Glasgow Won Ugly - But, They Won

I'LL say this for fresh-faced Glasgow Warriors coach Gregor Townsend - he has quickly bought-into the Glasgow sporting psyche - where supporting your team doesn't have to be all about the feel-good factor of cheering-on a winning side; but must involve a degree of suffering and moaning along the way to the happiness which winning brings.

 

Hardly surprising mind you; when you remember some of "Toony's" performances in the dark blue of Scotland, you realise, while the ending usually left you at least reasonably happy, it could be a bit of a roller-coaster ride. But, maybe that's how it has to be with Scotland's rugby geniuses - Andy Irvine had his days when the far side banking at Murrayfield had the demeanour of a lynch mob, with him as the target, before a single sublime moment would save his neck.

 

Thus it was with the Warriors against Zebre last night. I always felt Glasgow would prevail, but it was only when the Italians missed that late, potentially match-tying penalty, that I sensed we were safe. But, the Italians always make it hard for any Scottish side, we should accept that by now.

 

I actually think Toony showed a real coach's flair for the occasion by his team selection. Quite clearly most of Glasgow's big players were either in the stand in civvies, or on the bench, so asking so-many of the "stiffs" - not that there are too-many in the squad who are making-up the numbers, squad rotation is a vital part of success in professional rugby and every guy has to be up to the challenge - to front-up against the Pro12 whipping boys was a good move.

 

The jury is still out on much-hyped number eight Strauss, who didn't adapt well to Glasgow conditions and didn't get across the gain line as we were maybe led to expect he could. MacDonald looked, at last, like an All Black blind side, while young Sean Kennedy demonstrated that we still produce good number nines in Scotland - he didn't look out of place in the Pro12, which is a big step-up from the Premiership, his normal habitat with Stirling.

 

Yes, Glasgow again coughed-up ball under pressure in the red zone, but, they are getting in there regularly. I felt referee Leighton Hodges did them few favours; he yellow-carded two of the Italians and could have banished several more. But, and this is a typical Scottish trait when frustrations grow, once or twice he had to remind skipper Chris Fusaro that he was hearing too-many Weegie voices. Just as well Weegie Moaner-in-Chief John Barclay was in the stand rather than on the field maybe.

 

However, a win is a win, onwards and upwards.

 

 

 

WEEK Six of the RBS Premiership will see the first third of the campaign completed. Ayr will be favourites to maintain their sparkling early season form against a Heriot's side which has, so far, blown hot and cold.

 

But the chaps from Goldenacre have, like Ayr, won at Melrose this season, lifting the Bill McLaren Shield in the process, before dropping it into the grateful lap of Edinburgh Accies last weekend.

 

The Edinburgh side will wish to make amends at Millbrae, so I am looking forward to a good game.

 

Elsewhere, the game of the day is surely at Maleny Park, where Gala are the visitors. Currie have been ear-marked as the side most-likely to de-rail the Ayr express, the visit of the cup-holders will surely be a good indication of how ready they are for the role of bringing back the Ayr aces - this one will sizzle from start to finish I wager.

 

Another good game is in prospect at Raeburn Place. Accies finally posted a win last week in their Stockbridge Derby with Heriot's, whilst Dundee's results so far this season have disappointed that hard task-master Ian Rankin. This one will be just as tight and hard-fought as the one at Currie and is difficult to call.

 

Boroughmuir badly need a home win, and could get it against Stirling County, whilst Aberdeen Grammar's early season travails are unlikely to end as they entertain a Melrose side, still smarting from their home hammering from Ayr last week.

 

Craig Chalmers clearly had on his petted lip when he gave his post-match press briefing, which was a model for the bad loser coach. Chic son, losing by three tries to nil at home is a bad defeat - bad luck had nothing to do with it.

 

I expect Aberdeen to feel the back-lash from the Greenyards Gang.

Suffer The Little Children

LIKE almost every other player of my Baby Boomer generation, I learned my rugby at school, starting aged 11, when I went to secondary school. In my case (fortunately) I passed the "Qualify" and went to a Senior Secondary - Cumnock Academy.

 

In 1950s Ayrshire there were only a handful of senior secondaries - Marr College, Spiers School, Dalry High School and the Academies at Ardrossan, Ayr, Cumnock, Kilmarnock and Irvine Royal. All these schools played rugby, with Cumnock and Irvine also playing football.

