Cheers Niko - You've Probably Gone At The Right Time

PARDON me for not groaning at the news that Niko Matawalu will be leaving Warriors for Bath, at the end of the season. Yes, he's a good player, sure, he's been good for Glasgow, but, the truth is, Niko is a wee bit self-indulgent, he is not really a team player and, I reckon the rest of the Pro12 clubs have worked-out how to play him.

 

Glasgow and Edinburgh will always struggle to hold on to their most-talented players; that is a fact of modern life - there is more money in the English Premiership, and an awful lot more money in the French Top 14. Niko, Warriors can cover, I'd hate to see the club lose Jonny Gray, or Hoggie or Bennett and Dunbar, for instance.

 

Time for the SRU to come-up with some sort of means of keeping the top home-grown talent with the Scottish clubs.

 

 

 

I HAD to laugh at the hoo-ha which has followed Dylan Hartley's latest red card, in the weekend's East Midlands Derby. Hartley is, we all know, a thug. This isn't his first indiscretion, it will probably not be his last.

 

Referee JP Doyle, initially, was thinking of a yellow card; and that to me is the problem. I well recall, when the yellow card was first introduced, former top Scottish referee Alan Hosie saying: "This is a bad move, some referees will use it as a get-out, brandishing a yellow card when it should be red".

 

The latest Hartley offence was proof of this. Time to to recall another Hosieism. The great Hillhead HSFP whistler has long believed in the two-tier penalty; three points for "technical" or low level offences - a ten point penalty, from a penalty spot, for foul play anywhere on the park. I'd buy that.

 

Courtesy of BT Sport, I get to watch the somewhat over-hyped English Premiership. Rather like their football colleagues, the guys covering this rugby league tend to hype it up as a better league than it is. Truth is, a lot of the rugby is poor, boring, arm wrestles, which the English fans seem to love.

 

In one of the games, Gloucester v Bath I think it was, there were eight scrums, all of which produced penalties, before a scrum finally was completed with attacking ball coming out. This cannot be allowed to continue and World Rugby MUST sort-out the way the scrum, instead of being a means of re-starting play, has become a lottery to win penalties.

 

These days, there are some props, Bath's Paul James being, to me, the prime example, who get a place because of their ability to win scrum penalties. I think James cheats outrageously, and, in most cases, he gets away with it.

 

And, while I am having a rant - I would bring back "proper" rucking, with the need for the ball to be played with a foot. We have had too-long of the undignified guddle at the foot of the pile-up. There is no cleaner ball than fast rucked ball, a la original Otago pack.

 

These days, with TMOs, tv coverage and so forth, the head-kickers and stampers would soon be driven out of the game. Let's get back to rucking.

Wayne's World - A Galaxy Far Far Away

IN MY last post, I asked if either Scottish pro club could win with John Lacey on the whistle. This week, I have another rhetorical question - can either ever win with Wayne Barnes in the middle?

 

Stade Toulouse might well still have beaten Glasgow at Scotstoun, without the considerable help they got from the man who has taken over from Jimmy Hill as the rest of the world's least-favourite sporting Englishman.

 

Watching the game on TV, before heading for the Millbrae press box and Ayr v Stirling County, there was one wee vignette whereby, in one attack, three clear and obvious Toulouse offences were overlooked by Barnes, but, the first Glasgow offence was pinged. However, I am not alone in believing Wayne's World of Refereeing is a parallel universe. I mentioned my disquiet about Barnes to a former Scottish international referee, a man with a reputation for probity and professionalism to which Barnes can only aspire and he merely said: "Don't get me started on Wayne Barnes".  'Nuff said.

 

 

 

I NOTE some of our southern neighbours are up in arms again, about the salary cap currently in effect in the English Premiership.

 

The poor down-trodden top English sides, such as Saracens, Leicester and Harlequins will, apparently have to get by next season of a £5 million salary bill, plus a further sum which can be spent on two "marquee" signings, above the £5 million.

 

This isn't enough, apparently, and unless it is increased, English rugby will wither and die on the vine.

 

What planet are these guys on. Several English clubs would collapse without the financial backing of their sugar daddies. They do not have the infrastructure or the core support to underpin even the trifling and inadequate £5 million, yet, they want to spend more money, which will apparently have to come from Mr Murdoch or BT.

 

Rugby will survive without these big-money clones of the English football premiership and, the more I see these greedy obese clots crying wolf and asking for more, the more sympathy I have with the many fine rugby men I know who turned their back on this great game when it went professional.

 

English and to an equal extent French rugby is en route to Hell in a hand-cart, through the greed and financial incompetence of a handful of men running a handful of clubs.

 

 

 

I HAD a "Eureka" moment last week, while watching a European football match.

