Play Up And Play The Game

BACK IN my Salad Days, more than half a century ago, we took our Rugby every bit as seriously as today's club players do, but, I think we had a more nuanced and balanced approach.

We knew the boundaries of our season. XV-a-side Rugby Union began on 1 September, and ended on 30 April. VII-a-side play was allowed outwith these dates. Prior to 1973, apart from The Border League, what league play there was was organised in a more haphazard manner. The Unofficial, Newspaper Championship was contested by clubs which had the backing of the Sports Editors of The Glasgow Herald and The Scotsman.

Entry to the Championship was, according to one Murrayfield Alickadoo: “on the whims of the two Sports Editors” but, seemingly, once you had a certain number of fixtures against sides already in – so was your club. From memory, I think it required 16 Championship Clubs' fixtures to be admitted.

The club which won that Championship won it on having the best percentage of games won. For instance, the last Unofficial League table I could find in the Glasgow Herald Google News Archive, from their 2 April, 1973 edition, listed 32 teams, in the following descending order:

• Boroughmuir: p 23 : w 21 : d 1 : l 1 – 93% wins

• Gala: p 25 : w 22 : d 0 : l 3 – 88% wins

• Hawick: p 23 : w 19 : d 2 : l 2 – 86% wins

• Langholm: p 21 : w 17 : d 2 : l 2 – 85% wins

• Jordanhill College: p 20 : w 16 : d 1 : l 3 – 82% wins

• Edinburgh Wanderers: p 22 : w 16 : d 0 : l 6 – 72% wins

• Watsonians: p 22 : w 16 : d 0 : l 6 – 72% wins

• West of Scotland: p 19 : w 12 : d 1 : l 6 – 65% wins

• Dunfermline: p 22 : w 14 : d 0 : l 8 – 63% wins

• Gordonians : p 13 : w 8 : d 0 : l 5 – 61% wins

• Melrose: p 26 : w 16 : d 0 : l 10 – 61% wins

• Leith Academicals: p 23 : w 13 : d 2 : l 8 – 60% wins

• Glasgow High School FP: p 25 : w 15 : d 1 : l9 – 60% wins

• Ayr: p 20 : w 12 : d 0 : l 8 – 60% wins

• Glasgow Academicals: p 22 : w 11 : d 0 : l 11 – 50% wins

• Hillhead High School FP: p 22 : w 10 : d 2 : l10 – 50% wins

• Selkirk: p 24 : w 10 : d 2 : l 12 – 45% wins

• Kelso: p 27 : w 12 : d 0 : l 15 – 44% wins

• Edinburgh Academicals: p 26 : w 10 : d 1 : l 15 – 40% wins

• Trinity Academicals: p 25 : w 10 : d 0 : l 15 – 40% wins

• Hutcheson's Grammar School FP: p 19 : w 7 : d 0 : l 12 – 36% wins

• Jedforest: p 22 : w 8 : d 0 : l 14 – 36% wins

• Broughton FP: p 15 : w 5 : d 0 : l 10 – 33% wins

• Heriot's FP: p 24 : w 7 : d 1 : l 16 – 31% wins

• Musselburgh: p 24 : w 6 : d 2 : l 16 – 29% wins

• Perthshire: p 12 : w 3 : d 0 : l 9 – 25% wins

• Aberdeen Grammar School FP: p 17 : w 4 : d 0 : l 13 – 23% wins

• Royal High School FP: p 26 : w 6 : d 0 : l 20 – 23% wins

• Kelvinside Academicals: p 19 : w 3 : d 0 : l 16 – 15% wins

• Edinburgh University: p 18 : w 2 : d 1 : l 15 – 14% wins

• Stewart's College FP: p 24 : w 3 : d 0 : l 21 – 12% wins

• Glasgow University: p 20 : w 1 : d 1 : l 18 – 5% wins

Those 32 clubs were distributed across Scotland thus:

• Edinburgh – 12 clubs

• Glasgow and the West – 9 clubs

• North and Midlands – 4 clubs

• South – 7 clubs

The busiest club was Kelso, who played 27 fixtures, the quietest club was Perthshire, who only played 12 Unofficial Championship games. The average number of league games across the 32 clubs was 21 games.

