New Strip - New Hope - Italian Styling - Forza Scotland

BEING of Norman stock, I do not have a family tartan, but, I do like getting into the kilt. However, I have never been a fan of tartan sports strips. But, I am prepared to accept, the way Macron have used the 1990 SRU tartan in the new Rugby World Cup and 2015-16 international strips works.

 

It's a clear case of less being more, helped by a wee dash of Italian styling. Hints have been dropped in the right quarters, I would like a new Scotland replica strip.

 

 

 

OUR national squad's preparations for the forthcoming RWC is of course, the only story in town as far as the SRU's media department and the lads at the coal face in the MSM are concerned. It has been thus since the game went professional; but, there are still some good stories out there in places such as the BT Premiership, the top strata of the amateur club game.

 

The news that Kiwi Frazier Climo is to return to Ayr for the new season is exciting. Climo was a huge hit on his first spell at Millbrae. From there he went home to a starring role as Taranaki gained possession of the fabled "lump of wood", the Ranfurly Shield, for the first time in yonks. His form there earned him a contract with Llanelli Scarlets - where he did well on the few occasions when he got a game, since his time in West Wales was blighted by a string of niggling injuries.

 

He's a more-rounded, more-mature players than he was last time he was at Ayr. He is still a phenomenally-good goal kicker. He just might be a good fit back at Alloway.

 

When I was hearing of Climo's return to Ayr, the Millbrae club alerted me to a new development in the new season - the BT Premiership Development Series. This is a new competition, which will give the top club sides meaningful games in the Spring of 2016.

 

It is not an SRU competition, but was dreamed-up by the Premiership clubs themselves. What it will mean will be that the first and second XVs of the top ten clubs, will meet, in two, five-team groups, in February and March. I haven't got all the details yet, and, from what I've learned so-far, this new event as not as exciting as it perhaps could be, but, let's suck it and see.

 

I still feel, however, if the BT Murrayfield "blazers" really want to help the club game - and Scottish rugby in general (and this, after all comes under their obligation to develop and enrich Scottish rugby) they really should be getting our top club sides back into the British and Irish Cup.

 

Failing that, Ayr's Jock Craig's suggestion of an Irish-Scottish Cup, featuring the top clubs in the All-Ireland League and the BT Premiership, has, I will keep saying, a lot of worth.

 

 

 

I HAVE been enjoying an exchange of e-mails this week with one of the real stalwarts of club rugby, Glasgow Hawks' Hugh Barrow.

 

I still remember the teenage Barrow, scampering away from a class field, including former World Record Holder Derek Ibbotson, to win a one-mile race, part of the build-up to the 1960 Scotland v England football international at Hampden.

 

Running in front of 134,000 fans didn't phase the young Barrow, then the fastest teenage miler in the world. He never built on that early promise, his athletics career was blighted by injuries, and those injuries are still causing Hugh pain. He is recovering from a hip replacement operation and I am looking forward to seeing him on the sidelines again, when the BT Premiership kicks-off at the end of August.

 

Hugh Barrow is, as he always has been - one of the good guys.

 

A familiar face, will, however, be absent from Old Anniesland in the new season. Hawks' Polish international back rower Mateos Bartzeuk has left th club, for the famous French club, Dax.

 

Dax are, sadly for such a famous equipe, now languishing in the French second division. I hope Mat does as well with them in France as he has done with Hawks at Old Anniesland.

 

 

 

 

He's No Mo, But, Tegele Probably Isn't Coming To Scotstoun

SCOTLAND'S still-extended World Cup squad reconvenes at BT Murrayfield this morning, when the real work of the World Cup campaign begins.

Meanwhile, across at Scotstoun, the rump of the Glasgow squad will be working away towards the most-difficult part of their season - keeping the club in the mix at the top of the 2015-16 Pro12, until the internationalists return post-World Cup.