 

So, for my generation, you learned your rugby at school, before passing seamlessly to the clubs. All the Ayrshire clubs, Ardrossan Academicals, Ayr, Cumnock, Dalry HSFP, Irvine, Kilmarnock, Marr College FP and Old Spierians were "open", but as a general rule the four clubs without the obvious FP suffix were largely former pupils clubs for the relevant schools.

 

Indeed, as a member of Ayr in the early 1970s, I can recall some Ayr Academicals threatening to oppose the nomination of a non Ayr Academical as captain, before wiser counsel prevailed and the nominee proved to be one of the club's finest skippers.

 

With PE teachers such as Jock McClure at Cumnock, TB Watson at Ayr and Campbell Bone at Ardrossan, you played rugby - or else. Indeed, I still find it ironic that the only Cumnock Academy pupil to openly defy "Stiffy" McClure and refuse to play "egg ball" was Jock Craig - now Director of Rugby at Ayr.

 

Anyway, you were shown the basics by a teacher who was an active club player, you progressed through the XVs and when you left school, you joined the local club, found your level and played on for as long as you wished. Indeed, one of my contemporaries turned-out in the Legends Match at the start of the season which was part of Irvine RFC's 50th anniversary celebrations, at the age of 66.

 

At school, we had a full fixture list, home and away matches against the other Ayrshire senior secondaries, plus trips to Dumfries to face Dumfries Academy and St Joseph's College, into Lanarkshire to play Hamilton Academy and Dalziel High School and into Glasgow to play the likes of Shawlands Academy, Queen's Park Secondary, Bellahouston Academy, Hyndland School, Jordanhill College School, Whitehill Secondary, we even had a fixture at first and second XV level with Keil School.

 

On a good year weather-wise, we could play some 30 matches. We also had access to the school-boys enclosure at the front at Murrayfield for the internationals, while at senior level, our better players got to play for Ayrshire and, if good enough, for Glasgow Schools.

 

Then, somewhere around the late seventies, the tide turned against school sport, the older enthusiastic teachers began to retire and their successors weren't as enthusiastic. Then came the Teachers Strike of the early 1980s, after which school football and rugby all but sank without trace.

 

Sure, in Ayrshire "Luddites" such as Brian Gilbert and John Sharkey at Marr, or Hector Crawford at Belmont Academy, fought against the rising tide of apathy, but, somewhere along the way, to be involved in schools rugby almost become a barrier to career advancement. SChools rugby withered on the vine and for all some sterling efforts at club level - Ayr being a terrific example, the club's didn't take-up the slack.

 

We now have, this season, a situation whereby there are NO state schools playing in the Brewer Dolphin Schools Cups, at the elite level. This competition has in effect become the private schools' Scottish Chamionships.

 

Nothing against private schools. As a player I simply loved rucking squealing members of Old Boys club XVs out of rucks; this was an uplifting experience for we working class thugs. However, rugby in Scotland will never prosper until it becomes classless.

 

Some clubs have excellent relations with their "feeder" schools, even to the extent of providing the rugby coaches - but, the SRU ought to be more pro-active in selling the game to today's school children, to guarantee the game's future.

 

Unless we nurture the grass roots, out top sward will wither. We could start with a really determined effort to broaden the entries to the Scottish Schools Cup. And, while I am at it, what happened to the plans to merge the Schools and Under-18s competitions into one.

 

It seems to me, the posh schools didn't fancy having to expose their little darlings to the oiks, so, it didn't happen. Shame on the SRU for not making it happen.

 

I fancy a lot of rugby-mad former PE teachers in the state sector, not least a certain W McLaren, are sitting up there in the great club house in the sky, seething into their beet at what we have allowed to happen.

Chic Chalmers - Dummies Spat To Order

NOT having my Oxford Book of Quotations to hand, I cannot re-call who came up with that line about never being able to mix-up a Scot with a grievance and a ray of sunshine; it might well have been that old English fart Dr Johnson, but, who really cares.

 

These days in rugby, Craig Chalmers comes across as a definitive Scot with a grievance, his being a double one - that he's not coaching Scotland and that his Melrose side are not walking away with the RBS Premiership title.

 

There were no Cheeky Chic quotes in Sunday's as usual pitifully sparse coverage of the Premiership; not that, Ayr having beaten 'Rose at the Greenyards, it was ever likely that Chic would have rushed to offer his post-match thoughts. However, when Willie Paul was unable to elicit the great man's thoughts for Monday's Scotsman report, I sensed a spat dummy lying in front of the home dug out.