This season, the top 32 clubs in the National Leagues, are distributed as follows:

• Edinburgh – 8 clubs

• Glasgow and West – 10

• North and Midlands – 7 clubs

• South – 7 clubs

Each club will play 18 league matches this season.

Back then we also had auxiliary competitions: The Glasgow Knock-Out Cup, several County Cups, in April we had – as well as the Borders Sports – still going via the Kings of the Sevens circuit, well-supported local sevens circuits at different levels across each of the Districts.

We had, in September, October, March and April, lots of midweek games; that's when the likes of the Glasgow Knock-Out and the County Cups were played. Back then, Rugby Union was a players' game, organised so that young men could burn-off excess energy playing – what has happened to this worthy idea?

Here's an idea for the SRU's Club Rugby Board: why don't you sort out the so-called professionals inside the Murrayfield Bubble to enable the clubs to provide Rugby Union for players? Get the people who matter – the players – back doing what they ought to: and play the game.

 

News, Lies And Pure Pish

BACK WHEN I were nowtburralad, life was simple, even in the world of journalism. Whether you believe it was first said by:

1. The Journal of the Institute of Journalists in 1918

2. Lord Northcliffe (Arnold Harmsworth) in 1953

3. William Randolph Hearst – date unspecified

4. George Orwell – again, date unspecified

Everyone believed (and again the actual words quoted might differ):

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed, everything else is advertising.”

We old “Hot Metal Men” - active in the so-called Golden Age of Journalism, we understood the nuances of this and we could tell the diffeence between Journalism and Advertising. However, that was then and this is now; these days, much of what passes for Journalism or even News is often simply cut and pasted re-hashed press releases – i.e. advertising generated by the advertisers.

Worse than this, however, in my view, is the blurring of the lines between two distinct fields of Journalism – News and Opinion.

Ignore the News/Advertising stuff – News/Opinion is more-concerning these days. You might think it was obvious: a News story is a factual description of what has happened – for example, the Chief Executive of a major political party has embezeled several hundred million pounds from that party. Your story lays out the facts of the case, plus the fact he has chosen to plead guilty to the offence.

That's the news story, anything else, such as speculation as to why he did it, conjecture as to who, if anyone else, was involved – that's the Opinion of the journalist writing the piece. Unfortunately, the distinction between the two different stories – News/Opinion - has become increasingly blurred.

But, even more of a concern in this year of 2026 is the promotion and distribution of what dear old Donald J Trump calls “Fake News”. I've got another expression for it - “Pure Pish” - the sort of stories you see increasingly in the Blogsphere or Social Media such as Facebook.

The trouble is, it is becoming more and more difficult to differentiate between genuine news and the fake variety, particularly since, quite often it is the mainstream media that is pushing the rubbish. It's increasingly a case of, you read a story, which appears to be pish, but, which outlet do you trust to tell you definitely, either this is genuine hard news, or this is pish?

For instance, some of the absolute garbage which has appeared on platforms such as Facebook, in the wake of Leinster beating DHL Stormers in the BKT United Rugby Championship semi-finals last weekend has been almost beyond belief. In particular the criticism from south of the Limpopo of match referee Hollie Davidson, after she yellow-carded two Stormers.

Now, reviewing the incidents, both in real time and after watching again the match highlights, I would say Hollie got one thing wrong – she yellow-carded Ruan Ackerman and referred the decision to the FPRO – The Foul Play Review Officer, who decided Ackerman's offence merited upgrading to a red card.

Hollie, sorry to criticise you, but, that challenge was a straight red card every day of the week.

Now, a week on from that incident, and the subsequent yellow-carding of The Stormers' captain, you open Facebook and you discover, Hollie has apparently apologised for getting these decisions wrong and the URC are taking action.