Sadly for Glasgow, one potential new recruit will be elsewhere. Winger Teqele Naiyaravaro will not be arriving at Scotstoun any time soon. Indeed, I now feel, we will not see Naiyaravaro in Glasgow's colours any time soon, if ever.

Over the weekend he was named in the Australian squad for the Rugby Championship, and having made it to the final 31, it is well-nigh inconceivable that he will not be capped by Australia during the Championship. It is also highly-likely, once capped, that he will be seen in gold during the World Cup itself.

And, if (more likely now, when), he is tied to Australia - he will not be joining Glasgow.

This is bad news for Glasgow, but, if he rampages over a couple of the Lilywhites for a try or two during the World Cup, on the basis of being a member of ABE - I will forgive him.

It will be disappointing, if we never see Naiyaravaro in pale blue, but, in the grand scheme of things - it isn't a Mo Johnson moment.

Our first warm-up game, against the Irish in Dublin, is a mere five weeks away - the start of the World Cup itself, ten weeks away. This period will flash past. It is now all go.

THE kick-off in the domestic leagues is a mere seven weeks away. Pre-season warm-up games will, therefore, start in about four weeks. So, our top amateur players are now preparing for the fray.

Doesn't time fly when you are enjoying yourselves.



ONE thing Scottish Rugby didn't need at this stage in the pre-season preparations was a drugs bust. But, it got one, with this morning's press release from the SRU, intimating the two-year ban given to Preston Lodge prop Darren Eales, after he failed an out-of-training drugs test back in November.

Eales is only 22, young in propping terms. It is a personal tragedy for this young man, that he should feel it necessary to take artificial and banned supplements. But, he has been caught and punished - one can only hope the message gets through.

He is the second Scottish player to be caught. This should not give the impression that there is a drugs culture in Scottish Rugby, perish that thought. But, the good news is - we are catching them and punishing them.

Drugs - it's a mug's game. The only drugs props needed in my day were various brands of beer or lager - rugby was fun then.

 

The Roar Is Still Distant, But, The Lions Are Stirring

WHEN I set off on this great adventure into the world of sports-writing, I had one burning ambition, fuelled by reading the tour books written by the great Vivian Jenkins and JGB Thomas. I yearned to cover a Lions' Tour to New Zealand or South Africa.

Lions Tours are not what they once were. The 1950 party in New Zealand and Australia were away from the British Isles for over four months. No global jet travel back then, but, weeks onboard ship either way, giving the squad time to bond and work-out how they would play it. Of course, they couldn't train properly, but, it was surely less-stressful than being cooped-up in an aluminium tube for 24-hours solid.

Traditional Lions Tours allowed the players to properly see the countries they were visiting, and, with the longer duration and greater number of games, it gave more people a better chance to see the tourists.

In today's professional game, the clubs hold the whip hand, they will not agree to their players being absent for so-long. I well remember interviewing Gordon Brown in his Troon home one August, he was newly-returned from one of his three ions' Tours. It was nearly Christmas before he pulled-on a West of Scotland jersey for the first time the following season.

There is also the legend that, after the 1955 Lions Tour to South Africa, Jimmy Greenwood played only nine games the following season: four Scotland internationals, the two national trials, a couple of games for the North and Midlands and one game for his club Dunfermline. Changed days indeed.

Any way, Lions tours have largely passed me by. But, I have not yet given-up on my dream. The schedule for the 2017 Tour to New Zealand was announced yesterday - now, after that one, I could put away my lap top quite happily.

MInd you, before the tour kicks-off, in June, 2017, the potential Lions will have to go through: the "Summer Tests", which are a prequel to - the 2015 World Cup; then it is back to domestic league and European cup action, before the 2016 Six Nations, then back to the climax of the domestic and European club season.

The shortest of short breaks will then follow, perhaps after an overseas end-of-season tour. Back to the domestic grind in August, 2016, then the Autumn Tests, Europe, the 2017 Six Nations and, if you're lucky - the 2017 Lions Tour.

