The Best-Laid Plans And All That

SOME of the protocols which surround how you, the general public, get your sports news fix of a morning are old and time-honoured, generally they work, but, just occasionally, things go tits-up in a way not even a Sun Page Three photographer could imagine.

 

There was such a case yesterday, at the BT Sports sponsorship launch, involving that company, the SRU and the two professional clubs, at Scotstoun.

 

It is all very well the executives and the "spin doctors" deciding which MDs or CEOs to put on the top table, as far as we hacks are concerned, the "suits" don't matter, it's the guys in the track-suits, or, as yesterday, the t-shirts and shorts, whom we want to speak to - the players.

 

We had a choice yesterday, Ross Ford and Tim Visser from Edinburgh and Stuart Hogg and Al Kellock from Glasgow. So, the print guys had a wee Celtic-style huddle in the corner of the media suite, where we decided, we would hold back Stuart Hogg's comments until Tuesday, for Wednesday's paper.

 

Then what happens, the Press Association and radio reporters did separate slots with the players, and put-out Hogg's piece, Monday for Tuesday; thereby negating our carefully worked-out plans. Words will be had, you can bet on that.

 

Interestingly, PA, in whom News International has a big share, didn't go down the line the rest of us picked-up on - the fact that, while Sky will not, until season 2014-15, be showing Pro12 games, and while BT Sport has, as yet, no plans to also show Pro12 games, BT Sport will have a presence on Sky, through being on the front of the Glasgow and Edinburgh shirts when their Heineken Cup games are broadcast on Sky.

 

Not much they can do during actual game time, but, this could make for some interesting camera angles for the pre and post-game talking head bits to players and coaches.

 

Reminds me of that terrific Sun picture of the main man - after the Daily Record put their names on the shirts for Ally McCoist's Testimonial. There it was, the next morning, on the back page of the Sun - a huge picture of McCoist, beaming at the camera, and, on his chest, the photoshopped logo - 'Daily Ranger'. Another priceless Sun contribution to popular culture.

 

 

 

WELL done Ewan Bulger, who is off shortly to New Zealand on a rugby scholarship. Mark that name well, for Ewan is a massive lump of a 17-year-old, who, if he stays fit and healthy can have a huge future in rugby.

 

His dedication has already seen him regularly travel from his home on Arran to play for Ayr and for Scotland's age group teams.

 

We've already got in test Lion Richie Gray and Grant Gilchrist, two huge lumps of still comparatively young locks, with Richie's wee brother Jonny and the Perpignan-based Adam Sinclair coming along behind them, add Bulger and Ruaridh Leishman of Stirling County to that and, we are seemingly well-off for locks for a few years to come. Of course, they will not all make it all the way to the full international team, but, there is some depth there.

 

 

 

 

Big Comapny, Big Deal, Big Hopes

I HAVE never been that big on publishing transfer fees or the worth of sponsorship deals. Basically this is because, all too often the parties involved will be economical with the truth of the size of the fee or deal, usually for commercial reasons; so, whilst we mere hacks are left free to speculate and guess, the chances are, we've got it wrong - so,let's not bother.

 

So, I have no idea how many £millions BT are going to pump into Scottish Rugby over the next four years, but, from the smiles on the faces of the respective executives at the top table for today's Scotstoun launch of the new deal, both sides appear happy. The new deal is particularly good for Glasgow, who didn't have a shirt sponsor last season and, while there was some criticism of the Murrayfield marketing department for allowing this situation to develop, today's new announcement indicates - it was worth the wait.

 

It has often been said that the only "brands" worth getting into bed with in Scottish sport were Celtic and Rangers. This deal shows, this is no longer the case and perhaps the only deals which are more-prestigious than this new Scottish Rugby one and involve Scottish companies are the RBS deals with the Six Nations and Formula 1 and Diageo's Ryder Cup deal.

 

The deal is also a nice one for the BT brand chosen to adorn the shirts - BT Sport. With the new shirts on display in the Heineken Cup and from next season in the Pro12 matches televised on Sky, this is a nice bit of guerilla advertising from BT.

 

 

 

I DON'T always agree with how they do things at Murrayfield, but, after speaking to the four players put up for media duties at today's launch: Al Kellock and Stuart Hogg of Warriors and Edinburgh's Tim Visser and Ross Ford, I think we should commend them.

 

Obviously, we hacks wanted to know what the quartet of Scottish internationalists thought of Rory Lamont's widely-publicised remarks on rugby's way of caring for injured players. They well have been toeing the party line, but, I think not; however, all four were quick to praise their clubs, and by that they mean the SRU's, treatment of injured players. All were only too pleased to impress upon us that never, during their professional careers, had they felt, far less been, pressurised to play when injured, or to carry-on following a head knock.

 

That was pretty-mkuch my impression of how the SRU handled such things. Of course, apart from Visser's short spell with Newcastle, none of the quartet has played professionally outwith the umbrella coverage of the SRU. This leads me to believe the SRU takes better care of their players than those professional sides in England and France, which are driven by commercial concerns.