 

Out came the vanishing spray at a free-kick, and it hit me. Here is the answer to oner major rugby problem, plus a couple of minor ones.

 

Just suppose a rugby referee could mark-out the line of scrummage - the centre-line of the front row tunnell. Then, surely, at long-last, he would spot the squint scrum feed, thereby ending one of the plooks on the face of the game.

 

By the same token, marking the spot from which a penalty should be taken would end the practice of stealing yards, which has become, to my mind, a bit obvious lately. And finally, a quick squirt on the touchline and the five metre and fifteen metre lines would give us a clue as to squint line-outs and the increasingly-prevalent instances of the throwing-in hooker taking a half pace or so to his own side.

 

Mind you, there is one drawback. Apparently the spray vanished after a minute of so, which, given some referees like to spend five minutes on every scrum, might mean they would need more than one bottle of spray per game.

 

 

 

GLASGOW Warriors put Pat McArthur up as sacrificial victim at a press conference this week, cue the usual guff about fighting his way back into the Scotland squad.

 

Rumour has it - Ross Ford, Fraser Brown, Scott Lawson, Kevin Bryce and about half a dozen other hookers would need to fall under the proverbial Clapham omnibus before McArthur gets a recall to the Scotland squad.

 

This, of course, overlooks the obvious fact that he is Scotland's second-best hooker, behind a fit and focussed Ford. In fact, when you consider McArthur's superior work in defence, plus the fact, he throws-in every week to Jonny Gray, who calls Scotland's lines-out, some would play him from the start, ahead of Ford.

 

But, McArthur has, apparently, offended someone of substance at Murrayfield, either Scott Johnston or Jake Humphries. Such a pity an Austrtalian or Welsh ego is denying Scotland the use of one of its top players.

 

I fear, like another Ayr RFC produced hooker from the Jurassic Age, Quintin Dunlop, McArthur has been cast into outer darkness - to the detriment of Scottish Rugby.

 

Some day, we will grow-up.

Can A Scottish Team Ever Win With Lacey In The Middle?

RIGHT, I have calmed-dwn enough to write about Glasgow's defeat at Toulouse yesterday. With another referee, Toulouse would probably still have won, I have no doubts about that. However, that prick Lacey, once again, contrived to aid the French in their quest, by having one interpretation of a law when it referred to Toulouse, a totally different one when it referred to Glasgow.

 

Has either Scottish pro team, ever won with him in the middle, I doubt it?

 

But, if Niko had done his job properly and got as close as he could to the posts, who knows, Dunky Weir just might have kicked that late conversion and won Glasgow a losing bonus. This sin't the first time Niko's personal indiscipline has cost Glasgow - I think it is getting close to the time when Toony has to decide: Is Niko past his sell-by date?

 

But, let's be positive. If the pack can replicate yesterday's display, with the Scotstoun fans behind them, they can win on Sunday and stay on-course for the quarter-finals. Welshie was immense.

 

 

 

SO SAD to see the passing of Norman Mair. We have known for some time he was heading for the exit, but, it is still a blow to lose quite simply the greatest rugby writer ever.

 

Rugby writing goes on, but, he has proved irreplaceable. I have so-many fond memories of him. This is a really sad time for those of us who shared press box space with him.

 

 

 

I WAS at Old Anniesland on Saturday, a terrific game in the conditions, between Hawks and Gala, and that final series of nine scrums which settled the game deserve to be shown on You Tube.

 

I thought the referee got it right with the Penalty Try, but, maybe three scrums too-late. Mind you, there wasn't much he got right otherwise. Still, I have long maintained, it isn't  so-much bad refereeing as bad Laws, and bad law interpretation, which is hampering Rugby Union.

 

Tear-up the Law book and start again.

 

 

 

ALEX Mack, that well-known Man About Glasgow Rugby, thought he had come-up with the perfect excuse to avoid pre-Christmas Shopping with 'Er Indoors - an 8am start en-route to Mull with Hyndland FP.

Only, the game was called-off and apparently Alex was last seen being dragged towards Braehead. That's no way to treat a 57-year-old rugby fanatic.

 

 

THE TRIAL apparently kicked-off this morning. That is the long-awaited hearing into what has become known in rugby circles as: "The McLay Affray", involving one Glasgow Hawk and a bunch of Warriors.

There is a turf war going on around the press seats - it is a News story, if the accused are found guilty, a Rugby story if they get off. So, there will be much jostling for room in court today.

A word of warning to those rugby scribes sent to cover it - don't get on the wrong side of "Wee Willie", aka Wilma Riley, Scotland's foremost court reporter, whose territory the trial is being held in.

Get Willie onside and you'll have no problems, offend her - well, Hell mend you. I will still look to Wilma for the definitive match report.

