New Season, But, Murrayfield Is Slow To Get Its Act Together

SLOWLY, like an old, rotund prop getting up from the foot of a ruck, rugby is readying itself for the new season. Of course, the professionals seldom get off the year-round treadmill. I accept, the Scotland squad players who were in Japan are coming to the end of the time off they were given on their return home, but, the majority of their team mates have been involved in the pre-season fitness slog for some time now, while the would-be Olympians such as Mark Bennett and Lee Jones, have never stopped.

At the top end of the still supposedly-amateur club game, the squads are already back in training, why, even the clubs who still play rugby as a means of building-up a Saturday thirst are now getting down to pre-season training.

I just wish we were getting a positive lead from Murrayfield. It was ever thus; you come into rugby-writing mostly because of a love for the game and all it stands for. But, after a wee while, you discover, there is a mind-set, a thought process inside Murrayfield best described as: It is our job to frustrate you, to make you question your sanity and to be a bloody-minded and obstructive as we can be.

Murrayfield moves in mysterious ways, and at its own speed. Homo Sapiens evolved faster than Alickadoo Murrayfieldus has.

Take the domestic fixtures, for instance. I understand, the clubs, certainly those in the Premiership, got theirs in early May. The fixture list did not appear on th SRU website until 1 July. Even then, there was no official announcement, not even an email to those of us journalists who are on the SRU list – they were simply posted. And, they went up in dribs and drabs, for instance, the West District fixtures did not appear until a week after everyone else's.

Here was a chance to get some media exposure, at a fallow time for the game. The rugby writers were crying out for something to write about, they got no help from Murrayfield.

Compare that with how the Pro12 did things this week – a proper announcement, fixtures ready, with a”steer” for the sports desks on what to write about. It is not good enough.

THE Team GB sevens squad for the Rio Olympics will be announced on Tuesday. The players who will form the final 12 to travel to Brazil already know who they are, but, the announcement is being delayed until after this week-end's European Rugby Sevens Grand Prix event in Poland, in which the 25-strong “long squad” will be participating in their normal guise of “GB Royals” and “GB Lions”.

Lee Jones (above) and Mark Bennett (below) two of Scotland's Rio hopefuls

 

We will have to wait until Tuesday for confirmation, but, the indications from the warm-up events in Moscow, Exeter and now in Poland are that there will be one or two Scots in the final squad.

The Team GB preparations have attracted virtually no media attention. One “Fleet Street” title has given-over acres of newsprint to one American Footballer's failure to make the Fijian squad for Rio, but, couldn't even send a reporter the 180 miles down the M4/M5 to Exeter to cover last week-end's Grand Prix, which was won by GB Royals.

As for those Scottish titles which bother with rugby, no, no interest in Sevens – in the land which invented it. Shakes head in disbelief and disgust.

EVEN more head-shaking and disbelief, as Edinburgh, having off-loaded Hugh Blake to Glasgow last season, signs a Tongan flanker nobody has heard off, while Glasgow loans the afore-mentioned Blake to Bay of Plenty, to play in the Ranfurly Shield.

Now, it could be Master Blake was over-hyped when he arrived here and was put straight into the national squad and quickly capped. But, in the 12-months since, he has been switched to Glasgow, vanished to the Scotland Sevens squad and now sent back, perhaps only temporarily to New Zealand.

 Hugh Blake - back to Bay of Plenty

Either, someone bought a pup, or, Scotland has not agreed with him. But, it strikes me as odd that a young Scottish international is being allowed to wither on the vine, while one of our two professional clubs signs a South Sea islander who is not even a household name in his own household.

I have been increasingly frustrated at the recruitment policies of Murrayfield and our two professional clubs. One of the core principles of the SRU is to guide, nurture and expand Scottish rugby. Maybe promoting Scottish players should be paramount in this, but, right now, I don't see this happening.

AND, still wondering what is going on. The British &Irish Cup pools were announced this week, again without Scottish involvement. I don't get this; I am utterly convinced Ayr, Currie, Heriot's and Melrose, the four Scottish clubs who would have been involved, had Scotland participated, could, with the proper support from Murrayfield, have made a good impression in this competition.

There is still no word from Murrayfield about the proposed Italian-Scottish Cup competition, which was supposed to be the consolation prize for our top four clubs. Might this, as I fear, be another case of the SRU quietly not doing their job.

Normally, even if only to say: “The news is, there is no news”, we accredited hacks receive, at around 6pm every Friday, the SRU's week ahead media schedule, telling us what is, or quite often is not happening around Murrayfield. We haven't had such a schedule on either of the last two Fridays, although we did get one release trumpeting the appointment of Scotland's first official gin partner – I bet that raised a cheer or three among the “blazers”.

Rugby has long been a bad second to football for media coverage, these days, our home-grown media pays more attention to a pair of extremely-talented brothers from Dunblane than it does to Scottish Rugby. Come on SRU, get your act together better.