Some of the London-based rugby writers, at the end of each Six Nations, like to play a game, picking their Lions squad, if a tour was about to happen. You can bet, whatever squad they picked after this year's 6N, will bear no relation to the hypothetic squad they will pick after the World Cup, or the one they will pick after the 2016 6N, or the one they will pick after the 2017 6N.

When the genuine squad is announced, in May, 2017, these writers will pontificate, and announce their XV for the First Test, which will probably only contain ten or twelve of the actual XV which takes to the park. It is ever thus.

Still, yesterday's announcement of the tour schedule is a timely reminder, the Lions Tour is coming over the horizon. I had maybe better start firming-up my plans.



SAD to see Colin Gregor hanging-up his boots. Colin was a good player, sadly, just falling short of the top-drawer quality which ight have won him full Scotland caps. However, he has been a marvellous servant to the SRU in terms of his commitment to and work for the Sevens squad.

Enjoy your retirement wee man.



  

Is Gary The Only Guy In Edinburgh Still Writing About Rugby?

I HAVE previously posted on the subject of media management, as practiced by the SRU. There was a cracking example of this in The Scotsmen this morning, with no less than three separate pieces, all involving Tim Visser, who was clearly the latest member of the long World Cup squad to be put-up for media duties.

The Hootsman, I know, has severely cut back on personnel since I did some casual subbing shifts in their then home at the foot of Holyrood Road, at the start of the 21st century. At least two of the Visser pieces, and probably the third, which was unattributed on the website, were written by the very busy and ultra-enthusiastic Gary Heatly. Well done young Gary - but, come on guys, don't leave all the work to Gary.

THE latest media release from those hard-working youngsters at BT Murrayfield dropped into my inbox this morning. It concerned the personnel, playing and coaching, who jetted-off yesterday to an age group camp in Valladolid, Spain.

Good luck to the young wannabees involved, but, sadly, I must once again report that the chosen group is heavily-loaded towards the private school sector of the game. At least, the Borders is holding its end up, with several boys from Jedburgh and Hawick, and, Brian "Basil" Redpath's son, Cameron, who is being schooled in Macclesfield, rather than Melrose.

This camp is one of the bottom steps on the ladder to the top, but, hopefully, in a few years, we will see some of them wearing the thistle in Test matches.

Main man at the camp will be the experienced Eddie Pollock, assisted by, amongst others, Scotland and Lions legend Alan Tait and Currie Head Coach and this season's recipient of the McPhail Coaching Scholarship - which earned him a trip to New Zealand, Ben Cairns.

One of the other coaches going to Spain is Ayr Honcho, Calum "Fossy" Forrester. Fossy has done a sterling job since switching from captaincy to coaching just over a year ago and his star is clearly on the rise.

This week Fossy was named as one of eight Scottish coaches who are being fast-tracked towards Level Four UK Coaching qualifications, which is as good as it gets these days. Also involved is Kenny Murray, former Ayr Honcho and now one of Toony's assistants at Glasgow.

The other coaches who will work towards Level Four are: Edinburgh's Steve Scott, Ben Fisher from Boroughmuir, big John Dalziel from Melrose, the Heriot's duo of main man Phil Smith and Stevie Lawrie, and Andrew Hall from Hong Kong.

The octet's course will be organised and run by Napier University and Sportscotland.

Two weeks in the Spanish sunshine, playing rugby - haud me back. Mind you, I don't know if Fossy told big Jock Craig, Ayr's Director of Rugby, he was jetting off to Spain on the very week the Millbrae Men started pre-season training. Rather him than me, big Auchlin has been a wee bit grumpy since his heart problems of the past year forced him to slow down a bit, and finally do what Brenda Craig tells him!!

Well Done You Highlanders

SCOTS played a major role in establishing the European immigrants in New Zealand. The Caledonian Diaspora was and still is particularly pronounced in Otago, way down there in the South Island.