 

 

 

NOT that I have much time for English propaganda sheets, but, there is a wonderful four-letter rant on the Guardian website today, delivered by Marco Castrtogiovanni in respect of his departure from Leicester. He doesn't miss Richard Cockerill, the Tigers' odious Director of Rugby, and hit the wall.

The good old, right-on Guardian even prints the C word, as well as several F words.

World Cup Forecasts Now Are A Waste Of Time

OVER my long career in sports journalism, I have never been one for looking too-far ahead when it comes to the major tournaments. Maybe it is a Scottish thing, in football, we have a long track record of peaking a year or so before a World Cup. Indeed in rugby, we won the Grand Slam the year before the 1991 World Cup, but could only finish fourth when it mattered.

I also detest these post-Six Nations pieces: "If the Lions Were PLaying Tomorrow The Team Would Be". Don't the writers realise, a hypothetical Lions squad the year before the tour seldom looks anything like the final party, while the Pencilled-in Test squad as the Lions fly out, is never the match-day 23 for the first test. Someone will always fail to react to the special Lions atmosphere, while someone else will become inspired and kick-on.

So, I have not been too-impressed by this week's rash of pieces in the English medai, rating the top nations in the world.

Of course the All Blacks are best; certainly they will go into next year's World Cup as favourites and, this time, I honestly cannot see them failing to retain "Bill", as the Webb Ellis Trophy is referred to.

And, you always have to fancy South Africa and Australia to be there or there abouts at the sharp end of next year's tournament. After that, it's anybody's guess.

France simply cannot go on being as inconsistent as they have been for the past couple of years. Les Bleus, like the Australians, always get a boost from the World Cup and will come good. Perhaps all that cash floating around the French League has seen the club owners take their eyes off the ball, but, I have no doubts, once they sniff the cordite of a World Cup, the French will come good.

Of course, the worst winners in the world are convinced their heroes can do it. Certainly, with home advantage, England has a chance, but, one year out, they still haven't come-up with a settled midfield, and, their formidable pack, is, for my money, not as formidable as the Ruperts make out.

There are one or two outright bullies in there, who, if stood-up, suddenly are not such big men.

As for the other worst winners in the world - the English in the red shirts. Here too, we have a bunch of bullies who wilt if stood up to. Wales are a particularly one-dimensional team, I think they are now over the top and will fail to make an mpact next year - which will cue unrest and family feuding in the vallies.

I believe, Ireland and Scotland are in a good place. Both Celtic cousins might lack the depth needed to win next year, but, will be at the sharp end and, a year on from where they are now, given an injury-free run and more belief, then, both will go far.

Of the rest, Argentina have perhaps the best chancve of posting a shock, while, at least one of the Pacific island sides will damage one of the big guns. However, that's just my view, a year out, we must wait and see.



THAT charming example of English arrogance, Jeremy Guscott, this week named his Home Nations and Rugby Championship XVs, based on the Autumn Internaitonals, and, jings, crivvens, help ma Boab, he picked a couple of Scots!! SHOCKAROONIE!!!

These were Alistair Dickinson and Ross Ford - no complaints there, both were excelent throughout the three Tests, but, in the second row, he picked England's Dave Attwood and Wales's Alun Wyn-Jone, neither of whom, well though they played, in my view came close to the all-round excellence of the Gray Brothers.

Of course, Guscott picked Chris Robshaw at seven. England captain and all that, has to be in. Not for me, I'd place him behind Blair Cowan and Sam Warbuton - didn't see any of the Ireland games so cannot comment otherwise.

As they say in the playgrounds of the better Edinburgh schools - Guscott's a Fanny. 

LOOKING even further ahead, Alex Gordon, the man who does such a fine job on the PR side for Glasgow Hawks, is probably Scotland's biggest expert on the FIRA nations. This is due in no small measure to his coverage of Mateus Bartoszek's exploits with the Polish national side.

Big Mat was away last month playing for Poland and he was telling Alex, who in turn passed-on the gen - watch Moldova. Now Mat is a big lump himself, but, if he says the Moldovan pack was "huge", then, they must be some size.

Rugby is on the up in Russia and the former Iron Curtain countries, their big guys, many of them from a wrestling background, simply love the physical confrontation of the forward power game.

We already know Georgia are to be respected, Russia is on the rise. Alex reckons, if they ever bring in promotion and relegaion to the Six Nations, making it a sort of European Elite League, then Scotland, Ireland and Italy will be in bother.

SPEAKING of big men - didn't Welshie put-in a storming shift for Glasgow against the Dragons on Sunday? The big man has worked his socks off to get back to fitness, and, some of his performances while he warmed-up for his Pro12 return by turning out for Ayr were brilliant.