A visit to the official URC website quickly reveals absolutely no mention of any apology from the referee or any action over the incidents by the league – in other words, the story is pure pish. So, why write it and, more-importantly, why did Facebook publish it?

But, this is not an isolated incident. There are reams of stories published on social media which purport to be News, but are actually pish, the product of fevered minds with a craving for attention.

I publish a lot of opinion pieces on here, I admit that. Those pieces are my opinion and if you disagree with me, feel free to comment. However, when I do publish a News item, I make sure of my sources and, as far as possible, I attempt to get correct provenance for the story – that's years of training and experience.

A lot of the social media pish I see lacks that provenance.

Mind you, in Scottish Rugby, whether it be the official SRU communications department, or these departments at the professional clubs, or the volunteers carrying out media/pr duties at the clubs, there is not a lot of professionalism to be seen. And, where there is an obvious gap in knowledge and how that knowledge is transferred to the general public – well, shite happens.

That's the sad fact of life around our game today – our story is not being told as honestly or as well as it should be.

 

Here's Tae Us - Wha's Like Us

“WHIT'S FUR YE'LL no go bye ye” is an old Scots saying with which we are all familiar. “Aye right!” is anothr familiar part of life in God's Country. The two contrasting sayings are perhaps the tale of half-time at Murrayfield on Saturday.

Because, at that point in proceedings, it was odds-on that Glasgow Warriors would be enjoying home advantage, back at Murrayfield, in the BKT United Rugby Championship Grand Final in two weeks' time. However, if you've been covering various Scottish sporting endeavours for as long as I have, you always, at the back of your mind, wonder: “which method of losing from a winning position will we use this time.”

That's long been a Scottish speciality and the way Glasgow lost their way and the match in the second half was just another verse in an auld Scots sang.

However, before I go any further, let me pay fulsome tribute to the victorious Bulls. Whatever was said in the visitors' dressing room at half time clearly worked, the Clunking, disjointed Bulls of the first half was replaced by a much-more focussed and united team, with whom Warriors could not cope.

A one-point win for Bulls actually flatters Warriors. If Handre Pollard had maintained his normal scoring percentage off the tee, then the game would have been won well before the final whistle. In the end, this was the ultimate game of two halves and proof positive: It's not how you start, but how you finish, if you wanna be the cream of the crop.”

I might add at this point, I thought Bulls, in the second half, played Referee Andrew Brace a lot better than Warriors did. Now Andy has had some shockers in Glasgow games, however, to be fair to him, I feel he is one of the most-improved referees in the game over the last two or three years. He still leaves you scratching you heads at some of his decisions, but, in the second period, Bulls were closer to being on Andy's wavelength than Warriors were.

There's another factor in play; over many year of covering Scottish clubs in various sports in big games, I've seen a lot of games in which the Scottish team has been cruising at half time, only to collapse in the second half. It's a national weakness – there is – too often - something missing from those crucial six or so inches between a sporting Scotsman's ears.

We saw this again on Saturday night, when, 4-0 ahead at half-time, our Fitba team couldn't add to their tally against a piss-poor Bolivia team.

I end this segment, as I started, with a bit of home-spun Caledonian philosophy: “Here's ta us – wha's like us?”

LEINSTER IS still the team to beat in the URC. They will have home advantage, albeit at Croke Park, against the Bulls, after beating Stormers in the second semi-final.

I had to laugh at the South African response on social media, with oor ain Hollie Davidson not exactly flavour of the month south of the Limpopo, after dishing out a couple of second half yellow cards to the team from Cape Town.

I must, for once, take Hollie to task for one of these yellow cards, the one, subsequently upgraded to red by the review system, awarded to Ruan Ackerman, to me, that was always a straight red card, but, it seems referees are becoming more unwilling to issue straight reds, prefering to utilise the safety valve of the bunker review system.

The Dubliners, with home advantage, will start as firm favourites, but, as we saw yesterday, these Bulls are dangerous animals.

