Moving Day - And Ayr Top The Leader Board

BRYCE Weir, who was on PA duties at Millbrae on Saturday, came up with the best description I have yet heard of for this 2018-19 Scottish rugby season. As we waited for the action to kick-off, his contribution to the press box brain-storming meeting was that this is: “moving season.”

Pat McArthur - had a second coming for Ayr on Saturday

He used that in the sense of how the third round of any professional golf tournament is known as: “Moving Day” - the day when the eventual contenders or the big cheque and the trophy come to the top of the leader-board.

Certainly, the big clubs, of which number, Ayr and Melrose are as big as you get, are now recruiting the players they feel they will need for when S6 comes in in a year or so's time, but, elsewhere, they guys from other clubs who want to get to the new big show, are starting to shine.

Shine some certainly did. Take young Finlay Scott, the Melrose hooker who is on a dual-registration deal with his original club Jed-forest. Finlay came on for Russell Anderson at half-time, initially against his Scotland U-20 friend and rival Robbie Smith, before locking horns with former Scotland cap Pat McArthur, having his second “debut” as an Ayr player – some 14 years or so after his first. You cannot buy that sort of experience.

It may be, in two or three years' time, that we see Stafford McDowall and Paddy Kelly at 12 and 13 for Glasgow Warriors, meanwhile, they are getting to know each other very effectively with Ayr. And, who is to say we might not see Jason Baggot and Craig Jackson in Edinburgh's colours.

OK, I feel ideally, these young tyros ought to be playing for Edinburgh and Glasgow A teams in an extended Celtic Cup, but, Murrayfield has said no to that notion, so, we can enjoy watching them in the Premiership and next season in S6. Although I still wait for reality striking and S6 being reclassified as a “Performance” competition.

Regardless, however, of S6 being a performance or a domestic/development one, if the quality of the rugby comes anywhere close to what we got at Millbrae yesterday – the new competition has a bright future.

 Fraser Thomson - as-ever, a threat for Melrose on Saturday

The collisions were at times brutal – you will not see any-more commitment at PRO14 level; the skill levels were very high – the younger players on both sides can play, while time has not withered the likes of Fraser Thomson of 'Rose, or Frazier Climo for Ayr.

The Kiwi is re-born this season. He worked really hard on his fitness over the summer, and it showed, while he contributed 18 of Ayr's 38 points. Thomson, after giving his hamstring a thorough pre-match assessment, seemed a bit tentative in the first half, but, as Melrose came back at Ayr in the second – he played as well as I have seen him, and that's very well indeed.

Oli Keeble's return to full fitness, coupled with Alex Allan's fine form, has seen Jamie Bhatti's star somewhat eclipsed this season. He did, however, rumble around to good effect in half a game for Ayr. His presence certainly helped Ayr gain set-piece dominance, but, when he came on for the Scotland cap, young Ruaridh Sayce didn't allow the standard to drop that much.

A low point was the lengthy hiatus, while Ruaridh Knott, one of the most-honest and unselfish club players in Scotland, was treated on the field and then removed on a stretcher. I hope the injury is not as-serious as it looked.

Another injury saw Ayr scrum-half David Armstrong collect another half-dosen stitches to an eye cut, allowing him to do a Pirate Pete impression when he returned with his head bandaged.

Sam Grove-White, lead man in a very good refereeing team on Saturday

Finally, as I put the Match of the Day to bed, kudos to the third team, of Sam Grove-White, Lloyd Linton and Alistair Watt, who handled the game very well, communicated brilliantly and added to the spectacle.

Three yellow cards, none of them controversial, well done lads.

ELSEWHERE, there were tries galore – 15 in all – during Currie Chieftains' 71-28 trouncing of Glasgow Hawks at Malleny Park. The first half was a see-saw affair, with the lead changing hands thrice, however, in a spell just before and after the oranges, Currie went from 17-21 down to 45-21 ahead and it was game over. Currie then added 2 unanswered points in the final exchanges to complete another bad day at the office for the Hawks kids.