 

But, all was not lost, whoever did the Herald's Premiership round-up for Monday - and (again) I offer the thought that, maybe if the Herald paid more than lip service to the top tier of our club game, its circulation would not be going through the floor - did manage to get a quote from Chalmers. Even by his poor standards of reaction to defeat, it was a belter.

 

Class, they say, is permanent. Chic was a classy player, sadly he seems to have left that aspect of himself behind when he retired. His reaction was totally graceless and petty.

 

Mind you, Ayr's rebound from last season's under-performance has been spectacular. OK, you never win any title in September, but, a poor start to the season can fatally wound title aspirations.

Kenny Murray's men have now beaten all four of this season's Scottish representatives in the British & Irish Cup, two of these victories came at Netherdale and the Greenyards, two of the genuine fortresses of the club game. So, Ayr's title aspirations have, event his early in the campaign, to be taken seriously.

Admittedly, they gained in spades from Glasgow Hawks' disappointing campaign in 2011-12, the Gossmans, Peter Jerecevich and the injured Dean Kelbrick have proven to be excellent recruits. Ayr entertain Heriot's on Saturday and if they can beat the Goldenacre men, then there will be a lot of pressure on Currie to peg them back, since they are now being seen as the side most-likely to impede Ayr's progress.

However, behind Ayr's storming start, the new Top Ten is proving to be an engrossing and entertaining competition, which has to be good for Scottish rugby.



THE Herald this week ran an interesting piece on how we are bringing through our young props. Certainly a few of our top teams have been busy recruiting southern hemisphere "donkeys", when perhaps they should be putting more emphasis on grooming our own big boys for the vital roles in shirts one and three. It seems a long time since the likes of Sandy Carmichael and Iain Milne were being blooded in the national side at what is today seen as a callow age.

Props notoriously take longer to mature, but there are some good and highly-promising young bloods learning the grunt and bash game in the Premiership. Young George Hunter is showing well, generally off the bench, with Ayr, whilst also gaining valuable game time, again off the bench, for Warriors. However, we need a few more to be pushing in more ways than one.



WE ALL like to bitch and moan about how out-of-touch the Murrayfield "blazers" sometimes appear to be. I sometimes think they actually enjoy being thus seen, particularly when they pull a master stroke, such as getting All Blacks coaching guru Wayne Smith to come over and impart his wisdom to some of our home-grown coaches, as he will next month.

Chapeau tipped in the direction of EH12.



I SEE Sir Clive Woodward might find himself out of a job as the success of London 2012 fades and the long haul to Rio 2016 starts.

Please, please, please, will whoever is charged with putting together the Rugby Sevens programme for Rio immediately put out of their heads, any thoughts of, because of his track record as a World Cup winner with England and his subsequent role within Team GB up to and throughout London 2012, Sir Clive being the man to run Team GB's Rugby Sevens programme.

Maybe as a technical director, along the lines of cycling's Dave Brailsford, he could set-up the programme - but, he doesn't for my money have the necessary feel for sevens and honestly, sticking the ball up the pack's jumper and rumbling forward for the by then nearly 40-years-old Jonny Wilkinson to kick dropped goals, will not bring gold in Rio.

 

RBS Premiership - Number One For Thrilling Rugby

FOUR weeks in, the 2012-13 RBS Premiership is fully meeting the hopes those of us who pushed for a smaller top-flight had for it. The games have been exciting, highly-competitive and very tight.

 

Edinburgh Accies are lying ninth of the ten teams, but have taken a losing bonus point from three of their four games, and drew the other one. Place kicker Ruairidh Bonner has an 80% conversion rate, maybe a couple more kickable penalties per game and Accies, whose young coach Simon Cross is an unashamed advocate of attacking rugby, would be among the contenders jostling for places behind early pace-setters Ayr.

 

The clubs in positions second to seventh are within one bonus point win of each other, which has to be the sign of a highly-competitive league. The professionals neither injured nor on match-day squad duty with Warriors and Edinburgh are getting plenty of game time, but, this terrific league, the great majority of whose players are Scots, playing for their local clubs, is woefully under-represented in the mainstream Scottish media.

 

The Herald, which used to pride itself in its all-embracing coverage of rugby in Scotland, has now relegated this league to a Monday morning round-up of matches - their rugby correspondent doesn't even cover a single club game on a Saturday, while their midweek "Club Scene" is written by a journalist who doesn't cover club games and who is so out-of-touch, it shows. The Sunday Herald is similarly uninterested in the club scene. And the executives wonder why their circulations are falling.