 

Keep On Dreaming

THE DREAM lives on – this just might be Glasgow's year in the BKT United Rugby Championship, following the impressive manner in which they clinched a Murrayfield semi-final by beating Connacht – the form team of the competition – at Scotstoun on Friday night.

I have a lot of time for Connacht Coach Stuart Lancaster, who is clearly one of the top men in his craft in the world. What he has done in Galway is nothing short of miraculous, how fortunate were the rest of us in the Six Nations that he was working under the 57 Old Farts of the RFU when he was England coach, for instance.

No Lancaster-coached team will be easy opponents and the visitors played their full part in what turned into a classic game in front of a full-house Scotstoun. But, even when under the cosh, Glasgow always demonstrated why they topped the table over the regular season and in the end won well.

Kyle Steyn led from the front and the skipper deservedly accepted the Man of the Match medal at the end. Yes, he took his brace of tries with typical elan, conjoured-up an unexpected but crucial 50-22, but, his best moment was surely his recovery chase and try-saving tackle on Josh Ioane, late in the first half. Some 50 years ago, I watched the young David Ashton turn and haul-in the flying Dave Shedden in an Ayr v West game, Steyn's recovery of Ioane is the best try-saver I have seen since.

Although he didn't make it onto the MoM short list, I thought Scott Cummings showed his class. Thrust straight back into action for the first time since the Six Nations, the big Lion not only ran the lines-out brilliantly, he carried with vigour and posted some impressive post-collision metres. He also pulled-out another marvellous game from young Alex Samuel, before being replaced by another young gun – Jare Obuntibeju – who topped off his cameo with a great solo try from ruck ball.

The one v one between Sione Tuipulotu and Bundi Aki was also worth the admission money, but, across the park, Glasgow just had too-much star quality for their visitors and in the end, that made the difference.

A word too for referee Adam Jones and his team. They got the big calls correct, which didn't always go down well with the partisan home crowd – who at times felt the apparent in-built pro-Celtic bias of TMO/VAR interventions in the city worked in favour of Connacht!!!

LUNCH TIME on Saturday was another case of decisions, decisions – do I stick with the Bulls v Munster match, to find out which team will oppose Warriors at Murrayfield on Saturday; or, did I check-out early to watch the Scottish Fitba team's Hampden farewell, pre-World Cup, against Curacao?

A couple of tries just before half-time settled the issue for me. After those two tries for the Bulls, I could see no way back for Munster, so I could safely watch the Fitba.

Mind you, I always fancied it would be the Bulls who would be heading for HQ. They don't lose too often in Pretoria. Be under no illusions, the Bulls will cause Warriors problems and will be hard to beat. That said, and without in any way under-estimating them, I feel they are less likely to upset Warriors than Munster might have.

ON THE OTHER side of the URC play-downs, it all went with form, Stormers getting the better of Cardiff and Leinster putting the Lions to the sword to guarantee home advantage against the Stormers in the other semi-final and ensure the top four teams at the end of the regular season have reached the last four.

The challenge this week is for the SRU and the Warriors' staff to put as many bums on seats as possible at Murrayfield on Saturday. I have never bought into this rubbish about a crowd being a 16^th man, but it will give the Warriors' squad a real lift if they hear a real ground swell of support when they need it.

Let's have HQ more than half-full this week-end, so we can build for an even-greater attendance for the final there.

 

Weegies Don't Do No Surrender

I DOUBT if many of the Warrior Nation, in Belfast in numbers on Friday night were surprised at the defensive effort of Ulster in the first half – in the Warriors' world we know all about “No Surrender” and doughty defence. We certainly saw ample evidence of this aspect of life in the province during that first half.

Then in the second half, the Irish side came more into the game and Glasgow's much-vaunted defensive systems were given a serious work-out before, right at the death, as good teams do, Warriors found a way to win a difficult match.

It was their first victory over Ulster at Ravenhill for 13 years; they deserved to win and it is a sign of just what a good team Franco Smith has built at Scotstoun, that, on a night when they perhaps only hit 90%, against commited opponents, they found a way to get the job done.