 

Lamont has played in both of these countries and I surmise, it was there that he felt pressurised to play when less than 100 per cent.

 

I see the Welsh RU are speaking about introducing central contracts for their international players; with the fact that our pro sides were specially-formed SRU "branches" if you like, we have always had a form of centralised contracts. Maybe the SRU should make this a more-definite fact of life, and while they are at it, they could maybe,if they cannot pay more outright, come-up with some sort of scheme which makes it better for Scottish players to play for the Scottish pro teams than go abroad. But, I suppose for that to really work, we would need to get back to three pro teams, or better still, back up to four.

Nice One Kenny

JINGS, crivvens, help ma Boab - The SRU has made a sensible move - by appointing Kenny Murray as Glasgow's new Assistant Coach. Kenny's appointment is the latest in a series of recognition moves to guys doing well in the club game. It follows the opportunities handed to Simon Cross and John Dalziel with the Under-20s and gives the impression that, perhaps, somebody inside Murrayfield is watching what is going on at club level.

Kenny deserves his chance and I am sure he will take it. However, this could be a bad blow to Ayr. I somehow feel Peter Laverie is maybe one of those guys who is better as the Number Two in a coaching team. Time will tell, but, between his Ayr duties and his new role on the SRU Council, big Peter is going to be a busy man this year.

RORY Lamont's well-publicised revelations this week about the pressures being put on professional players to play when less than fully-fit has attracted a lot of attention, and rightly so.

We have always known rugby is a hard game and, at the top level, with the fitness demands of today and the sheer size of the players, it is even harder. For all their padding, American Footballers have a short career, which helps explain the megabucks they are paid. In pro rugby, the collisions are just as intense, the players almost as big, but, as yet, the padding is minimal.

How long before a badly injured player sues the governing body citing a dereliction of a duty of care or some other reason? Given the surfeit of lawyers today and their seemingly endless quest for a new litigation designed to make them some money - how longer before the injury compensation ciulture gets a grip of the game we love.

Time for the governing bodies to take their duties of car seriously. They could start by doing away with the ludicrous concussion rules as currently applied. These rules are clearly a nonsense. And, might not this be another stick with which to beat the poor old referee?

"Bloodgate" was bad enough - "Permanent Brain Damagegate" or "Paraplegicgate" - from a collapsing scrum - would be so-much worse.

  

Murrayfield - Muirfield: They've Got A Lot In Common

THE recent media kerfuffel around The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, what run Muirfield as their own private fiefdom and their refusal to admit women members gave me cause to chuckle.

 

This inner laughter was mainly at the expense of our political leaders, these stalwarts of freedom and free speech, who are, as with the pimply Old Etonian posh boy what heads the UK (English) government, one David Cameron.

 

Och aye, he's all for freedom, democracy and free speech in Lybia, Iraq and Syria - where the towel heads are free to murder and kill each other - so long as the oil keeps flowing - but, in civilised, rich, first world (ok - maybe second world) Scotland, a bunch of well-off middle-class golfers are to be harangued relentlessly, for prefering to play golf without the distractions of having women around the place.

 

Where's their freedom of speech and expression? Or does Cameron's need for regime change even extend to East Lothian? And, for once, Wee Eck's usually sure touch deserted him and he weighed-in on the side of the lunatics, howling at the gates of the asylum. How sad.

 

The laugh for me is - given the demographic of the membership of HCEG - the politicians advocating change were only upsetting their masters. The Muirfield membership is, we are assured, stuffed full of top-tier civil servants; it's the Scottish playground of the elite Civil Service First Division members, not to mention the cream of the Scottish judiciary and our top lawyers, accountants and bankers.

 

Getting some meaningful political changes past that lot, after you've upbraided them for their leisure-time misogyny, might prove a tad more difficult.

 

Which brings me to the Murrayfield Mandarins. Given the way Edinburgh works, I am fairly certain there will be one or two Murifield members who are also Murrayfield Mandarins. At least, these men will not be getting a red top mauling any time soon for their maltreatment of women rugby players.

 

That said, I do recall, in the bad old days when women's rugby was almost the sole preserve of the sisterhood in feminist North America, one SRU HIgh Heid Yin becoming somewhat hysterical on a North American tour, when confronted by a pack of women rugby players.

 

He literally turned puce. OK, the players were also a wee bit put-out, until they realised that the girls were actually keen on the game and knew what they were talking about. The conversation about scrummaging between the American women's front row trio and a couple of British Lions front five forwards was all about technique and the dark arts.

 

However, I digress. The MMs. Like their friends at Muirfield, they do things their way and somehow don't give a toss about public opinion, particularly when that opinion is being framed by those ill-informed chaps in the media, with axes to grind.

 

So, when we tell them: "Hey guys, isn't it about time you sorted out the coaching situation at Edinburgh and appointed someone", they give us the rubber ear.