 

At least, The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday cover every game in the Premiership eveny week, with one of their "name" writers, sometimes two, on club duty, rather than not being willing to be seen at anything less than Pro12 games. Well done Graham Bean and Colin Leslie, for getting the troops out there.

 

The Premiership is a good story, which needs wider coverage. Why cannot we have John Beattie filling the BBC Scotland rugby anchor-man role which the late Bill McLaren filled for so many years?

 

Silly, I forgot, in BBC Scotland, "sport" means the SPL.

 

 

 

GOOD old Bill Beaumont, the one Englishman whom everyone else loves. Dear old Bill has now offered himself as a mediator in this silly row between the English Premiership, with their French friends standing back and again saying: "Rosbeifs, even though we cannot stand you, aidez nous", and everyone else.

 

Like their colleagues in the English football Premiership, England's top rugby teams seem to think They Are The People - the only show in European rugby. As such they have an entitlement to the largest share of the cake.

 

This is England's default position - we lesser Celts, Frogs and Wops MUST bow down before their might and let them have their way - otherwise, they will scweam and scweam until we do.

 

The players, well they're only in it for the money now. Once they waken up to the fact they are being driven to early retirement by the demands of the English club owners, they will de-camp to the greater riches in France, then, facing an uncertain future at around the age of 30, they might realise - if they are English: "We've been screwed" and if they are Celts: "Maybe we should have stayed within the embrace of our own Unions-  who at least had a vested interest in keeping us fit and well".

 

It will all end in tears, either way.

A Warriors Win - More, Many More, Please

BLOODY HELL Boyo, the Ospreys were well and truly plucked last night. And Gregor Townsend thought he had problems.

 

I am not getting carried away by the first Glasgow win of the season. Yes, it is never easy to win in Wales; certainly, for all their money, support and hype, Ospreys were - to put it mildly - shite. But, this wasn't a particularly good Glasgow performance.

 

For me, they still turned the ball over too-easily goinjg forward, but, their defence was outstanding, the pack was immense and I had to laugh at the first of DTH Van der Merwe's tries, when Glasgow got away with the sort of "professional" move - the crossing which took out the chasing Osprey - to allow DTH to start his length-of-the-pitch sprint for glory.

 

Let's hope the squad can build on this welcome first win as the season unfolds.

 

 

 

IT CAME as no great surprise that Edinburgh should beat the new Italian "Zebras" at Murrayfield, again, let's hope they can build on this one and we can build the foundations of a real two-club Heineken challenge.

 

 

 

I SEE the English Premiership's attempts to hijack European club rugby has been fatally holed below the water-line by the RFU. They will not take this lying down, expect the big English and French clubs to go away, re-group and try again.

 

They honestly believe they are the only show in the European rugby world and will not stop trying to wrest control from the national unions until they succeed. The three Celtic Unions MUST keep hammering home the message to the RFU, that they have to get their big clubs under control and keep them there, for the sake of the game.

 

 

 

I AM off to Millbrae for today's Ayr v Stirling County RBS Premiership game, one which is, on paper, the match of the day in the new top ten league.

 

I am off early too, since Ayr president Billy McHarg, has invited some members of the Fourth Estate to join him for pre-match lunch. Nice one Billy, thank you.

 

One hopes that the RBS Premiership gets more and better media coverage, it deserves it and with the two pro sides more willing than ever before to release their squad members not required for that weekend's Pro12 matches to play in the club Premiership games, the standard is rising.

 

I honestly believe there is a growing case for the top two club sides to be admitted to the Amlin Challenge Cup, Europe's Number Two competition; but, for that to happen, the clubs have to keep improving.

 

More power to their elbows.

Club Rugby Is Booming - Shout It Out

THREE weeks in and the new top-ten RBS Premiership is already providing some scintillating rugby for the fans.

 

While I appreciate club rugby, played for fun and organised in their spare time by the many hard-working club officials across the land will continue, as it always has, to be the backbone of Scottish rugby, it is good to see the new level of elitism and professionalism which has become evident in the Premiership thus far.

 

There have been tries galore in the games so far; some really tight games and a glance at the league table shows that, in this league, nothing can be taken as read prior to kick-off of any game.

 

It is not working perfectly right across the board, but it seems that those full-time professionals from Warriors and Edinburgh who are not in that week-end's match squad are being more-readily released to their club sides than in the past and certainly Stirling County, to name one, has proved most-adept at making use of those full-timers drafted to the club.