With their pack on top throughout, the Glasgow backs got plenty of chances to run at Ulster, but their attacks foundered on some of the best defence I have seen for some time. However, Glasgow didn't panic and in the end they got their reward.

They now know, they will have home advantage in every knock-out game, although, if we can avoid Coach Smith's one game at a time mantra and look, hopefully, towards the Grand Final – we still don't know where that game, should it happen for Warriors, will be held.

OPTING TO watch the Ulster v Glasgow game and leave the Edinburgh v Connacht meeting until Premier Sport replayed it on Saturday morning was a no-brainer. This was one I never fancied Edinburgh to win and my pre-game forecast proved correct.

The match was effectively over, with the Irish visitors leading 19-0 at half-time. OK, the second half was a lot closer, but, again, Edinburgh disappointed. A final comment on this game: Aimee Barrett-Theron is no Hollie Davidson.

The BTL comments below Stuart Bathgate's TOL match report made interesting reading. It's almost as if the Edinburgh faithful are now used to mediocrity and can see no end to their disappointment. A serious reboot is called for next season.

CONNACHT'S PRIZE for their win at The Hive is another trip to Scotland, on Friday week, when they will pitch up at Scotstoun to meet Warriors in the quarter-final.

The Warriors medical staff are going to be busy over the next ten days or so, the Glasgow side are carrying a fairly-hefty injury list at the moment and they need to get some big names closer to full fitness before the match. One of the TNT Sports Prem cheerleaders came away with a rare shaft of intelligence over the weekend: the suggestion that - with the attritional nature of professional Rugby Union in the 21^st century, at this time of the season, just about every player is carrying some type, however slight, of injury. The quarter-final may come down to survival of the fittest.

Connacht will be no pushover, however, every club which has navigated those 18 rounds of regular season play to reach the knock-out phase of the League, has to treated as a threat and Franco and the players will know what is coming. With Warriors' home record, you have to fancy their chances.

The other quarter-finals will be equally hard-fought, they are:

• Vodacom Bulls v Munster – at Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria

• DHL Stormers v Cardiff – in Cape Town

• Leinster v The Lions – Aviva Stadium, Dublin

Now, the season gets interesting.

IF – AND IT'S a big IF – Glasgow get through their next two games safely, they will have home advantage in the BKT Unitd Rugby Championship Grand Final. Except they will not.

Scotstoun was never big enough for such a game, that's a given. So what alternatives are there? For various reasons, none of the three big Glasgow football grounds could take the game. Not a problem, there's always Murrayfield, which is a second home to the team. Except, the National Stadium will not be available that weekend, as it will be in use for a cash-generating pop concert.

Now this has got the usual suspects in the Scottish Rugby up in arms. “Disgusted of Stockbridge” and the like will be fulminating against the unavailability of the ground, totally denying the fact, the SRU is trying to fight its way out of a bit of a financial black hole and the income generated by such off-season concerts goes a long way towards offsetting the losses sustained via trying to run professional Rugby Union in a nation obsesses with the round ball form of Football.

The sad fact is, there are only four sports grounds in Scotland capable of hosting a major match of this standing and for various reasons, none is available on the set date. That's what happens when you play what is regarded as a second rate game, in a colony, administered by third or fourth rate politicians and sports administrators. That's life folks.

 

Another Win For The Glasgow Globetrotters

THERE IS an awful lot of bullshit spoken or written when it comes to Sport – perhaps the best example being that Olympic Games creed: “The glory is not in winning but in having taken part.”

These noble words are immediately undercut by the Olympic motto: “Citius – Altius – Fortius” = “Faster – Higher – Stronger” which rather assumes, instead of simply taking part, you have to push yourself to beat your personal best and hopefully everyone else.

Sport is all about winning, particularly in professional sport. With most teams a win is a win, however it is achieved, but, there are other teams where the objective is to win with style and panache. In winning, that team is expected to lift their fans and everyone else, by showing additional elan and panache while going about their business.

