Reflecting On a Couple Of Guardian Articles

WELL – WHATEVER happens, we cannot say we have not been warned. As I write this, three days out from the match, it is already clear England will be going back to the tactic they have preferred to use against us upstart Jocks for at least the last 800 years. Their Rugby team is going to over power us. Yer Sassenach doesn't do subtlety, it's all about th heavy roller for him, charging over the top of us at every opportunity.

Fair enough, the tactic has worked often enough in the past, but, when it doesn't, or when we've got a united team under a tactical genius or geniuses and with one or two playing geniuses at the sharp end: (Sir William Wallace, King Robert Bruce, Jimmy McMullan, Jim Baxter and Denis Law, Sir Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer, Gregor Townsend and Fin Russell) we are more than capable of sending the invaders homeward to think again.

In this week's Guardian, Gerard Meagher waxes lyrical about the Steve Borthwick plan to unleash his power players – Manu Tuilagi, and Ollie Lawrence at the Scottish midfield – backed-up by some hard-carrying forwards.

Now this Sassenach obsession with Tuilagi amazes me, the guy's been over the hill and injury-prone longer than Sir Andy Murray; but, while Andy keeps on playing, because it's what he wants to do, Manu appears to be kept going by being the comfort blanket English rugby feels it needs.

But elsewhere in the same paper, this week's edition of The Breakdown – The Guardian's weekly rugby blog, sees Robert Kitson waxing lyrical about the bright new dawn for the game In England, if only they can get the talent pathway correct.

On that subject, there could be some interesting chat in the posh seats at Murrayfield on Saturday. Because Conor O'Shea The RFU's Director of Performance, is swithering over finding a solution to the problems facing The Championship – the second tier of club rugby down there.

Next month looks like being a seminal month for northern hemisphere rugby. The RFU a bady which usually alters course more-slowly than Titanic ever failed to do, has given itself until the end of that month to sort out its problems around the structure of the game. In Wales, they are trying to strong-arm Cardiff into taking the tenth spot in their new Elite Domestic Competition – while damping down the fires of uprising in West Wales, and, up here, the great brains of The Junta are trying to clear the thistlew and brambles and give us a workable performance pathway.

Kitson's piece may not be perfect, and I can see club self-interest doing its best to stymie meaningful change – it is ever thus in the game; but, one particular sentence in the piece, jumped out at me – this:

As O'Shea rightly observes, the first rule of elite player development is sacrosanct: they have to play.

That has been the problem with elite player development in Scotland for years – the way the best young talent appears to spend more time in the gym than on the park, and, when they are on the park, they are too-often playing at the wrong level.

Coaches are brought up in a competitive environment, when winning is everything, so, at an age and in a competition such as Super Rugby, which was more about player development than winning the thing, clubs and coaches prefered to select more-experienced players, than to trust in youth, and to give that youth a chance to develop. The Hansen Doctrine: “You win nothing with kids”- is set in stone in British team sports.

Of course, the elephant in the room in these here British Isles is this – the only area of Rugby Union which can make money is the international game. That's the only part which can consistently pull-in big enough crowd to generate real cash. If the four Unions want to garner enough income to fund the wider game, then they have to do it via the international games – the Guinness Six Nations and the Autumn Internationals. So, they have nine or ten matches per year from which to accrue enough money to remain afloat. Actually, that number is six or seven, since it's only the home games that generate income.

The club game comes a poor second to football when it comes to attracting crowds, so it can be argued, full-time, professional rugby is a non-starter here, requiring, as in the three Celtic Unions, massive central funding, or as in the failing English model – well-heeled “sugar daddies” to underwrite the individual club losses.

Even here, only Ireland seems to have squared the circle, which perhaps has something to do with the often overlooked fact: there are only five full-time professional sports teams in the island of Ireland – the four BKT United Rugby Championship teams and the Belfast Giants ice hockey team.

The GAA sports, Gaelic Football and Hurling are arguably more-popular, but, are worn into the fabric of Irish society and are amateur, while soccer in Ireland is at best part-time, although it has to be admitted, a good number of fanatics make the weekly trip to Great Britain, to support the likes of Celtic, Liverpool, Manchester United and Rangers.

A history lesson. The (English) Football Association was formed in 1863; international football began in 1872, professionalism was recognised in 1885 and The Football League kicked off in 1888. In Scotland, the Scottish Football Association was formed in 1873, The Scottish Football League was formed in 1890 and professionalism was permitted in Scotland in 1893.