 

Maybe it's my proximity to Ayr, who have certainly done this, but, it seems to me there are fewer mercenaries and more home-grown players around this season, while the fact the Premiership is now a ten-club league has helped condense the available talent in fewer squads - another positive move.

 

What the Prmiership does need, however, is a higher profile. Kudos to the SRU's pr department for their weekly e-mails and their efficient outflow of information, however, when you have a case whereby only The Scotsman, of the available Scottish titles, gives a Monday morning report on every Premiership game, then the mainstream media should be ashamed  of themselves.

 

The SRU is in no position to insist on greater coverage of club rugby. But, surely they can get the daily newspaper sports editors in for a good lunch or something and mount a charm offensive.

 

Scottish club rugby is in good, rude health. This story is one worth telling - let's do it. 

Too-Many Taffs Can Spoil A Tour

SURPRISE, surprise - Warren Gatland has been named as Head Coach of the 2013 Lions Tour to Australia. Well, we saw that one coming right enough. I know he's actually a sheep worrier, but, forgive me if I only indulge in one-handed clapping; you see, I am always wary of any Lions tour in which the tour party has a predominantly Welsh or English flavour.

 

English or Welsh - to me there's not much difference really; both lots are insufferable in victory and while you never actually beat Wales - you only score more points than them - both lots are equally insufferable in defeat. Their default position after losing a game is nearly always: "You didn't play well, we played badly and the referee was against us anyway.

 

One of the downsides of professional rugby is the belief that, because the game is now professional, it needs much additional time to prepare for major events such as a Lions Tour. Sorry, I don't buy that. I feel, as with the manner in which the game has now stretched beyond its traditional 1 September to 30 April domestic season into an almost all-year-round affair at the top level, it doesn't take nine full months for a coach to prepare for what is, after all, when compared to the legendary tours of the amateur era - a ten-match sprint.

 

Doug Smith and Carwyn James in 1971 and Alun Thomas and Syd Miller in 1974 didn't have nine months to prepare for their wonderful tours, indeed, John Bevan a test winger in the 1971 tour wasn't even capped by Wales nine months before the tour started; while reserve scrum half Ray "Chico" Hopkins and Derek Quinnell were uncapped when they got on the plane for that tour.

 

I doubt if any uncapped players will go to Australia next year, but can recall how the uncapped Dickie Jeeps went from third-choice to test scrum half in a matter of weeks in 1955. Furthermore, I can guarantee that if Gatland was to name his Test XV today, it would look considerably different from the team which will take the field for the first Test next year.

 

You can over-prepare, as Clive Woodward did in the ill-fated 2005 Tour. There is a mystique about the Lions which doesn't lend itself well to "professional" sport, we must never forget this.

 

What concerns me is, the possibility that Gatland will, as Welsh coaches and captains of the Lions, have tended to do - over-load his squad with Welsh players with whom he is familiar. I know received wisdom has it that the top Welsh players are currently the top men in their positions in this country. I don't buy into this. Mindful of the belief that the Welsh are poor travellers, I don't see so-called big name Taffs who go missing at Firhill on a wet February Friday, turning-up in Sydney in June and July.

 

There isn't very much between the top players in the four Home Nations, so we don't need a squad top-heavy with foot soldiers from the Taffia.

 

 

 

CLOSER to home, Glasgow and Edinburgh produced disappointing starts to the Celtic League season at the weekend; things have to improve this weekend with round two.

 

I firmly believe Glasgow will win their inaugural match at the re-vamped Scotstoun Stadium; surely they cannot make the mistakes at home which so-bedevilled their night in Belfast, while Edinburgh simply have to improve on last-week's disappointing loss to Munster.

 

You cannot lose the league  in September, but, winning is a good habit to get into early-on in any season.

 

 

 

THE new RBS Premiership is shaping up to be a very good league indeed. All the teams are trying to play running rugby, we've had a good number of tries in the opening two rounds of matches and some intriguing match-ups.

 

Ayr and Gala produced three of the best games of last season and their top of the table clash at Netherdale on Saturday is already shaping up to be one of the games of the season, even this early.

 

It could all come down to how Ayr handle the Gala pack, something they didn't do too-well at the end of last season. If they can douse the Netherdale fires and get their quicksilver backs going forward, it should be quite a game.

 

One thing is already clear about this new, more-compact league. It will be very tight indeed, with a lot of high-scoring but close games promised. If this combination doesn't bring the crowds back to the club game, nothing will.