 

Then they turn round and make the inspired announcement that Edinburgh will play Newcastle, at Hawick, in next season's pre-season friendly. We all know that there is some truth in the old saying: "A strong Scottish rugby needs a strong Hawick", and it's terrific that the Teris are back in the top-flight of club rugby.

 

Let's hope the feel-good factor in a town which has had its share of knocks of late, extends to a good turn-out for the game. It's time those precious souls in the Borders felt wanted again. Of course, the onus is on the Teris, the Braw Lads and the rest to, for one night only, bury their mutual loathing and turn out in numbers to back Edinburgh. Will they?

 

On the whole then, the Hawick game is a good move. Let's hope they get a shift on and make another good move, by appointing a permanent Edinburgh coaching team, for, they are leaving it very, very late.

 

Edinburgh face Munster, in Ireland, on 7 September, that's just six and a half weeks away; the squad is already in training, leaving the new coach, scant preparation time - or, are they going to leave Messrs Scott and Hodge in-charge, but without the security of public endorsement?

 

Strange are the ways of Murrayfield at times - which is maybe why, the Mandarins are so at home at Muirfield.

The Tingle Has Started

THE pre-season pace is gathering; the Rabo Direct Pro12 fixtures for the new season were released on Friday, the Heineken Cup fixtures will come out early next week and there are only five blank Saturdays until the real action gets under way in the RBS Premiership, with the Pro12 kicking-off less than a fortnight later. Exciting, isn't it?

 

It will be good to get down to some real rugby, all this speculating and fulminating isn't good for one. I see this week the Waratah's coach with the unpronouncable name has been hitting-out at referees, for punishing "hard-but-fair" tackles, suggesting they are trying to "soften-up" rugby.

 

I feel modern rugby is too-focussed on the flashy stuff; of course, there are some wince-inducing tackles being made these days, mainly because a 17 stone flanker thumping into a 16 stone centre is bound to create a bigger bang than, as happened in the good old days, a 14 stone flanker hit a 12 stone centre.

 

Players certainly got a lot bigger in the late 1960s and early 1970s than they had been a decade before, but, if you stood a naked Gordon Brown in his prime beside a naked Al Kellock say, although Big Al would be three inches taller, they would weigh just about the same, but, Al would be a totally different shape from big Broon.

 

I was once flattened and ko'd by Broon - perfectly legally. I'm happier to have been hit by him than by the much-more solid citizen that is Kellock. Today's players at the top level are not only generally bigger, they are packing a lot more muscle and generating a great deal more power.

 

That said, I doubt if any of today's outstanding flankers could stop a man in his tracks as effectively as Ronnie Glasgow, the greatest tackler I ever saw. If Ronnie hit a running opponent, they went down, and stayed down - no matter how big they were. You seldom see that level of technical expertise in tackling these days.

 

It is also worth remembering, Mike Phillips, the current Lions scrum-half, is taller and heavier than Hughie McLeod was when he was the world's best prop back in the late fifties/early sixties.

 

So, the modern "big hits" are more a result of player evolution than a recipe for panic and disaster. Better were coaches and officials to sort-out THE big bugbear of the modern game - the scrum and the breakdown and the refereeing interpretations thereof.

 

Abolish this nonsense of "the hit" at scrum engagement, make the scrum halves put the ball down the middle of the tunnel, and BRING BACK REAL RUCKING AND THE NECESSITY TO PLAY THE BALL WITH FEET AT THE BREAKDOWN and, I believe, suddenly, we will have rugby back as the brilliant game it should be.

 

Of course, the English and Welsh, after two generations of: "trot up to the breakdown and fall don" will not like it, but, if the Kiwis, us Jocks, the Paddies and our allies stick together, we can win this one and save our game.

Give That Man A Medal - That Punch Should Have Been Thrown Years Ago

OVER the game's long history rugby has had its fair share and more of bad apples. Former internationalists have taken unpaid holidays at Her Majesty's pleasure, been involved in lurid divorce cases, been banged-up overnight after over-indulging in the sauce and other boyish high spirits.

I could name at least a couple of Scottish international luminaries who could give George Best a run for his money when it came to having carnival knowledge of willing women - but, perhaps because our rugby heroes have long been decent middle-class chaps from the professions, few of their misadventures have made the papers. This was, of course, aided by the rugby writers' vow of Omerta: "What happens on-tour, stays on-tour" and all that.

Sadly, now top rugby players are professional sportsmen, and journalists, even rugby writers, are expected to trawl the gutters alongside their red-top rottweiler colleagues, the previous rules no longer apply.

They might be fitter, more-dedicated and by and large better-educated than their round ball cousins - but, modern rugby players are now fair game for the tabloids.

Which brings us to Gavin Henson; laid-out this week by a Bath team-mate, apparently one who took exception to the orange Welshman's behaviour towards members of the opposite sex in a bar.

Give that man a medal, say I; or, if I can lower the tone, perhaps wee Charlotte might fancy popping over the Severn Crossing to say a very personal  "thank you". Perhaps, had some of his Welsh team mates stuck one on Henson, back when he was the Golden Child of Welsh rugby, he'd be something more-substantial than a fading relic of the superstar he once threatened to be.