So, it took football 22 years to embrace professionalism. The Rugby Football Union (RFU) was formed in 1871. The 21 clubs broke away to form The Northern Football Union (Rugby League) in 1895, but, it took another 100 years before professionalism was allowed in Rugby Union – in 1995.

With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps, if the 1895 collection of Old Farts had allowed the controversial “broken time payments”Rugby Union in 2024 would be in a better place.

I would argue, below international level, the game does not have the drawing power to support full-time professionalism, but, it could certainly support semi-professionalism.

The question therefore is – could we come up with a format which worked within those parameters, while adequately nurturing future talent?

 

Scottish Pathways Tend To Meander Somewhat

THE BARD was onto something with that line about seeing oorsel's as others see us. For instance, while I see my admittedly split personality as: on one hand confirming my place as The Voice Of Reason in matters pertaining to Scottish Rugby, in places such as the back bar at Fullarton Park, I am perceived as being: “Aff his fuckin' heid”. At my advanced age, and with another birthday coming up next week – I am past caring, as my late wife regularly assured “The Coven” - as my four daughters are known: “Never try to tell your Dad anything – he will do it his way, and that way is usually wrong”.

So, when one of the more-regular commenters on these ravings accused me earlier this week of living in a glass-house and throwing stones; the toys remained in the pram, the dummy was not spat, many years of writing opinion pieces have taught me to live by the rule: “opinions are like erse-holes, everybody has one”.

My misdemeanour was to be critical of what I perceive as a lack of critical thinking around the dissolution of Super Rugby, and what will take its place. Years of experience has taught me, when the SRU decides to change things, they generally need several tweaks before thy get it anywhere right. And, even then, they usually end up proving the veracity of that old one about a camel being a horse designed by a committee.

One regular reader of the blog – who admits to being quite pleased to see Super Rugby being abolished posted a below the line comment, which I publish here:

“I know it’s a long time since Agenda 3 and Super 6 documents were published but they were pretty light on detail at the time. Super 6 had great aspiration about standards which were quickly dropped when they were unattainable.

So please consider the existing glasshouse before throwing a stone at other people’s.”

This comment clearly referenced my point, when writing about the dissolution of Super Rugby, that the SRU's default position when it comes to the calendar and procedures for the domestic season is: “We'll make it up as we go along”.

As my correspondent rightly pointed-out, Agenda 3 and Super 6 (as was) were announced with a glaring lack of detail. As we all know too, the format of Super Six changed markedly between announcement and kick-off, not least when, instead of: “no more than two franchises in any one region” we ended up with virtually two in one street in Edinburgh.

Agenda 3 was a similar fuck-up. I can remember pointing out, that, at best only one Premiership club at that time met the criteria for the highest Gold ranking under the plan.

I compare the SRU's “make it up as we go along” attitude with that of their footballing cousins – the Scottish Football Association. To explain as shortly as I can:

For an association football club to play at the highest domestic level in Scotland, that club has to be a member of the SFA, and to obtain a licence. To get that licence, the club has to jump through many hoops – just how difficult the whole process is to navigate is outlined in The SFA Club Licensing Manual – a 200-page tome which, if you are interested, can be dowloaded from the SFA website.

If the SRU was to implement even half of the structures demanded by the SFA, several Premiership clubs would be struggling to get out of the Regional Leagues.

To get back to my censorous friend, whose opinion, even when we disagree, I hold in high regard and his accusation that perhaps I am being unfair.

In my last post, I included a graphic, cobbled together by the SRU, which outlined their thinking on a player pathway in a post-Super Rugby world. This shows, the thinking inside Murrayfield is that we will be moving to a pathway more akin to that in football, where if a player hasn't got onto the ladder leading to a professional contract by the time he leaves school – he has missed the bus.

Such players MIGHT – with a lot of luck and a following wind, get into the Under-20 squad, but, it will be a long shot. If they miss out there, perhaps as a “late developer” then the fall-back tier, or perhaps more-properly, “The Last Chance Saloon” will be through selection for Inter-District Rugby.

Now, when Super Rugby was dreamed-up, I was almost alone in suggesting Inter-District games might have a purpose, in it would allow the Coaches and DoRs of the Super rugby franchises and the two profession Academy Head Coaches to see the best of the best club players going head-to-head.