 

How typically Scottish. Those early immigrants, way back in the first half of the 19th century, after enduring months at sea in their wooden-hulled sailing ships, seemingly went as far from Scotland as it was possible to go (probably still is), before settling in a dank, wet, hilly part of the world which so-reminded them of the place they had left.

 

With the provincial capital named Dunedin, the Caledonian connection is all-too-obvious, so, we Scots really ought to take pride in the Otago-based Highlanders' victory over the Hurricanes in the weekend's Super Rugby final.

 

The Highlanders' badge is of a kilted, Highland warrior, claymore in his right hand, targe in his left, giving a wild clan war cry: ("Freeedoom" perhaps!). Sadly, there were no immediately-recognisable-as-Scottish surnames in the victorious squad.

 

This badge recognises the Scottish connection in Otago, further emphasised by place names such as Biggar, Kelso, Milton and the Clutha River and region.

 

Of course Otago was the home of the ruck, a tactic which Jim Telfer bought-into to such good effect for Scotland, that the English and Welsh on the IRB managed to have proper rucking banned.

 

The New Zealanders managed to overcome this ban far better than we Scots ever have, but, this is an aside in this story.

 

The victorious Otago-based Highlanders have another message for their fellow New Zealander, Big Vern Cotter, and the Scotland-based Scots. Highlanders qualified fourth of four for the Super Rugby play-offs, they ceded home advantage to their hosts, the Wellington-based Hurricanes in the final. The Hurricanes fielded a star-studded side, packed with All Blacks, while the Highlanders, and their pack in particular, were somewhat written off as: "no names".

 

Yet, they overturned all the odds and won.

 

I just hope that BVC and his troops can take the Highlanders' feat as an example and produce a real shock come World Cup time.

World Cup Schedule Suits Us

WHEN it comes to the football World Cup, the scheduling tends to play against the major European nations. Now, we cannot number Scotland amongst this group, indeed, a whole generation of Scottish players have grown-up, played and retired since last the Lion Rampant flew amongst the flags of the competing nations at a World Cup, but, you get my point.

Take England, for instance. After a 38-game Premiership schedule, plus the FA and League Cups and European games, not forgetting internationals, your top English players are usually knackered come World Cup time. It doesn't help their cause that, with a very few exceptions, the players don't have the technical skills of the European imports they face on a weekly basis and have to use more perspiration to overcome their lack of inspiration.

But, in Rugby, the opposite applies (except perhaps the technique issues). The Scotland team will go into September's tournament on the back of three months of intense training and preparation - a regime which has borne fruit for several lesser nations in the football version of the World Cup.

This time round, it is the big three Southern Hemisphere nations who risk running on empty. The major SH club tournament ended in New Zealand today. From there the Blacks, Wallabies and Bokke go into the intensity of the Tri-Nations.

OK, they will go, from there, into their pre-World Cup training camps, and, OK, the timing of the seasons are different, but, I would wager they will arrive in England a bit more-tired than the Northern Hemisphere nations.

Add the time changes, and, I reckon the NH countries are better prepared. It helps us, too, that England, Australia and Wales have been placed in "The Group Of Death", in football that is usually Scotland's lot, so, one of them will not make the last eight.

We are not as bad as our Six Nations performance might indicate. The players will have had all that time to get to know BVC and what he wants. I am genuinely enthusiastic about our World Cup chances this time round.

It will take a miracle for us to win it, but, last eight - certainly; last four is not beyond us and, once there - who knows.



I WAS awakened in the night by thunder and lightning. As I write, the rain is falling on Ayrshire, which is a shame, since, this weekend sees the annual Turnberry Beach Rugby festival, one of the best weekends of the year for those, for whom rugby is still about having fun.

If the weather improves, it is well-worth a visit. Sadly, I will miss-out, "Management" has other plans for me. I am heading for Glasgow, to the RCS (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) no less, for a taste of culture!! 