When it comes to anti-social behaviour, to dragging rugby's name through the muck, Gavin-boyo has few, if any, peers. He's been an over-grown, spoilt kid for years, the punch has long been coming.

Let's hope, for his and Bath' sake, given the investment they have made in Henson's alleged but long-hidden genius, it does the trick. At his best, he's far-too good a player to be more-noted for his off-field failings than his ability to win a game single-handed, assuming he still has that rare quality.

SPEAKING of the Welsh's ability to talk themselves up, or even into trouble. I had a quiet chortle at this week's Scarlets press release, bigging-up new signing John Barclay.

John boy is, apparently, looking forward to learning from the Welsh Lions he will be playing alongside this season. FFS, talk about media spin. Barclay, at his best, is as good a back row forward as there is in world rugby (with the obvious exception of McCaw of course). At his best, he's better than anyone the Welsh can put-out.

Trouble is, Barclay has been playing inside his comfort zone for at least the last two seasons, secure in the knowledge his Glasgow place was secure and, even if Robinson or Johnson favoured others, such as Ross Rennie, given the attrition rate among breakaways today and Scotland's paucity of resources, international trips and caps would still come along.

Now he has gone to Llanelli, Barclay is way out of his comfort zone and will have to up his game. I have every confidence in his ability to do this, which can only be good for Scotland - even without the Scarlets spin machine trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

Barclay can teach the Welsh a thing or two and, I hope he does. It would be nice to see the Killer Bees re-united as Scotland's brakaway unit in the new season.

Blood, Sweat And Money Concerns

STUCK for something to do of a balmy summer evening this week, I took myself off to the former Scottish Agricultural College grounds at Auchincruive, just outside Ayr, to watch Ayr Rugby Club's pre-season training.

Watching Kenny Murray flog his charges mercilessly through the early season fitness grind, I was joined by Ayr Director of Rugby Jock Craig. Big Jock is a man of few words which aren't made-up of four letters, he watched one segment: five different exercises, done at maximum intensity for 20 seconds, with ten seconds of rest between each exercise and with the players asked to complete four sets: then remarked: "Naw, I don't miss pre-season one bit".

Another spectator, Ayr team manager Dougie Stanley, another of us Baby Boomers and a former head of PE at an Ayrshire secondary school said: "You know, when you watch that, you have to think, we worked just as hard on the conditioning phase. Where the modern players are way ahead of us is in ball-handling; modern forwards are just as adept with ball in hand as the backs of our generation".

One player who is looking particularly trim and impressive is Zimbabwean prop Denford Mutamangira, who is training full-time with Glasgow Warriors, and doing Ayr's thrice-weekly sessions on top.

But, nobody is working harder for Ayr this pre-season than club president Billy McHarg, who has become an expert on the airline industry as he tries to get the club a fair deal on the logistics nightmare which is the travel arrangements for their three away British & Irish Cup trips, to Jersey, Cornish Pirates and Ulster Ravens.

Merely getting the players and support staff to these games is set to cost Ayr somewhere in excess of £30,000 this season.

Well Done Lions, But, This Wasn't A Great Series Win

THE Lions beat the Wallabies in Saturday's Third and final Test in Sydney and thereby recorded their first series win in 16-years. It would be churlish not to congratulate the side on their victory. They won, they won well, but, only two cheers from me I am afraid. Because, I fear if winning ugly is to be the way of things for the Lions, count me out.

The Lions ought to be about more than simply winning a series. Let's face it, rugby's ultimate stage is the Rugby World Cup; and, on that stage, in six of the seven stagings, the winning side has been from the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, generally, Southern Hemisphere rugby is superior to the Northern Hemisphere variety. Indeed, taking the RWC as the yardstick, the Northern Hemisphere nation which has consistently offered the greatest challenge to the SH Big Three of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa has been France.

The French do not contribute to the Lions, so, if, as has been the case on the Tour which has just ended in victory - it is all about winning. This is the subliminal message from North to South: OK, in the BIG event, the RWC, we four British Isles countries cannot consistently compete with you, so, we will combine and beat you then - thereby proving, our brand of rugby is superior.

This is clearly tosh. Over the three-match series in Australia, the home country, allegedly the weakest of the SH Big Three, should have won the First Test; did win the Second, then fell apart in the Third.

The reason for their Final Test failure was: the Lions scrum dominated; so, international rugby now, apparently, comes down to winning the scrummage battle. But, the consensus is, on Saturday, French referee Mr Poite decided the Lions had the stronger scrummage and favoured them.

Maybe they did; however, when winning a test match comes down to persuading the referee that your scrum is the stronger, we might as well pack it in and go home. There has long been this myth about scrummage power. Certainly, it helps, but, a scrum is simply supposed to be a means of re-starting play after a breakdown, not a weapon in winning games and the quicker we get back to basics and, again make it a means of restarting play, the better for rugby.