THERE was a big finish at Bridgehaugh, where STIRLING COUNTY came back from 12-0 down to lead 17-12, only for Charlie Simpson to demonstrate, there is someone among the BT Murrayfield minions who knows where the try line is to put HERIOTS 17-19 ahead. Mind you, it still needed a miraculous finger-tip intervention from Callum Marshall, to deflect a seemingly-certain scoring pass from Ratu Tagive reaching Andrew McLean, before the Nails had won.

ONE OF the untold stories of the Commonwealth Games, earlier this season, is the one of the Scottish football writer, taxed with covering the Games for his paper, being approached in a bar by an elderly ex-pat Scot, who lived on the Gold Coast.

Fraser Renwick, pictured in Hawick's green

“Is it safe to come home yet?” was the question asked by the ex-pat, big Frank Haffey. WATSONIANS' hooker Fraser Renwick might well be asking the same question, after his hat-trick of tries in 'Sonians' 54-15 win over HAWICK, at Myreside.

That Renwick was one of half-a-dozen exiled Teris in the winning side did not help the air of gloom which hung over the Station Bar on Saturday night, as the ghosts of Stevie, Hughie, the Voice and the other greats in green were invoked. These are sorry times for Hawick.

THE CLOSEST game of the day was at Raeburn Place, where it was squeaky bum time for BOROUGHMUIR'S Greg Cannie, as he prepared to slot home a late winning penalty for the visitors. He was up to the task.

EDINBURGH ACADEMICAL trailed 5-12 at the break, before a Vincent Hart penalty and George Spencer's second try of the game put the Accies within sniffing distance of that elusive first win at 13-12. Then, up stepped Caddie.

Accies' coach Derek O'Riordan admitted, post-match: “we want to build a squad and a system that can go on and win the Championship in its first year.”

Which brings us full-circle to Bryce Weir and “Moving Day.”

WOW!! Murrayfield Consults The Troops

TALK about throwing petrol on a blaze. The SRU has certainly done that this afternoon, by releasing a special survey to all clubs regarding the future structure of the leagues.

Gavom MacColl QC - is consulting with the clubs on the eague structure

Signed off by Graham Ireland, wearing his Head of Regulations hat, and issued in the name of Gavin MacColl QC, the new Chairman of the Governance Committee, the document seeks to find the views of the clubs on the league structure from next season, when Super-6 comes into play.

The survey makes it clear – S6 is happening, but it will be a stand-alone league, with neither promotion or relegation.

It also tackled, head-on, the vexed question of where the “club” teams of the S6 franchise-holding clubs should play, offering four options in response to this vexed issue:

1. They should play in the Premiership/Championship
   
   
2. They should play in National 1
   
   
3. They should play in National 2
   
   
4. They should play in National 3
   
   
5. They should play elsewhere (with the clubs asked to specify.

That question is the third on the survey form.

Question 1 asks:

• Does your club support the existing structure – four National leagues and the various regional leagues – remaining in place for next season?
  
  
• This calls for a straight yes/no response.

If a club answers “Yes” to Question 1, they are invited to go straight to Question 3, covering the S6 amateur club's placement.

If a club answers “No” to Question 1, they are invited to answer Question 2, which asks:

“Noting that the potential placement of Super-6 club XVs is covered under Question 3, how would your club suggest that the domestic leagues are structured?”

They are then offered to select from four options:

1. Premiership/Championship, 3 x National Leagues and Caledonian, East and West Regional Leagues
   
   
2. Premiership/Championship, 2 x National Leagues and Caledonian, East and West Regional Leagues
   
   
3. Premiership/Championship, 1 x National League and Caledonian, East and West Regional Leagues
   
   
4. Any other option – to be stated in writing.

There is a fourth question, to be answered by those clubs wishing to see the S6 amateur clubs placed outwith the National League structure – whether their preferred option for that be one, two or three National Leagues.

This Question Four asks any such clubs if they feel the S6 amateur clubs should be UNABLE to be promoted into the National Leagues; and asks for how long they feel this promotion ban should last.

There is also a fifth suggestion, in which the clubs can make any comments regarding future league structures.

The document must be counter-signed by the President, Secretary and Treasurer of the club, and has to be returned to BT Murrayfield, by 31 October, 2018.

Super-6 was rather dropped on Scottish Rugby at the 2017 agm, since when all Hell has broken out.