Super Rugby is going, but, it now looks as if Inter-District games will continue to be the last chance saloon for the overlooked and late developing. However, if this is to happen – and have meaning – thrn HQ will need to crack the whip when it comes to squad selection.

The squads for this year's tournament were announced this week, to a lot of criticism from observers of the club scene. Accusations of some coaches picking their favourites were rife, while others were suggesting some of the squads were packed with older players who had alredy missed the bus a long time ago, but, were being picked with more of a view towards winning the tournament than player development.

Hopefully, when the Performance Pathway is up and running we might see a suggestion, one I have already made, but which was made again in THE forum for rugby discussion in Scotland – the BTL comments in The Offside Line.

One critic, who from his nomme de plume is probably a Peebles man, hit the nail squarely on the head when he suggested the Inter-District squads should have a requirement to be composed of 70% Under-23 players.

I sincerely hope that can become mandatory if we do get the Performance Pathway up and running.

 

Franco Smith Is A Demanding Task Master

ZEBRE v EDINBURGH on Friday night was a tough watch. Glasgow v Dragons, 24 hours later, put the feel-good factor back into watching Scottish Rugby. It wasn't perfect, as Head Coach Franco Smith was quick to admit when he faced the press afterwards, but, that's the sort of result you want from a team playing minus a few automatic first-picks, in difficult conditions.

A bonus point win, lifting the team to second spot in the table, and still the Head Coach found something to complain about – this Glagow squad is never going to get complacent, or be allowed to do just enough to win.

The big bonus for Smith and his team was surely the way so many of the youngsters stood up to the challenge. OK, it was only the Dragons, but, this was a Dragons team playing for pride. They had chances, but, they were restricted to just one try and at times blown away by Glasgow's pace and power.

Glasgow currently supplied the entire first-choice Scotland back row, yet, the reserves dominated this game, against a Dragons trio led by Dan Lydiate, who remains a top-class operator. The three young locks looked the part, while Ben Afshar capped a terrific all-round performance with his first try.

Skipper Stafford McDowall capped a Man of the Match performance with two tries and, in a crowded field, surely had Gregor Townsend thinking he might be worth elevation to the match-day 23 for The Calcutta Cup. And, of course, another sparkling 80 minutes from Josh McKay surely had Toony cursing that he isn't Scottish.

These are good days to be a Warrior's fan.

THERE IS an old political journalist's rule which transfers easily to sports journalism. Basically, when a governing body makes a big announcement: “The devil is in the detail”. Thus, when a Chancellor of the Exchequer announces big tax cuts, or new investment in infrastructure, the initial cheers invariably turn to groans a few days later, once the numbers have been crunched and the smoke cleared from in front of the mirrors.

I reckon those traditionalists who are celebrating wildly at the demise of Super Rugby might not be so-happy, once the reality of the decision hits home.

Let's look at the announcement of the Male Performance Pathway – the way ahead following the dissolution of the Super Rugby experiment.

 

Super Rugby was supposed to be a bridging tier, between the club game and the professional one. It was never acknowledged, but, one of the reasons for making entry to this tier via a franchise was, it saved the SRU money. Yes, the SRU contributed to the six clubs' costs by underwriting the salaries etc of the strength and conditioning coaches and the overall coaches – but, it wa still cheaper than having the SRU's Performance budget cover all the costs.

With the new pathway, as with the former system, the very-best young players still get taken into the Academy at ages 17 to 20; that hasn't changed. What has changed is, the bridging tier, basically the second chance for those overlooked at the younger age, or an opportunity for the late developers, will now be – according to the published graphic – via District teams.

Last season, when Inter-District teams were ressurectd, we had four teams: Caledonia, Edinburgh, South and the West. They played two games, basically a semi-final, then either a final or a third-fourth play-off.

So, a 16 or 17-game season is to be reduced to a two game season, plus, for the fortunate few, games for Edinburgh A and Glasgow A, two ad hoc teams who, as yet, have no organised comptition to play in.

If the District teams are to be taken more under Murrayfield control, it will add costs to the Performance Department budget. Last season the costs were charged to the Club and Community budget.

If you ask me, the relative autonomy which the six franchises enjoyed has now been replaced by more centralised control from Murrayfield. There is a large element of a power grab in this new set-up.