The scrum has been a mess for some years now. Hookers no longer hook, scrum-halves lang syne stopped feeding the ball down the middle of the tunnel, as per the laws. We have this ludicrous macho thing: "the hit".

Until the IRB truly grasps the nettle and sorts-out the scrum, the game will struggle. Similarly, "the breakdown" has to be sorted out.

THE IRB MUST, MUST, MUST BRING BACK "PROPER" RUCKING, IF THE GAME IS TO GO FORWARD.

I can appreciate we HAVE TO ensure that stamping and head-kicking is eliminated; thankfully, the players today are now more-stringently policed than ever before, however, as James Horwill proved in the Second Test, you can still, with a good lawyer, get away with a stamp. But, absolutely nothing ensures an entertaining, handling, off-loading game like quick ruck ball and the sooner we outlaw this scrambling about on the ground for the ball and go back to good, old-fashioned Otago or Scottish-style rucking, the better.

The Lions won the series through playing a limited, power-based game and with the help of the referee. A game where refereeing interpretations and safety-first boring bump and grind play wins, is a game with a problem.

Can I say, I am disgusted by my rugby-writing colleagues who are already insisting that Warren Gatland should coach the 2017 Lions in New Zealand.

Nay, nay and thrice nay - unless he is prepared, in the interim, to embrace a more-entertaining, backs and skill-orientated form of rugby than he preaches with Wales and encouraged the Lions to play.

Let's see the four British Isles nations giving it a real go in the 2015 RWC, then getting their entertainers and runners together to strut their stuff in the Land of the Long White Cloud two years later.

Gatland Has Hastened The Death Of The Lions

SINCE the first tour back in the 1880s, Scots have played a major role in Lions history. That inaugural tour, which lasted seemingly for ever included among the players one of the great unsung heroes of Scottish sport, Dr John Smith. The good doctor scored ten goals in ten football international appearances for Scotland, including a hat-trick against England; he was then declared a professional, for playing for the English Corinthians against Bolton Wanderers, whereupon he returned to rugby.

In his first spell in the oval ball game, as an Edinburgh University student, he had missed-out on a Calcutta Cup appearance on the casting vote of the SRU selection committee chairman - and, on returning to the game after his suspension by the SFA, he was invited to tour with the first Lions, along with three good Hawick Teris and another Edinburgh University man in fellow "medic" Dr Henry Brooks.

From that start, many eminent Scots have toured: skipper Mark Morrison and "Darkie" Bedel-Sivright in 1903, Herbert Waddell, Iain Smith and Dan Drysdale in 1924, Hawick's Willie Welsh in 1930, DJ Macrae of St Andrew's University and the Glasgow Accie, Laurie Duff in 1938.

Post-World War II such Lions legends as Dr Douglas Smith, player in 1950, manager of the great 1971 party, Peter Kininmonth in 1950; Arthur Smith - another Lions captain, Jimmy Greenwood, Hughie McLeod, Ken Scotland, Gordon Waddell, Mike Campbell-Lammerton, Jim Telfer, Derek Grant, "Mighty Mouse" McLauchlan, Gordon "Broon from Troon", Andy Irvine, Ian McGeechan - "the Greatest Lion of all", John Beattie Senr, the Hastings brothers, Fin Calder, David Sole, Tom Smith, "Toony" Townsend all added lustre to the Lions name.

Now, while Richie Gray will be on the bench, Stuart Hogg - the latest Teri to travel, Sean Maitland and most-shockingly over-looked of all, Ryan Grant, will put on their Number Ones and sit in the stand to watch a game which, on the evidence of the tour thus far, they deserve to play in.

Scottish pride has been sacrificed on the altar of a Kiwi's ego and inability to accept that, if Plan A isn't working, hasn't worked in the previous two tests, it might be a good idea to change it.

That is the draw-back to giving ultimate power to a single man, or to a team of coaches; their word is law, there is no over-view, no more-experienced head able to say: "Hang-on there old boy, maybe you've got it wrong."

Clearly Gatland and Co don't rate Scottish players. You have to ask, given he is an employee of the WRU and therefore sees a lot of Celtic League rugby, has he had his eyes closed when watching Glasgow beat the four Welsh regions?

Or has he so-entrenched himself in Wales that he has adopted the English/Welsh rugby stance of: "The Jocks and the Paddies cannot possibly be as good as us, so, if they beat us either individually or collectively, our guy/guys must have had an off-night.

I fear Gatland has, like SCW before him, stuck another knife in the Lions' collective ethos and hastened the death of a unique concept.

I could almost wish for an Australian win -but, somehow, I cannot go that far.

Questions Already And The New Season Hasn't Even Started

WITH the Lions tour winding down to Saturday's final test, which might, regardless of Welsh input, turn out to be more Iswandlana than Rorke's Drift, we Scots rugby men can tear ourselves away from our marginal role in Lions affairs to contemplate the new season.