To be fair to Graham Ireland and to BTM, this survey document certainly seeks to discover what the troops on the ground are thinking, and will provide much-needed clarity on this most-vexing of subjects.

To me it is a major move in the search for clarity and peace within Scottish Rugby. It will be interesting to see what transpires – assuming BTM ever releases its findings.

Artificial Pitches - Does Murrayfield Give a Toss?

EARLIER this week, the coach of a Scottish club coach with whom I am friendly, sent me a wee note, motivated by the latest SRU Clubs and Schools e zine.

This edition included a copy of the official SRU list of approved artificial surfaces in Scotland, on which it is possible for a SRU member club to either train or play. As my contact said: “How many clubs are using council or football club facilities that have not been installed to WRB standards for coaching sessions, especially during the winter months?”

The list showed the locations of 59 artificial pitches. Thirty-four of these were approved for both playing and training, with a further 25, some of them admittedly small, approved for training. These pitches are located from Shetland to the border with England.

Not bad for a wee country like Scotland, you might think – except, when you dig deeper, the position is far from acceptable. You see, very few of these pitches actually meet World Rugby standards.

A look at the World Rugby pitch regulations shows: the pitch should have the following dimensions:

• minimum length - 94 metres + two 10 metre in-goal areas
  
  
• maximum length – 100 metres + two 22 metre in-goal areas
  
  
• minimum width – 68 metres
  
  
• maximum width – 70 metres

Bearing these maximum and minimum dimensions in mind, I went back to the list and discovered, of the 34 pitches approved for playing, only 14, fewer than half, came within these maximum and minimum parameters.

Only three: the pitches at Dyce Academy in Aberdeen, Canal Park, Inverness and the Edinburgh University pitch at Peffermill are the maximum 100m x 70m, but, the data I have available to me does not indicate if they also meet the minimum 10m depth for the two in-goal areas.

The “hybrid” international pitch at Murrayfield is not on the list, but it certainly meets World Rugby criteria.

The 14 World Rugby-compliant pitches are situated at: Dyce Academy Aberdeen; Oriam Indoor at Heriot-Watt University, Currie, Midlothian (which has a roof height limitation); Garnock Community Campus, North Ayrshire; West of Scotland RFC, Burnbrae, Milngavie; Canal Park, Inverness; Outdoor at Heriot-Watt University, Currie; Marr College, Troon, South Ayrshire; Malleny Park, Balerno, Midlothian; Volunteer Park, Hawick, Scottish Borders; Queensferry High School, South Queensferry, Midlothian; Broadwood Stadium, Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire; Rugby Park, Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire; Scotstoun Stadium (main pitch), Glasgow; Edinburgh University Peffermill, Edinburgh.

We have 32 local authorities in Scotland, yet the 14 World Rugby-compliant artificial pitches on which matches could legally be played are divided among only 10 of these 32 authorities. Five of these artificial pitches are in the Greater Edinburgh area, but, three of those five are owned by two universities.

I am not suggesting ONLY these pitches can be used. The dimensions I have shown at the top were gleaned from the World Rugby website. However, the various member unions, including the SRU, are given some leeway in the matter of pitch size and smaller pitches are allowed, better certainly to play on a pitch which doesn't meet the minimum requirements, than not to play at all – and World Rugby regulations allow for such stretching of the regulations.

Most of the artificial pitches listed were installed with the assistance of grants, either from the local authority, or sportscotland, or both. In such instances, “community use” is a factor in the funding being allowed. There is anecdotal evidence of “community use” artificial pitches being built, with the support of the SRU and the local rugby club, only for it to be discovered, once the pitch was laid, that is was not rugby-compliant. The artificial pitch at Duffus Park, Cupar, home of Howe of Fife, is often cited as the prime example of this sort of short-sighted thinking.

The SRU is supportive of a move to artificial pitches; just look at how this was, initially, a cornerstone of the Super-6 franchise application process. However, since those glorious early days of “install a 3G artificial pitch within the initial five-year franchise period,” things have been reined-back somewhat. That notion appears to have been kicked into the long grass, just about the time those of us who scented S6 as a potential disaster discovered, the £3 million or so that would be needed to build these six pitches would not be easily accessed, since sportscotland funding was being cut and, in any case the clubs would need to show “community access and use” to even get a sniff of what little money there was available.

