Rugby - A Minority Sport On Some Sports Pages

I HAD a wee chuckle this week at the differing approaches to sports coverage of our two Scottish-published “serious” newspapers. (We used to call them “broadsheets”, but, since one of them is now printed in tabloid format, I have to use “serious”).

Andy Murray - the Glasgow newspapers' antidote to non-stop Old Firm football coverage

The Glasgow paper has now seemingly decided that “sport” means coverage of two of the Glasgow-based football teams. They may now and again give a nod to Andy Murray, but, the main thrust is towards capturing the attention of the two warring families on the East and South West of the city. Trouble is, two warring “red top tabloids with offices in the city have greater experience and expertise at milking the eternal enmity of “Ra Peepul” and “the Celtic Family”.

The Glasgow paper does not even have a dedicated staff rugby writer at the moment, relying on freelance cover, while across in Edinburgh, they have two guys on the rugby beat.

Both papers cover the PRO14, as they should. However, while the Glasgow paper does a freelance-generated Monday round-up of the BT Premiership, the Edinburgh one covers every game, on both Sunday and Monday.

Any way, the SRU took a 41-man Scotland squad off to St Andrew's on Monday and Tuesday. To me, this was perhaps overkill, and the timing didn't seem right – just as the two professional squads were going into the last couple of weeks of pre-season training. Still, Scotland comes first, and so-much of what they do at Edinburgh and Glasgow mirrors what they do with Scotland, so, little real damage done.

Media-wise, this was a jolly. The usual carefully-controlled access for the press, with the SRU setting the agenda. Still, while the broadsheet Glasgow paper's coverage was distinctly (red top) tabloid, the tabloid Edinburgh paper came-up with the best line – Duncan Smith's take on his interview with Matt Taylor the Scotland defence coach, highlighting how Gregor Townsend wants his team to try to learn best practices from leading teams in other sports.

Well done Toony, for too-ling sports in Scotland have lived in their own wee bubbles, good to know we have someone at the top in rugby looking at the wider picture.

 The Scotsman's Duncan Smith: his piece was different to the journalism by numbers approach elsewhere in the media.

And, well done too Duncan, for coming up with that line. That boy is taking to rugby writing like a duck to water.

WHILE on the subject of Scotland, for more years than I care to recall, Scotland has had a very small elite core of players without whom the national XV cannot do. If even a couple of these guys were injured at the same time, we all went into Private Fraser mode, convinced Scotland was doomed Ah tell ye.

Today, we have genuine depth, so, today, for a bit of fun, I thought I'd have a look at how many international-quality teams we could field.

 Finn Russell

SCOTLAND: Stuart Hogg; Sean Maitland, Huw Jones, Duncan Taylor, Tommy Seymour; Finn Russell, Ali Price; Gordon Reid, Fraser Brown, Willem Nell; Richie Gray, Jonny Gray; John Barclay, Hamish Watson, Josh Strauss.

 Greig Laidlaw

SCOTLAND A: Greig Tonks; Lee Jones, Mark Bennett, Alex Dunbar, Tim Visser; Duncan Weir, Greig Laidlaw; Allan Dell, Ross Ford, Zander Fagerson; Tim Swinson, Ben Toolis; Ryan Wilson, John Hardie, Dave Denton.

Matt Scott

SCOTLAND B: Ruaridh Jackson; Damian Hoyland, Matt Scott, Phil Burleigh, Rory Hughes; Peter Horne, Henry Pyrgos; Alasair Dickinson, Stuart McInally, D'Arcy Rae; Grant Gilchrist, Anton Bresler; Magnus Bradbury, Chris Fusaro, Adam Ashe.

George Horne

EMERGING SCOTLAND: Blair Kinghorn; Darcy Graham, Nick Grigg, Chris Dean, Robbie Nairn; Adam Hastings, George Horne; Rory Sutherland, George Turner, Adam Nicol; Scott Cummings, Lewis Carmichael, Jamie Ritchie, Matt Smith, Matt Fagerson.

 Rob Harley

ALSO AVAILABLE: Backs: Glenn Bryce; Dougie Fife, Richie Vernon, Tom Brown, Sam Hydalgo-Clyne, Sean Kennedy. Forwards: Alex Allen, Murray McCallum, Jamie Bhatti, Rob Harley, Fraser McKenzie, Hugh Blake, Cornell Du Preez.

I don't think we have ever had such depth. In fact, if I was the SRU, I would be looking at the possibility of getting that Emerging Scotland team, bolstered by some of the other guys from the Scotland A or B squad or the Also Availables, off on an end-of-season tour, playing some of the second tier nations, or southern hemisphere regional teams. The benefits would, I believe be great.

And, while they are at it, why not encourage the best of our club players, by getting more games and perhaps an end-of-season tour for our Club XV, playing some of the lesser European nations, whose game is still resolutely amateur or semi-professional.

Gregor Townsend is being bold and thinking out of the box, it is maybe time some others inside Murrayfield did this too.