We are also told the new pathway: “ aligns with the Scottish Rugby’s forthcoming 10-year business strategy which is currently being progressed.”

So, they have decided the new route is part of a strategy which has yet to be finalised, to be overseen by a Director of Performance Rugby – who has still to be appointed. Who will report to a new Chief Executive Officer, who has also still to be appointed.

What happens if one or other, or even both new appointments, don't fancy the route map of the Pathway, or say simply - “this plan is mince”?

What happens if they are unable to get regular games for the two new A teams?

It all smells slightly of that grand old SRU tactic: “we'll make it up as we go along.”

The announcement of the new Pathway included the following paragraphs:

The Club Rugby Board will now lead a consultation with the Premiership and National Clubs, including Super6 clubs, to determine the transition arrangements for the domestic leagues.

This will be based around the following principles agreed by the SRL and SRU Boards:

• As fair to as many clubs as possible

• Least disruption to 10 team National league structures and regional leagues

• No club to be seriously inconvenienced

A new Professional Game Agreement will be created to ensure minimum numbers of Scottish Qualified players in Scotland’s pro team squads and a more formal approach to succession planning around key playing positions and connection with the national team.

A Focus Group, convened by Director of Rugby Development Gav Scott is due to begin its deliberations on Wednesday, with the Club Rugby Board due to announce the make-up of the National Leagues by 13 March.

The six host clubs, when they agreed to the Super Rugby franchises, voluntarily relinquished their Premiership status. OK, Ayr and Heriot's had the squad strength to get back there within the five-year period of the franchise, Melrose and Watsonians are in the top half of National 1 while Stirling County and Boroughmuir, arguably the two weakest of the six host clubs, have gone down to National 2 and National 3 respectively.

I am convinced, Billy McHarg at Millbrae and Neil Meikle at Goldenacre will have recovery plans in place. I will forecast now, an Ayr v Heriot's Premiership play-off at the end of next season, because both clubs will be able to retain enough of their Super Rugby squad players to make a difference back in the Premiership.

Parachuting the other four former franchise holder clubs back into the top flight would probably be a step too far, but, assuming these four clubs can also hold onto some if not all of their Super Rugby squads, we could see some mismatches in their divisions too.

The SRU press release says the transition arrangements will:

• “be as fair to as many clubs as possible”

• to cause “the least to disruption to the leagues”

and assures us:

• “no club will be seriously inconvenienced”.

My response to this is a good old Scottish one: Aye Right!

To quote Angela Rippon - “There may be trouble ahead”.

To be fair, it is not all bad. I welcome the move around getting more Scotland-qualified players into the two pro team squads, and the suggestion that rather than concentrating on Under-20 players, we will be looking at Under-23s for player development – maybe if they had enforced these two moves in Super rugby it would have been better-accepted.

Mind you, in a week when the Welsh Rugby Union introduces a new franchise-based competition, as a bridging tier between club rugby and the professional game – along the way name-checking Super rugby as one of their influences – isn't a typical act of SRU perverse behaviour to wind-up their ground-breaking franchises?

 

Scrapping Super Rugby - I'm With Private Frazer And Groundskeeper Willie

PROBABLY the most fun I have had in my more than half a century at the coal face of sports writing was my near decade piloting the Sports Desk at the Paisley Daily Express. Under the benevolent dictatorship of a committed Paisley Buddie, Editor “Stormin'” Norman Macdonald, every day brought something new; while I got to know some genuine sporting greats, such as St Mirren's Tony Fitzpatrick, the Baltacha family, the late Barclay Howard and some wonderful grass roots drivers in over 50 different sports.

Sure, it wasn't all champagne and roses, working on a daily basis with a couple of women journalists, who made Private Eye's Glenda Slagg look like a genuine halo-sporting Angel could be trying. At least, my twice-weekly shouting matches with 'Stormin' kept the rest of the editorial staff amused.

But, that's the scenario in Scottish sport, proof-positive of what a war-like, argumentative, in fact downright “thrawn” race we Scots are. Scottish Rugby fits this national stereotype perfectly – at least if the fall-out to Thursday's decision to scrap Super Rugby is a pointer.

We are being told the decision was taken jointly by the members of the Club Rugby Board and the Performance Department Alickadoos on behalf of The Junta. There weare good people involved in this decision, however, I could name two or three involved who merited that classic Scottish put-down: “Him, he couldnae run a gird”.

