IN A year during which the SFA "turkeys" can be persuaded to vote for Christmas and implement the changes which will lose a few of them their nice wee sinecures, soft seats in the main stand and access to the better purveys under the posh seats, the SRU's timing in allowing details of their own wee internal stushie to leak out is yet another example of Scotland's top rugby men dropping the ball under pressure.
CEO McKie has hardly endeared himself to the punters since taking-on the top job, others, more financially savvy than I have told me he's done a good job in reducing the fiscal deficit - problem is, he ought to be doing more to grow the game in Scotland. Also, as I have said before, there are some in high-powered jobs within Murrayfield who would struggle to be voted in as dog catcher in Hicksville in one of the "fly-over" American states in a bad year.
McKie is, apparently, a paper tiger and as anyone with knowledge of national organisations will tell you; if you appoint a paper tiger to the top job, you end up with lots of paper tigers and few real ones. What the SRU needs is someone in there who can lead rugby towards a landscape where it is closer to football in public esteem and interest. We need a salesman, not a cost accountant.
Just about the only people who think that Murrayfield's corporate body is the right management agency for Scotland's professional teams is - Murrayfield's corporate body. The pro teams are like Soviet collective farms, plenty of people on the pay roll, not much being produced.
We can only hope things improve after the agm, later this month and certainly as the proposed changes to the club game - if implemented - kick-in. But, right now, we are in deep doo-da and should maybe stop digging for a wee bit.
SCHADENFREUDE - German concept, much-loved by the Scots, Irish and Welsh, whenever the English muck-up. And, let's face, the RFU have mucked-up big style over this Performance Director job, which is, or maybe isn't, going to Sir Clive Woodward.
Woodward is a sort of well-behaved Neil Lennon, he splits opinion wonderfully. I have to admit, his autobiography 'Winning' is one of the best sports books I've read and his description of how he turned serial-under-achievers England into World Champions is a terrific blue print for any newly-appointed national coach.
However, his stewardship of the 2005 Lions in New Zealand is the definitive how not to, turning him from super manager into one of those blimpish British generals given a bloody nose by the natives in the days of Empire.
It is uncertainty as to which Woodward will return to Twickenham which has as much as anything caused the stushie within HQ which cost John Steele his job this week.
Given the London Scottish connection, should McKie be pushed/dragged screaming/persuaded out of office, if we could afford him - might not Steele be a good call as replacement - it worked ok with Andy Robinson.
APPARENTLY Andy Robinson has lit a fire under Johnny Beattie, whose place in the World Cup 30 is far from certain. Cannot see it myself - form is transatory, class is permanent and the Killer Bees, Beattie, John Barclay and Kelly Brown ought to be our first-choice breakaway trio in New Zealand. We have got few enough class acts that we could leave one at home.
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