However, the sting in the tail for all this is – to obtain SRU approval for your local artificial pitch to be used for rugby, well, you have to cross BT Murrayfield's hand with silver; yes, they charge a fee to approve the pitch – even those which are, too-short, too-narrow, both, or can only be used for training.

And if the pitch isn't approved, that affects the club's access to SRU insurance etc. SRU approval for no less than 14 of the 59 listed pitches, expires between now and the end of the year.

My club coach makes a salient point about all this artificial pitch palaver, saying:

“It's all particularly ironic as the artificial pitch at Murrayfield is in a shocking state with a surface more akin to Brighton beach, and a unique plastic pile that is guaranteed to draw blood from elbows and knees. Seriously - if referees enforced the rules on blood injuries most games would be abandoned at half time. “

That artificial pitch at Murrayfield, by the way, in not actually World Rugby compliant – being only 66 metres wide, where World Rugby minimum width is 68 metres. You might think one of the leading Unions in the game would ensure a pitch, adjacent to its headquarters, met the minimum standards.

But, hey, it's the SRU we are dealing with here. Don't do what we do – do what we tell you and all that.

I hope they get the pitch dimensions right as they begin to build their Legoland Stadium for Edinburgh's use on the back pitches at HQ.

I also hope, they can get their act together to ensure, more clubs have access to good artificial surfaces for training and playing – pitches that are World Rugby compliant.

Time To Give Governance Back To The Little People

SINCE I started 'Aristotle', I have tended to pontificate at length on a single issue per post, but, today is one of those days when I will mull over a few points which have surfaced of late, albeit, there is a common theme.

If they've got problems, God help the rest of us

Big Barney on The Offside Line, then Alasdair Reid in The Times, have recently commented on Jim O'Callaghan's two year old 'Village' piece, on the collapse of grass roots rugby in Ireland. This is one which has resolutely refused to go away. Towards the end of last season, the “community” sides in Leinster Province of the IRFU made clear their continued disquiet at how Dublin was managing the game there.

Leinster, we should remember, are the current European and PRO14 Champions, while the Irish side to which they supply the stardust are the current 6Nations champions. All that success, and the little people are not happy. I might just say, no good has ever come to Ireland when they ignored the little people!!

In Wales Online just this week, there was a piece on the current travails of Llanelli. No not the PRO14 Scarlets, but the “amateur” Llanelli – currently propping-up the Principality Building Society Welsh Premiership, having lost all four matches played thus far, and, as things stand, favourites to be one of the four clubs who will be cut from that competition at the end of this season.

A look at that table makes sobering reading, As well as “the scarlets” (small S to distinguish the side from the PRO14 outfit), the Neath “All Blacks” are also in the bottom four, while Cardiff and Swansea are occupying positions 11 and 12 so are also in the relegation mix.

I have already recently dealt with the Lancashire breakaway – whereby two dozen teams in World Rugby president Bill Beaumont's back yard told the RFU where to shove their leagues, and set-up their own.

In Australia, Scott Johnson's brainchild the National Rugby Cup has become as-popular among the grass-roots clubs there as his Stupid-6 notion is among the grass roots here, while the ARU seems to be in almost as big a fix as the “suits” at BT Murrayfield.

Even in New Zealand, there are reports of numbers dropping-off alarmingly in their club game. If the kiwis are turning their back on rugby, then the game is in trouble.

I we look at the history of organised team sports, we discover, Association Football and Rugby Union Football both arose from the ethos of “muscular Christianity” and the instilling of a team mentality at the great Victoria public schools – with Rugby's tolerance of handling the ball giving its code singularity over the various: Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow etc styles of football.

Even after the Cambridge Rules came in to give association football its common template, theyoung gentlemen playing that game saw it as a distinctly “amateur” pastime, and thus it stayed until they allowed the oiks in the north of England and Scotland to play, which led to professionalism and the slippery slope to where that game is today.