Some day in the future, a Sports Sciences student, taking Super Series Rugby in Scotland 2019-2024 as his dissertation subject, will be awarded a much-lauded PhD. It has been, in spite of the sterling efforts of the clubs, the guys driving them and the players – a near-total shambles. It will be some story when finally told.

But, the fun starts now, as we await the future. Given what we have seen in Scottish life over the first quarter of this 21^st century, I am not filled with optimism, indeed, I fear, post Super rugby, we will all be once more lauding the vision of perhaps the two most-famous Scots in film and television: Private James “we're all doomed” Frazer and the man who said: “Damn Scots – they ruined Scotland” - Groundskeeper Willie.

Mind you, to correct Willie, in ruining the Super Rugby concept, the SRU had a lot of non-Scottish input from some of our “White Settlers”.

So, where exactly do we go from here? That Dear Reader is the $64,000 Question.

My post regarding the scrap super rugby announcement generated the most site traffic from one story in over two years. The Offside Line's coverage of the story generated the highest number of below the line readers' comments I have seen, with, surprisingly I felt, a near 50-50 split for and against the move.

It is set-up to be a long hot Spring and Summer, as positions are fortified, defended and attacked, and while the High Heid Yins inside HQ continue their search for a new CEO and a new Director of Rugby – the guys who have to take us forward from the current train crash.

As I have repeatedly said: Super Rugby was a good initiative, but, badly thought-out, badly implemented and flawed from the start. Yet, as a lot of people are now realising: for all its flaws, it lifted standards, produced some good rugby and aided the development of some gifted young Scottish players.

Will going back to club rugby without other changes, make things better? I think not. Can we come up something better? I hope so. Do we have the personnel in-place at HQ to drive this forward? Pass.

I reckon I will have much to disect and discuss as 2024 unfolds.

I FEEL the SRU apparatchiks who have come up with the (pause for a fanfare) Male Performance Pathway Plan – part one of the diversion from the shambles of scrapping Super Rugby, have been channeling their inner Groucho Marx in coming-up with this blueprint.

Groucho is credited with saying: These are my principles, and if you don't like them – I have others.” Let's see what happens to the plan once the negative comments start.

I did like the response from one of the titans of present-day Scottish Rugby reporting, who, succinctly I feel, described the Pathway Plan as: “A vision – not necessarily a plan.” I could not have put it better. What we have seen so-far is a very broad brush notion, naturally, since this is Scotland, largely driven by the self-interest of the more-thrusting members of the think tank who came up with it.

I just wonder how they are going to integrate the host clubs of Boroughmuir Bears, Southern Knights, Stirling County and Watsonians back into the Premiership. After all, that's where they were when they helped the SRU out by taking-on their franchises. Surely, since the SRU has decided to end these franchises, they ought to be able to return to the previous default position.

But, which four clubs will have to drop out to allow them to return? Defensive bulwarks are being erected by the threatened clubs, even as we speak. And, while I am on the subject, don't spout pish about the Premiership being an “amateur” competition – we all know there are clubs in that league paying players.

Remember too, Rugby Union is an “Open” game. Players and coaches can be paid, whether Murrayfield likes it or not, or, will the Aye Beens have succeeded in driving us back to the good old days of brown envelopes placed inside players' boots while they shower.

The excrement aggitator within me is actually quite looking forward to the next few months, it will be fun.

FINALLY – Zebre v Edinburgh on Friay night was a hard watch. One of my favourite go-to Scottish Football cliches - “the cry was no defenders” came to mind as I watched. Only in this case it was more a case, for Edinburgh, of: “the cry was no attackers.”

Minus the injured Darcy Graham with Duhan van der Merwe held back by Scotland and Mark Bennett restricted to a late vameo off the bench, Edinburgh's cutting edge was blunted. OK, it might have been the weeks of inactivity, or playing away from home, but, this was an ugly performance from Edinburgh.

Still, it came good in the final quarter and, helped by the Italians falling foul of the excellent Chris Busby, in the end Edinburgh grabbed just about the ugliest of ugly wins.

 

Shurely Shome Mishtake Moneypenny

I AM occasionally still asked why I refer to our soon to depart Great Leader as – TCD. For newer followers of these ravings, those three letters stand for “That Cunt Dodson”a title the grate man collected, from the Guardian Group's National Union of Journalists' Chapel (Union branch) when he worked there.