Let's Hear More About The Club Game

SLOWLY, ever so slowly, things are stirring as season 2015-16 approaches. Our extended World Cup squad is back at Murrayfield, and working diligently towards 23 September, when their campaign kicks-off in Gloucester. The Edinburgh and Glasgow shadow squads are in pre-season training, why, even our top amateur club sides are starting to get back into pre-season mode.

Back in the Jurassic period, when my contemporaries and I used our 80 minutes on a Saturday afternoon as a means of working-up a thirst for Saturday night, we never contemplated re-season training until, at the very least, the final putt had dropped in that year's Open Championship. And that was only for the hard-core fitness fanatics.

Today, some clubs are back in training even before Andy Murray had served his first ball at Wimbledon. Mind you, the advent of professionalism has, as I have said in the past, led to a stretching of the season. There is a greater time commitment, even at the highest club level, than there was in the past.

It is now possible for a BT Premiership campaign to stretch from August of one year, to May of the next, I can recall, back in the early 1970s, when the SRU introduced the  first national league there was much discussion about retaining traditional fixtures, and the season was structured in such a way that long-established rivalries such as Glasgow Accies v Heriot's would be retained, even if the clubs were in different divisions. You rarely see a friendly played these days, outwith pre-season.

And there's another thing; clubs are now playing full-scale matches in August, in my young days, the a5-a-side season lasted 1 September to 30 April, no exceptions.

Back then of course, what was happening around West of Scotland, or Watsonians, or Langholm or Gordonians was news-worthy nationally. This is no longer the case. The bulk of what is written and broadcast about rugby in Scotland concerns our two professional clubs, long-established clubs such as Melrose, Hawick, Heriot's or Edinburgh Accies rarely hit the back pages - far-less the newer kids on the block, such as Ayr, Currie or Stirling County.

Gary Heatly does his bit with his pieces for The Herald and The Scotsman, but, I would love to see a return to what used to be the case, in football, whereby The Herald and The Scotsman both had dedicated writers covering the lower divisions in the senior game.

I reckon, we should know who is making waves in the Premiership and the two National Leagues at least. Scotland's two "serious" papers are bleeding readers of their print editions - while, certainly with The Scotsman, their on-line versions, although well-read, are becoming the electronic homes of the people who wrote in green ink.

Let's have serious coverage of and discourse about, the burgeoning club scene in Scotland, it just might keep Scottish rugby vibrant.

AS an aside to this, earlier this week, whilst tidying-up my office, on of my old cuttings books fell off the shelf and landed, open, on the floor. When I picked it up, I glanced at the page, which contained cuttings of mind from 1989.

I was back then, single-handedly, covering more local rugby, in greater depth, than today's journalists on the same local paper. I had forgotten just how much rugby I covered back then.

Mind you, there was a lot more rugby played back then. My own local club fielded three XVs every week, plus a full range of mini and midi teams on Sundays. Thankfully, the number of kids playing has held-up well, indeed, might have increased, but, the club today struggles to field two XVs on a Saturday - which beggars the question, why do so-many kids fail to make the transition from Under-18 to adult rugby?

A question there for the brains trust at Murrayfield to get their teeth into.

I HAVE just finished one of my Fathers' Day presents - a copy of Donald McCrae's excellent tome: 'Winter Colours', a thick book which covers the game's 20-year journey from amateurism to full-scale professionalism.

McCrae, one of the best writers about sport in the world today, is South African by birth, but long resident in London. Given his back-ground, as a "Rooseneck" - a South African of British rather than Boer extraction, he can be forgiven for devoting most of the book to South Africa, New Zealand and England. However, the fact that very few Scots get a mention, or were even interviewed for it, perhaps indicate where we stand in the grand scheme of rugby things.

He does, however, in interviews with Gregor Townsend, back in the day when Toony was still playing, give indications of how Townsend, the player, would evolve into Townsend the coach. Also, in his responses to McCrae's questions, Townsend, even a decade ago, gave pointers to how his Glasgow side would eventually play.

Not a lot of Scottish content, but, still a terrific book.