the likes of the hard-edged O'Mahony, or the absence of passion from the terraces, but the Munster side who tamely surrendered to a fired-up Edinburgh on Friday night was by some distance, short of what you expect from Rugby Union's Red Army – more curl-up and sleep than Stand Up and Fight.

This state of affairs suited Edinburgh who, on the back of a great lead from their back row in the open exchanges and absolute scrum dominance in the tight ones, scored ther sort of victory on foreign soil which, in some other sports, would lead to a Steward's Enquiry. When he receives the video over in New Zealand, the incoming Head Coach, Clayton McMillan might well be wondering what he is getting himself into.

If the game was a Cork Catastrophe for the home side, it was just the tonic the visitors needed after recent reverses. Now comes the hard part – they will have to build on this over the remaining weeks of the season. Head Coach Sean Everitt will be a relieved man as he reviews the game; his men stood up to be counted.

When last did a Scottish pack cause an Irish one to spend so-much time in reverse gear? Every time a scrum was called, you feared for Munster. Off Front-foot ball, and on the end of Ben Vellacott's slick service, Ross Thompson was a man reborn, confident, seemingly with minutes of time to distribute and get his team going forward. It was a terrific watch.

Of course, consistency has not hitherto this season been a factor in the Edinburgh campaign, now they have shown what they are capable of, they have set a fairly high benchmark to live up to, maintaining this level of performance will now be expected of them. Professional sport truly is a results-driven business.

GLASGOW'S LATE LOSS to Ospreys was the other side of the coin, a clear case of Warriors not avoiding an obvious banana skin. OK, injuries and international calls meant, in some cases Warriors were down to third and fourth-choices and, with everyone fit and available, hardly any of that XV would have been on the field, but, in the final analysis, this was a case of three points dropped.

It was the old story of Scottish professional Rugby Union – basic mistakes and an inability to deliver under pressure costing us dearly. No harm to Sean Kennedy, who has had very-little rugby and is clearly now, to amend George Plimpton's great line from his book 'Paper Lion' - “Warriors' Last-Gasp Half-Back”, but, you expect a 30-year-old scrum-half of his experience to be able to get the ball off the park to end a game.

Yes, the pre-ordained attacking moves which the Warriors' backs practice work very well with “Shuggiepulotu” and “TJ and Staff” running things; they don't work as well with the lesser lights running them. Justin Tiporic may be in the closing weeks of his farewell tour, but, he remains a class act, a wee bit above the guys Glasgow – with all due respect to Henco Venter – had against him. He gave a great lead to an Ospreys team who defended brilliantly and, when given the chance, showed that reports of the death of Welsh Rugby are premature.

Yes it was a disappointing result, but Warriors did a fair job in damage limitation. Unless you are Leinster it is always difficult to navigate a season-long campaign without the odd stumble, so, I feel Franco Smith will brood for a couple of days, then move on, so should we.

ONE OR TWO issues around club rugby were resolved at the weekend, but, for me, the important news was North Berwick's decision to withdraw from Arnold Clark National League 4.

I have been saying for years, We have too-many National Leagues. I appreciate this is heresy in certain club-houses, where “Establishment Clubs” who have, for decades, been cannon fodder for the big guns, will baulk at the notion of being relegated to Regional Leagues.

Listen, if clubs with the rich heritage of such as Langholm, Royal High and West of Scotland can drop into the lower leagues and carry-on, well, that's the reality which some other fading powers ought to embrace.

I might sound like a Dodson Apologist here, but, perhaps there is something to be said for: “Fewer but Stronger”. The drive and organisation it takes to mount a campaign in the Arnold Clark Premiership is a lot different from that required just to keep the lights on in a grass-roots club.

Wihout leaving my native East Ayrshire – I can tell you, Kilmarnock FC is a different beast from Auchinleck Talbot, my own Lugar Boswell Thistle, or even Drongan Amateurs. Different strokes for different folks – I say again, The Scottish Rugby Union could, in running the club game, take some lessons from The Scottish Football Association.

Similarly, Ayr, Ardrossan Accies and Cumnock RFCs are on different courses.