Rugby, however, having survived the minor disruption of the northern clubs' breakaway in the 1890s, soldiered-on as THE amateur team game for another 100 years, before those uncouth colonials in the Land of the Long White Cloud and in the Rainbow Nation, managed to throw open the doors to professionalism in 1995.

Today, nearly 25 years on, it is perhaps time to admit – professionalism and rugby will always be uneasy bed fellows.

Tiger Woods - he has different rulers to your average amateur hacker

In fact, I believe it might be time for a clear break. Instead of having, as we have today – Open Rugby, we should perhaps be looking at a clear division, between Amateur and Professional Rugby. After all, in golf, we have, wherever the game is played, a Professional Golf Association looking after the interests of Tiger Woods, Rory McIllroy & Co, and an amateur association – in Scotland the Scottish Golf Union - overseeing the wider grass roots game.

As I have pointed-out before, it works in football. Let's look at the town of Ayr, where Ayr United play in the Championship of the SPFL – they are a full-time, professional club, and their day-to-day dealings in matters of football governance are with Neil Doncaster and Co at Hampden.

Whitletts Victoria is the town's junior team, they play in the West of Scotland Regional Leagues, and their day-to-day governance issues are with Scott Robertson and the West Regional Committee of the Scottish Junior Football Association.

Ayr's amateur sides such as Heathside, Mossblown Boswell and Glenburn MW all play in the Ayrshire Amateur Football Association, which is affiliated to the Scottish Amateur Football Association, while the boys clubs teams in the town – the likes of Ayr Boswell and Valspar, they play in competitions, organised locally, but under the overall control of the Scottish Youth Football Association.

Pete McCallum, he and a five-year-old mini at Ayr, are both under SRU control

In rugby, however, whether you are Pete McCallum, captain of the Scottish Club XV, or a five-year-old just starting out in mini-rugby, you play for Ayr RFC, which comes under the control of the SRU at Murrayfield.

If Valspar Under-11s say, has a problem; no matter how far up the command chain it has to go before it is resolved; from start to finish, it is dealt with by people whose primary concern is football at that level – for kids still learning the game.

Ditto at amateur level – the guys trying to sort things out are people whose sole focus is on the health of the amateur game. The story is the same at junior level. I all these cases, the local club is dealing with local officials, people he knows and people he elected to their particular office.

Only the rarest and most-extreme cases ever require the intervention of the paid professionals at Hampden.

In rugby, however, it seems the amateurs, the guys giving of their time for the love of the game, are increasingly having to defer to the paid professionals. And it seems to me, there are not many “rugby people” in the big jobs at Murrayfield.

Let's get back to bringing governance closer to the grass roots. Is it time for a definite split between professional and amateur rugby?

Play Up Varsity - Play Up

THE UNIVERSITIES used to play a key role in Scottish Rugby. Look at the great Scottish sides of the 1920s – the all-Oxford University three-quarter line of Smith, Macpherson, Aitken and Wallace; Eric Liddell of Edinburgh University.

 The Great Norman Mair - capped as an undergraduate at Edinburgh University

In the post-war years, the likes of Norman Mair, Ranald MacDonald and Gus Black, later Erle Mitchell (Edinburgh), and Doug Smith and Ernie Michie of Aberdeen, were capped while still students – Macdonald, Black, Smith and Michie going on to be Lions. Others such as the three Smiths, the legendary Arthur at Glasgow, Ian and Mike at Edinburgh, centres Kim Elgie and Chris Rea at St Andrew's all showed, while undergraduates, evidence of the skills which would see them capped shortly after graduating, while others such as Andy Irvine and Chris Paterson, would turn out for the University of Edinburgh, while also playing for their clubs.

But, particularly since the introduction of the official leagues, the question has often been asked – what has happened to university rugby in Scotland?

Just about all the SRU does today for what was once a vibrant sector of the Scottish rugby community is, heavily promote the Edinburgh v St Andrew's University “Scottish Varsity” match. OK, they got 10,000 along – more than Edinburgh get for games other than against Glasgow, so, maybe there is a market for university rugby. if they spent as much time an effort promoting the club game, perhaps we'd be better off. And by the way SRU – your heavily-hyped game, for all its excellent attendance, didn't attract much in the way of media interest.