Cardiff RFC is one such club – their distinguished history, particularly during the Amateur Era, demands that they put on a bit of a show whenever they take the field. Glasgow Warriors do not – as yet – have that burden of expectation on them, but, under Franco Smith, they are starting to forge a reputation for entertainment to the extent television talking heads, ok, not the most self-aware creatures on earth, do not feel embarrassed at dubbing them: “The Glasgow Globetrotters.”

So, when Cardiff ran out at Scotstoun on Friday night, there were great expectations of an entertaining 80 minutes or so – and, to the delight of the fans, both teams obliged.

Whatever else happens, the basic gospel of Rugby Union applies: “Forwards win matches, backs decide by how much”. The Glasgow pack which took the field on Friday night might not have been the club's strongest – the absence of the likes of British Lions Gregor Brown and Scott Cummings makes that obvious; however, the pack which did play was good enough to win the forward fight and give the talented Glasgow backs the foundations to win the game.

From the get-go, both sides sought to move the ball into the wider areas whenever possible. This made for an entrtaining match, but, behind the scrum, Glasgow had the brighter lights – the outstanding George Horne, Dan Lancaster, Kyle Steyn, Kyle Rowe with, for added enjoyment, a late cameo off the bench from Ollie Smith.

The bonus point win kept Warriors at the top of the BKT United Rugby Championship “log” - they are now guaranteed a top four finish, a home quarter-final at least. Winning their final game, against Ulster in Belfast will not be easy, but, the Ulstermen do have a Challenge Cup Final coming up and a lengthy injury list. They currently lie eighth in the standings, just ahead of Connacht, so cannot take it easy on the night.

The fact that the vagaries of the fixture list has thrown-up two crucial cross-channel matches in the round: while Glasgow go to Belfast, Connacht head for Edinburgh, addes picquancy to the round.

SPEAKING OF the capital side, that was an uplifting victory over the Dragons, in Newport on Saturday night. Given their up and down form this season, this was the sort of fixture from which you expected little of Edinburgh earlier this season.

However, they maintained their late season form by securing a third straight win, at a ground where they have folded in the past. It wasn't easy, at times it was “clunky” but, they got the job done.

The half-back pairing of young Harry Patterson and Ross Thompson gelled well, the returning Duhan van der Merwe did what he does – give him the ball and a metre of space and he will score. But, for me, the late career flowering of Grant Gilchrist has had a highly-positive effect on his club over these three wins.

The onus is now on Edinburgh to sign-off a disappointing season in style by beating Connacht in their final game. This is a challenge which has implications for Scottish more than Edinburgh Rugby culture.

I WATCHED Bristol v Saracens on TV on Saturday. A little-discussed one v one in the game was the clash of the tens: Fergus Burke for Sarries and Tom Jordan for the Bears. These two are vying for the understudy role to MacMessi in the national team, and their head-to-head was one of the highlights of an entertaining game.

I felt, on the day, playing behind the dominant pack and on the end of young Charlie Bracken's slick service, Burke took the honours, but, both produced quality performances.

It was good, too, to see Robbie Smith starting at hooker for Northampton in the East Midlands Derby, where Leicester's Nicky Smith won the Mince for Brains award on the day by having a go at Robbie early-on.

Acting stupidly with a Galloway Irishman – not a wise move, one which sparked-off a spirited spell of handbags and proved to many – props wear their Iqs on their backs.

Still in the over-hyped Prem, I seldom miss a Finn Russell performance, but, having watched his last two or three club games, I do feel MacMessi would benefit from a lengthy break. It will not happen, of course, but I feel, right now, he is running on fumes – although that still makes him a very-good player.

 

Eet Is All Appening In France

THE BIG NEWS in Scottish Rugby this week is the return of Jamie Ritchie from France. The talk o' the steamie is that, at the end of the season, he will swap Perpignan for Glasgow. This, should it happen, will be a major coup for Glasgow. I am not surprised, I was tipped off that it was happening a few weeks ago, by a friend with little more than a passing relationship with Rugby, but, a son who is aparently on very-good terms with Jamie.