This season's Guinness Six Nations should have been TCD's farewell tour, prior to him sailing off into the sunset to either live off his ill-gotten pension pot, or, perhaps inflict pain and mayhem on some other body. However, I understand he is currently recovering from elective surgery in hospital, and unlikely to be back before his due retirement date. In that case, I do wish him a speedy recovery to full health.

But, being TCD, he seemingly had no intention of going quietly into that dark night; as witness the SRU's crazy decision to demand an apology from World Rugby, for the way the match against France ended so badly for Scotland.

That daft decision had TCD's fingerprints all over it; although we may suspect his faithful Indian companian Tonto, aka “Howzat”- the Consigliere's consigliere, penned the actual missive.

Look, we all know, referees and TMOs are only human and, as humans prone to error. In sport, shite happens – usually to Scotland, so, you might think we would be used to getting shafted. So, we ought to know by now, the game is over, the game's rulers are not going to say: “Well actually, Scotland won, so we have to make amends.”

What the SRU should have done is said: “Ok, the referee and the TMO made a mistake and we suffered. The thing is World Rugby, we will take the blow, but, in return, we are telling you – if you ever try to roster either Nic Berry or Brian MacNeice to a game involving an SRU team, we will not turn-up. Then stick to that decision.

They might add: “We were shafted by Craig Joubert in 2015, now this; before quoting an Ian Fleming line from Goldfinger: “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action.”

THE CALCUTTA CUP match is still over one week away, but, already the mind games have started. In Wednesday's Guardian we had George Ford getting his retaliation in first, and warning England to be ready for Scottish “niggles” when the action gets underway on Saturday week.

Methinks the self-styled Rugby Master Race are a tad worried about facing us. Well who can blame them, since we've developed the habit of beating them in recent years.

I must admit, I think, for all the current squad isn't a great English collective, we will need to up our game significantly to beat them. However, I remain confident, if we can play for longer than the 40 or so minutes we have managed in each of our outings this Six Nations, then we will have enough to see-off our guests.

But, call it learned behaviour, I am never entirely comfortable when we go into a game against England as favourites.

IN A RARE departure from wall-to-wall coverage of Scottish Football's Bigot Brothers, BBC Shortbread this week did a story on Jim Carswell finally receiving his retrospective cap, nearly half a century late.

I covered big Jim's playing career with Old Grammarians, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire and Renfrewshire, Jordanhill and Glasgow. He was a formidable competitor, but a great guy to know back then, so I was delighted to see him finally get the tasselled bunnet.

As a former Sports Editor of the Paisley Daily Express, this was one story I would love to have covered, although I fear, whoever is in the hot seat these days might not have noticed Jim was a Grammarian. It was a nice touch to get his former team mate, Richie Dixon – another of the good guys – to present the cap to Jim at the Cheltenham care home where he now lives. The picture shows Jim with his family after the ceremony.

Best comment, however, came from a former “sparring partner” of Jim's, who, while delighted to see his old opponent honoured, couldn't help adding, tongue in cheek: “It's an unfair world when a waste of space like Carswell gets a cap, and I didn't.”That's as Scottish a compliment as you could wish for.

I HAVE NOT been on the SRU's approved list of media contacts for some time, since Buddy the Elf decided blogging wasn't real journalism, and bugger the 50-odd (some of them very odd) years of toil at the coal face which went before the fun of blogging.

Being permanently in the sin bin has its benefits – they cannot threaten or attempt to control me, while I am free to cast an eye on what The Junta is up to. This involves trawling through the SRU website in search of juicy titbits, such as this, from yesterday.

To their credit The Junta publishes on their site, reports on the meetings of the three boards. OK, for commercial reasons, there are nearly always redactions on these, but, you still get a notion of what is ging on inside the Borg.

Except, I noticed yesterday, the last minutes of a meeting of the Club Rugby Board to be published were from August, 2023 – before the last AGM.

Six months of silence, what aren't they telling us, or are afraid to tell us? Just asking.

{I wrote that particular segment a couple of days ago – forward planning and all that. However, now the news of the cancellation of Super Rugby has broken, we can perhaps imagine just what the members of that particular Board were talking about, and didn't want us made aware of. The thing is Super Rugby had nothing to do with Club Rugby, it was run by the Performance Department.