Those Glasgow and Edinburgh players who didn't tour in the summer are already back in training, with the majority of our Premiership teams due to return this week. There is still the small matter of the Edinburgh coaching team to sort-out and here, I feel, Messrs Dodson and the Murrayfield mandarins are leaving things a tad late.

Whether we like it or not, we now have a situation in Scottish rugby, somewhat akin to that in English cricket, where most of our top players are centrally-controlled, ie, the SRU rather than the clubs has the final say as to where and when they train and play. Given our small playing numbers, this is no bad thing, provided it is managed properly.

To this end, a lot of pressure now falls on SRU vice-president Ian Rankin and Ayr's Peter Laverie, as the men on the SRU council who are there to represent the clubs' interests. Yes, Scotland must come first, but, we cannot ignore the body of the kirk entirely.

Laverie, for one, could soon be on a collision course with the SRU, because a wee bird tells me young Glasgow tight-head prop George Hunter, is being "encouraged" by some inside Murrayfield to agree to a loan deal which will see him playing for London Scottish in season 2013-14.

Hunter is effectively Glasgow's fourth-choice tight-head, behind the recovering from injury Mike Cusack, Moray Low and Ed Kelman. As such, he will not get a lot of game time with the Warriors, so giving him more-regular exposure at a slightly lower level can only be good for a young prop who is still wearing L-plates.

But, last season, Hunter spent most of his time playing rather well for Ayr. The Millbrae club has already lost hooker Hayden Wisnewski, who has returned to New Zealand and their unsung second row "donkey" Colin White, who is going to college in the USA from last season's squad. In addition big Nick Campbell, who like Hunter spent more time in the Ayr pack than the Warriors' one, has not been retained by Glasgow and has joined Jersey.

That's three-fifths of last season's first-choice Ayr front five gone. OK, the Millbrae men accept there is little they could do as regards Wisnewski, Campbell and White, but, for the SRU to favour London Scottish over the Scottish Champions, given that both clubs will be playing in the British & Irish Cup in the new season, is a hard one for Ayr to stomach.

IF Murrayfield is going to consider Scottish as a third professional side, albeit one playing in the English rather than Celtic league set-up, let them make it official, then we will all know what is happening. These nudge, nudge, wink, wink back-door deals stink.

Ayr could also lose Finn Russell, when the stand-off returns from New Zealand; the impression club officials have been given is that he will be full-time with Glasgow. However, even allowing for Duncan Weir's current injury, it is surely obvious that in the new season Glasgow will have too-many stand-offs, Edinburgh too-few and that has to be sorted out, quickly.

Not that they should be considered a bunch of moaning minnies, but Ayr are less than happy with the B&I Cup draw, which has handed them away trips to Jersey, Cornish Pirates and Ulster Ravens.

However, the Ayr club has a strong farming backbone running through it, so, they will accept their fate, roll up their sleeves and get on with things. The logistics of travelling to Jersey and Penzance will give Billy McHarg and his management team nightmares and already, Ayr are looking at charter flights for the official party and, hopefully enough supporters to fill the plane at a reasonable cost.

Getting to Belfast will be somewhat simpler thanks to the Troon ferry port, but, it might have been simpler still, had Ryanair still flown Prestwick to Belfast.

Ah! the glamour of cross-border rugby, which doesn't quite stack-up when you assess the logistics.

These Anglo-Welsh Lions Are Pussy Cats

THE Lions squad for the final test has been announced and, on reading it, I will be placing a small wager on Australia winning. This goes very much against the grain, however, for the third Lions series in a row, an Anglo-Welsh coach (even if he was born a Kiwi) has failed to differentiate between British and English-Welsh.

Sure, the Irish are there, they are always there, but, the lack of Scottish representation in this test, as it has been in the two previous, is a disgraceful exhibition of narrow-minded inability to recognise talent.

By omitting all four Scottish Lions from the starting line-up, Warren Gatland has written Scott Johnston's pre-match speeches before the 2014 Six Nations and has perhaps, I hope, kick-started a Scottish 6N winning campaign.

In particular the treatment of Ryan Grant, both before and during the tour has been disgraceful; Gatland clearly doesn't know the man he is working with. Grantie will, I trust, be a one-man wrecking ball come the start of next year as he demonstrates just what the Lions missed out on in the tests.

With Messrs Gray, Hogg and Maitland also having huge points to make, and a team as a whole becoming comfortable with the off-loading game which the likes of Johnston and Townsend are promoting, we will be very competitive and, if we can get our leading number sevens fit and on the park, we could win the whole damned thing.

The four Lions now know, they are every bit as good as the players from elsewhere in these islands, they just don't have coaches favouring them - go get them boys in 2014.

THE minimal impact which the Scottish players have made with the Lions puts another Scottish icon in the firing line. Andy Irvine will have a lot of explaining to do around Scotland in the new season.

As Tour Captain, he has allowed his coaches too-much rope; I feel they will, once Australia wins on Saturday, have hanged themselves. Maybe, if Andy had read the riot act, their mistakes  in selection and tactics, could have been avoided.