However, the real stooshie from the weekend came from elsewhere in France, with our southern neighbours more than a little perturbed at what they saw as French frolics in the match between UBB and Bath. Leading the charge of unfairness, aimed at the French TV director, are Lawrence Dallaglio and Andy Goode.

From where I am sitting, I always wonder how The Italian Gelding – as I refer to Big Loll – still gets TV time. For me, he should have been kicked into the long grass alongside Inverdale and Woodward. Goode, I have a wee bit more time for, he does a good job when on URC duty alongside oor ain Barclay-Wilson Friday night double act. However, like many otherwise good English talking heads – David Flatman, Austin Healey, when put on a game featuring an English team, he reverts to being a fan with a microphone, convinced the sterling English Yeomen can do no wrong.

OK, suppose the French TV director did keep under wraps camera angles which might reflect badly on a French side – that's not a uniquely French attitude; I've watched the English edit of the 1967 England v Scotland football match at Wembley – the one we won 3-2 going on 6-2.

We played them off the park that day, but, if you view the BBC England highlights package, it comes across as us being the jammiest team on Earth to have won. TV directors and editors can easily turn fact into fiction.

The answer is to have, as happens in properly-financed leagues such as the NFL, a television stream independent of that going out to the general public, under the control of the governing body and linked directly to the TMO. This feed, and only this feed, would be used for those incidents where the TMO gets called-in. Bring this in and no domestic director could mess about with the neutrality of the match officials.

Mind you, there is another area where the NFL's in-house TV feed differs from how we do things in Rugby. They have a central point of reference, one studio covering all games, and, the replays are in real time – none of these super-slow-motion replays which can distort reality.

Any way, UBB won and won well. I had to laugh reading The Guardian's below the line comments from readers on the game. The usual English suspects were keen to blame Finn Russell for Bath losing. OK, MacMessi didn't have one of his best games; this was a solid 7/7.5-10 performance, but, on the day, with Bath losing the forward battle and UBB coming up on him quickly, not even Finn could control matters, although he did produce his usual handful of wonderful moments.

I HAVE been getting some flak from elsewhere in Ayrshire, for waxing lyrical on Ayr's double, achievded on Super Saturday, while ignoring Carrick's win in the National Shield.

I am now prepared to say congratulations to the Minnieboolers on their well-deserved success. I was involved in starting Rugby in the Capital of Carrick, when I lived there during the early years of my marriage. The late Roy Alexander, a fellow Cumnock Academical was Head of PE at Carrick Academy at the time and I helped him introduce the game at the school.

This was a few years before the Carrick club was formed, with another old Academy team mate – Ian McClung – playing a prominent role in the early days. They have come a long way down there in Carrick and it was such a pity that they could not back-up their Shield win by also winning West Division One, being pipped to the title by Lenzie.

Still, Carrick are going in the right direction, while my old club Cumnock are heading in the opposite one, relegated out of West One. It's a fair scunner.

BOTH IN FOOTBALL and in Rugby, I've been on the wrong end of some hammerings, but, I don't think I ever suffered a 100 points thumping. So, all I can say to the girls of the Scotland Under-21 team, who were thrashed 0-113 by France at the weekend is, sorry girls, you just have to suck it up and hopefully learn from this chastening experience.

I honestly feel forry for our women players, because I genuinely feel, there is a lasting institutional feeling inside the Murrayfield bubble that Rugby really isn't a game for girls. You see this in the way a lot of women's teams have to struggle to get an even break at their clubs. We really need to have a good, hard look at how we run the women's game in Scotland.

Speaking of Women's Rugby, I see World Rugby is introducing a smaller size 4.5 ball into international women's games later this year. This is a move I have long advocated, however, as ever when change is mooted, some women players are against the move.

Time will tell, but, I hope it works.