Why should the Club Rugby Board be able to discuss terminating Super Rugby, when the six franchises didn't have representatives on that board? Just another SRU fuck-up.]

I THINK we can now accept that oor ain Hollie Davidson is the premier woman referee on the planet – and, let's be honest, there are one or two ladies, not just Hollie, out there who are very-good at their job.

I honestly believe Hollie will shatter the glass ceiling and regularly get to referee Tier One internationals at the highest level.

She has, naturally, been allocated games at the upcoming Guinness Women's Six Nations. Hollie will referee: Ireland v Italy and Wales v France, well done. However, she will have Scottish company, Hollie will be AR1 and Chelsea Gillespie will be AR2, with Andy McMenemy as TMO for the Ireland v Wales match, which will be refereed by England's Sara Cox.

Chelsea will also be AR2 for Wales v England and Big Andy will be in the TV truck for France v England. Well done to all three.

FINALLY – it's not only the Welsh who are facing revolt in the grass-roots. Some doubtless Barbours and red trousers-wearing “Nigels” are up in arms after being unable to take alcoholic drinks to their seats at Twickenham on Saturday. They had been seated in the experimental “alcohol free”section of the ground.

These “fans” are threatening to sue the RFU. Quite right too, imagine being asked to watch England without the crutch of alcohol – that really is too-much.

A Sad Day For Scottish Rugby - Super Rugby Goes

SO – SUPER RUGBY in Scotland is no more; another victory for the forces of Aye Beenism. The clubs have won, but, unless serious changes as to how we run the game up here are made, it is Scottish Rugby that will be the long term loser.

The Offside Line broke the story yesterday at lunch time; then had to take it down; apparently it was embargoed, as some people who had to be told hadn't yet – rumour has it these not immediately told included some of the clubs. But, hey, it's the SRU Communications Department, the body which makes the Conservative and SNP governments appear competent that TOL was dealing with. The story finally went up for keeps after a three-hour delay.

The Six franchises: Ayrshire Bulls, Boroughmuir Bears, Heriot's, Southern Knights, Stirling County and Watsonians released the following joint statement yesterday afternoon:

“We, the current Super Series Clubs, are obviously disappointed that the Scottish Rugby Union Club Rugby Board and Performance department did not recommend to the Scottish Rugby Limited Board that Super Series continues. We do, however, accept the decision and look forward to competing in the upcoming Sprint Series.

“We were informed of the decision on Wednesday 14th February. We were surprised at the lack of consultation through the process and the detail in what comes next, however, we have confidence in Keith Wallace and Stevie Gemmell delivering a transition plan that sees Super Series clubs supported through what will be a very challenging period.

We have received assurances that there will not be a detrimental impact on the six clubs as they return their business and rugby models fully back to club rugby.”

We know Super Rugby is ending, but, and how typical this is of the Murrayfield Junta, as yet we don't know when. Will the Sprint Series be the last hurrah, or will we have the final full-fat version in the Autumn?

More questions, what will replace it? Do the six clubs, who had to forfeit Premiership status to take-up the franchises, see their First XVs remain in whatever division they currently play, or will all six be restored to the top flight? If that happens, it will not go down well in some quarters.

The timing is strange too – with TCD, whose baby this was believed to be, about to depart, along with Jim Mallinder. Might their replacements have something to say on the subject of a “bridging” tier between club and rofessional rugby.

In this, I may well be a lone voice, crying in the wilderness, but, I feel, unless we come up with that replacement “bridging tier” of the game - Scottish Rugby will go the way of Scottish Football, and instead of playing at the top table of the world game, we will be down among the also-rans: outside looking in on the big occasions such as World Cups.

It will not be an immediate fall from grace, I sense the badly-managed decline which has characterised so-much of Scottish life over my near eight decades on this earth will emerge in Scottish Rugby.

Super Rugby was a good idea, badly-executed. It was doomed almost from the start, because TCD, being TCD, did his Captain Picard impression, saying: ”Make it so” and then not bothering to explain the nuances to the clubs.

The bidding process was flawed, some Edinburgh clubs spat the dummy and insisted on being in it. Rugby in Greater Glasgow was ignored and the fact that the franchise set-up was nothing more than a botched cost-saving exercise by Murrayfield was a case of: “Haud yer wheesht!”