I feel gutted for Brian O'Driscoll, dropped from the final test, however, he's not the first and will not be the last, international icon to be shabbily disposed of.

BOD on tour was not the BOD of old, but, he remains a class act. He's out, but the Welshman and the Englishmen who, more than most, contributed to the second test loss, have retained their places - explain, for I cannot.

I FINALLY, in the aftermath of the IRB appeal, got around to looking at the You Tube footage of James Horwill's stamp on AWJ in the first test.

It seemed a clear-cut stamp to me; if it had been, as Horwill argued, a case of being caught off-balance, then he'd have been forced to put down his other leg in an effort to maintain his balance.

Nope, to me, a veteran of some 20-years in the front five, back when "kick a head, any head" was the front five's doctrine - this was a stamp. He got away with it, move on.

MANAGEMENT, who is quite happy to accompany me to away matches, so long as our destination has a good shopping centre, is making waves about the 2013-14 British & Irish Cup.

Once I announced Ayr had been drawn to face Jersey, she told me: "You know, I've always wanted to visit that island".

Well, back to the computer, looking for cheap holidays in Jersey.

The Modern Media - I Despair

I HAVE a couple of former colleagues, both now in their eighth decade, who lang syne re-located from Greater Glasgow to God's Waiting Room, as the Clyde Coast is known in some parts. Both were old-fashioned hot-metal men, foot-in-the-door journalists of the old school, who toiled long, hard and well at the coal-face of Scottish sports journalism.

These guys love print journalism, not for them newspaper websites, they need the smell of fresh ink and perhaps a modicum of residue coming off on their fingers as they  read their papers - from the back - of a morning.

Sadly, this joyous, ease-myself-in start to the day is now denied them. Their good ladies having decreed that neither be allowed to read the paper, particularly the formerly-esteemed Glasgow-based broadsheet where once their by-lines were a daily feature, until after lunch time.

Apparently, the decline in standards of reporting and lay-out, the dumbing-down of the paper's output was driving both gentlemen to such lengths that their blood pressure was going through the roof. Today, suitably calmed by a lunch-time pre-prandial, they can be trusted to read the paper without risk of turning into two Incredible Hulks.

I know where their good ladies are coming from and can sympathise, for, with one or two rare exceptions - young Grant at the Herald, Patullo and Ferguson across at Holyrood Road and Dougie Alexander at the Sunday Times (Scotland), plus a couple of others whom I will not mention for fear of turning their heads, today's sports writing storm troopers are a callow lot.

Of course, they are not totally to blame. I blame newspaper executives whose response to the rise of on-line journalism this past decade has been, if anything, marginally worse than that of the Scottish Rugby Union to professionalism.

Can somebody please tell me why - after the wall-to-wall television and radio coverage which top-flight professional sport receives in this country  today, newspapers still feel it necessary to come-out with traditional-style reports, being read some 10 to 12 hours after the same game has been seen on television or broadcast on radio?

Newspapers' advantage these days is in the fact they can give the in-depth analysis which the immediacy of radio and television cannot match - they should be making more use of this advantage, and less of putting into words what we have already seen in pictures.

But, you see very little in the way of in-depth analysis on our pages. Instead, increasingly we are "treated" to the thoughts and opinions of retired internationalists, a breed of men who, with the notable exception of the wonderful Brian Moore at the Daily Telegraph, seem determined not to rock the boat by being critical of their on-field successors.

This trait in journalism comment is currently being seen at its worse in the "dead days" of the Lions Tour, when we are subjected to the thoughts and opinions of a raft of former Lions, including Gavin Hastings, who are: "writing as an ambassador for" the bank I refuse to name which is the Lions' main jersey sponsor.

It's a nice wee earner for Gav and his old mates, but, their opinions add little to man's quest for knowledge - for the simple fact, by accepting the bank's ambassadorial role, they have lost their independence. Gav and Co cannot, dare not, say what needs to be said: which is - Gatland and Co have fucked things up big style.

Sure, Gavin today is calling for Stuart Hogg to be introduced for the crucial final Test on Saturday. Won't happen; to bring-in the Jocks would be a case of Gatland admitting he has got it wrong, and that will not happen.

What I think needs to be said is: "Andy Irvine, you're supposed to be managing the tour, why don't you manage and bring your coaches to heel - knock some heads together".

The blessed Andy seems above and immune from criticism. I accept the Lions manager's role these days is largely ceremonial, real power is vested in the coach. However, I feel real Lions managers such as Willie John McBride or Ian McGeechan would have sorted out Gatland and his co-coaches about three games ago.

The bish, bash, bosh Anglo-Welsh style wasn't working - that much was obvious in the First Test; it should have been changed, but, I fear, it's too-late now.

I reckon the best plan for the four Scots on the tour is to get injured in training and out of the Third Test reckoning - then they can come home and say, in all honestly: "Wasn't our fault gov; nothing to do with us", while preparing for a Scottish Six Nations win in 2014 to stick it to the Anglo-Welsh coterie who got us into this mess.