There should have been an emphasis on young Scottish talent, but, the six clubs were allowed to import NSQ players almost at will, while the relationship between the six franchises and the two professional clubs was never formalised, or entirely happy. Thus, what could have been two of its strengths – giving fringe professionals additional game time, and allowing young Scottish talent to test themselves against professionals seldom happened. How many and how often professionals were released seemed to depend on which side of bed the two club coaches got out of that particular morning.

But that is in the past. The important question, following the announcement of the winding-up of Super rugby is - what happens next?

The strangeness of the timing of the decision increases when you consider events in Wales this week.

The Welsh Rugby Union announced their version of Super Rugby – The Elite Domestic Competition.

This will involve ten teams: Aberavon, Bridgend Ravens, Carmarthen Quins, Ebbw Vale, Llandovery, Newport, Pontypool, Swansea and RGC 14 have been confirmed as participating, with the tenth team still to be named, and Cardiff favourites to take this position.

Pontypridd and Merthyr declined the chance to apply, as initially did Cardiff, who had the backing of their Regional URC team Cardiff Blues. Apparently, arms have been twisted since and the expectation is that there will be a team at the Arms Park.

As with Super rugby, the ten clubs will come under the control of the Professionals inside the WRU, rather than their club board, and, again in a nod to Super Rugby, the Union will provide additional funding and support to the ten clubs. Indeed, Super Rugby in Scotland was one of the competitions quoted in the rational for the new competition.

Making the announcement, WRU Performance Director Huw Bevan said: “We need 10 teams in this league if it is to perform at its optimum level.

“Our clubs must also meet the criteria for a licence, to ensure that we are producing the sustainable and successful elite competition we need in Wales.

“This is why we are going back out to our clubs to search for a tenth team ready to join this exciting new competition

“This new league represents the missing link in our senior men's pathway, but it will also be the shop window for the traditional club game in Wales and all the history and heritage that brings.

“This is a hugely exciting development for Welsh rugby and we need to ensure we have the right building blocks in place to achieve our ambitious aims for this competition.

“The door is now open for another club to come to the table and we hope a number of further applications will be received to ensure a further thorough and competitive process.

“This league will integrate our long-standing, ambitious and committed semi-professional clubs in Wales with the professional game.

“It will support the development of high potential young professional players but also drive the quality of the domestic semi-professional game.

“The nine successful clubs can now forge ahead with the final stages of their business plans and lock in their playing and coaching teams for next season.

“We look forward to now establishing and activating the competition in what will be a new dawn for domestic men's rugby in Wales.”

Each of the ten clubs will be allocated to one of the Welsh Regions, to establish a pathway to that level of the game.

Hopefully, whoever gets the new Director of Performance Rugby role at Murrayfield will be able to cure the failings of Super rugby and give us a product able to compete with these ten Welsh clubs in meaningful cross-border games and improve Scottish Rugby in the process.

And we think we had problems with Super Rugby.

Mind you, to go back to the beginning of this post and the closure 0f Super rugby. Might this lead to the Premiership being rebranded as the Scottish Elite Domestic Competition?

It makes sense – all it would take would be a further four teams to take-up franchises, perhaps with less-stringent conditions than first time round. There would then be ten Scottish and ten Welsh teams able to compete in cross-border competition, and, as luck might have it, League 1A of the Energia All-Ireland League also contains ten clubs.

Add 10 of the 11 clubs in England's Championship, and you have the basis of a rejigged British and Irish Cup. Interesting times right enough.

Back when Super Six was first mooted, one of the real selling points was Cross-Border competition. This was going to involve the Six playing end of season games against the top teams in the Welsh Premiership.

Supporters of the Super Rugby concept were adamant, their enthusiasm bolstered by experience of the old British and Irish Cup, in their belief that it would be the cross-border element of the concept which would really lift standards and produce more players ready to step-up to full-time professional contracts with Edinburgh and Glasgow.

But, along came Covid and the cross-border competition never happened, instead, we got the Super Series Sprint.

Super Rugby definitely raised the bar when it came to the quality of semi-professional rugby in Scotland – and don't give me the pish about they were the only six clubs paying players to shoot down that claim. It showed what was possible below full-time professionalism, now, it appears that step forward could be replaced by two steps back.

This is a sad day for Scottish Rugby.