Gatland - You're Shit And If You Don't Win On Saturday - You're Toast

IN HIS poem of praise to his former colliery work-mate and great hero, Dai Morris, Max Boyce came-up with one of those head-nodding lines, as he described the aftermath of a Combined Aberavon-Neath XV being thoroughly gone-over by the touring All Blacks.

He wrote: ".....We all blamed the committee, but, no one there blamed Dai".

That was the great thing about the Old Days, of rule by committee-men, the "bufties", "Alickadoos" and "blazers" who ran things in the amateur days. When, as they often did, things went awry, we could blame the committee-men who ran the teams; they, in turn, could deflect blame, by insisting: "I went the other way, but, was out-voted". Various retired greats have written of how, after being dropped the from the national side, a majority of: "the big five" or "the big seven", dependant on how-many selectors there were, would sidle-up to the dropped player and whisper: "Of course, I voted for you, but was out-voted".

Much was the joy and what an uplift it was to have EVERY member of the selection committee admit: "Well, I wanted you in the team old boy, but....."

Nowadays, selection is down to one man - the Coach; God, he who makes the ultimate choice. I suppose it's because, in rugby as in so-much of life, we've gone down the American route of 'The Coach as God'.

Right now, in Australia, Warren Gatland is in this situation - he needs to put the correct team on the park in Sydney for the Third and final Test between Australia and what is most-definitely HIS Lions.

He certainly didn't put the correct team on the park in the Second Test, and, as far as we Scots are concerned - he made one HUGE mistake, when he over-looked Ryan Grant for the loose-head spot, going with England's Samoan Mako Vunipola.

I can accept that Vunipola is perhaps the future of English front row play, but, and it's a big BUT; his current strength lies in his impact about the park as a ball-carrier and close-quarters tackler. As a scrummager, he is still wearing L-plates.

The first and primary function of a loose-head prop is to guarantee his side wins its own put-in. In these days of, at the top level, EVERY put-in being squint, this ought not to be a problem. However, when an international side loses one against the head, as happened to the Lions on Saturday, then questions MUST be asked of the loose-head.

OK, it is not all about the loose-head. I can name a terrific loose-head whose Scotland hopes were sunk by a B international in which he was under-mined by propping in front of a second row who simply couldn't push. I can also name a couple of international loose-head props who were such technical wrecking balls, they could have scrummed without benefit of second row support.

Gatland, as a former hooker, SHOULD know what is involved in propping. However, that he chose for the tour Vunipola, a player seriously lacking experience and top-flight exposure, then Matt Stevens, a proven liability, makes one wonder about this perception of his experience.

He also took, as first-choice, the hugely over-rated Gethin Jenkins. Nope, I reckon Gatland doesn't know Jack Shit about front row play.

THE outstanding loose-head in the British Isles during season 2012-13 was Ryan Grant. Not taking him as a first-choice defied explanation; not taking him as first alternate, after Jenkins was hurt, further defied explanation. Finally taking him as second alternate was, to my mind, a case of: We'd better get him this time or we will look really silly.

But, to then marginalise him, as Gatland has done, this HAS to go down as bloody-minded determination to prove: "I don't rate him and simply will not pick him until I have no alternative".

Grant HAD to have been sent on, if not during the first half, then certainly at half-time, to shore-up an already creaking Lions scrum. NOT sending him on, may yet go down as Gatland's "Woodward moment" - that decision which under-mines his reputation as a coach.

THE above said, what can we as Scots (and I include our Australian Director of Rugby/Caretaker Coach as "Scottish" in this) do about this calculated snub to one of our finest?

Well, the answer is obvious - we can win the 2014 Six Nations. This is not wishful thinking or outwith our capabilities. In truth, there is very little difference between the six countries. There is NO outstanding northern hemisphere international side right now.

Scotland has to find a consistent level of performance. I actually think we have something which the other three British Isles nations lack - and that is the desire and ability to play the modern off-loading, fluid game.

But, to do this, we have to be given something we certainly didn't get this season - a fair crack of the whip from the referees. Somehow, as was most-crucially seen in the Welsh game, where Craig Joubert had a shocker which handed the initiative to Wales, we MUST change this supposition that Scotland has a "weak" scrum.

How, at Murrayfield, I longed for Scott Johnson to appear on the touch-line and tell Joubert straight: "You've got five minutes to sort-out the scrum; you are crucifying us; either give us a fair crack of the whip, start penalising these cheating Welsh so-and-sos or - I will pull the team off".

A bit hard, I know, but, sometimes somebody has to make an unpopular stand.

OR, MORE properly, we instruct our IRB representatives such as the White Shark to start banging the table and get the laws and the referees sorted out.

Bring back rucking, proper rucking - this would sort-out the breakdown in jig time; insist on straight feeding of the scrum; restore hooking; and, abolish "the hit".

The thing is, we Scots don't cheat well. So, we MUST lead the fight to stop the others cheating us and the public.