The Edinburgh players celebrate their win in the Scottish Varsity Match against St Andrew's

Things, of course, COULD change – with the arrival of that orphaned child,Super-6, because one of the pillars on which it is built is that the six franchises have a link to a university and college.

Actually, to be fair, this is a very sensible move – one of the few in this whole moger. Because, having access to a sympathetic university or college will hopefully work in favour of the younger players who will be so-important to the whole Super-6 concept.

The young player, who didn't get a full professional contract when he came out of the Academy, or who never got there in the first place, will be able to study at a sympathetic associate seat of learning, augmenting his bursary or whatever with his semi-professional rugby earnings. Win, win then – for some.

Gus Black - a British Lion while studying at Edinburgh University

Actually, although we no longer see our ancient seats of learning, the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrew's adding to the distinguished list of alumni who wore the thistle, university rugby in Scotland seems to be in a healthy state – as I discovered when researching (yes – believe it or not, some research goes into this blog) yesterday's post.

It's just, rather than put themselves into the greasy hands and buttery fingers of BT Murrayfield, the guys who run our university rugby have preferred to throw in their lot with BUCS – British University and College Sport, where university rugby seems to be in good health, while operating below the radar.

The universities themselves also now run the Scottish Universities XV, which was once supported by the SRU. They still play “University internationals” on the Friday night before 6Nations games, but, the SRU is no longer involved.

Indeed, I didn't know, until put right by someone with a long interest in university rugby, that Scottish success is not unknown in the BUCS sector. A decade ago, Edinburgh won one of BUSA's (British Universities Sports Association as it then was) main competitions, beating Liverpool in the final in London.

The RFU did Liverpool proud, of the SRU, there was no sign on the big day. The same thing happened in another big BUSA final, when Glasgow beat Edinburgh, in Bath of all places. How did the “blazeratti” miss those two chances to bolster their expenses?

Our top team today is Edinburgh University's first XV, who play in the BUCS North A league, the second tier of university and college rugby in Great Britain.

The BUCS logo

The top tier: BUCS Score, is a nine-team league, contested this season by the Universities of Bath, Cardiff Metropolitan, Durham, Exeter, Leeds Beckett, Loughborough, Northumbria and Nottingham Trent, plus Gloucester “feeder” team Harptbury College.

The levels below that are more regionalised, with North A being the next level down. Here we find: Birmingham, Durham 2^nd XV, Edinburgh, Leeds, Loughborough 2^nd XV, Newcastle and Nottingham Universities, and Bishop Burton College.

In North B, we find: Durham 3^rd XV, Glasgow, Leeds Beckett 2^nd XV, Manchester, Sheffield, Strathclyde and Stirling.

There are also five purely Scottish leagues – four of six teams, one of nine, covering such seats of learning as Aberdeen, Abertay, Dundee, Edinburgh's lower XVs, Edinburgh College, Glasgow's lower XVs, Glasgow Caley, Heriot Watt, Napier, Queen Margaret, Robert Gordon's, St Andrew's, Strathclyde and West of Scotland.

Aberdeen, Edinburgh and St Andrew's each has four XVs entered into these leagues – while there is also a very-healthy University cups and trophies scene in which to play. Why, I wonder, is that we have 37 Scottish teams competing in BUCS competitions, a healthy interest, while only six teams from our seats of higher education participate in the Tennent's Leagues.

These teams are: EUMS (Edinburgh University Medics) in East 2, RDVC (the Royal Dick Vet School) in East 3, GUMs (Glasgow University Medics) in West 3, DUMS (Dundee University Medics) in Caledonia Midlands 2 and Aberdeen University and AUMs (Aberdeen University Medics) in Caledonian North 3.

I can accept that a few students, happy to turn out for their university or college in the midweek BUCS competitions, might prefer to play for their clubs on a Saturday. I further accept that a few might go home for the weekend – but, surely we can get a few more university teams playing at weekends, and thereby see more players actually playing.

One of the main problems and concerns about rugby today is the fall-off ratio between Schools and Youth Rugby and the adult game. All those keen U-18 players who go off to university and discover beer and women, they don't suddenly lose their love for the game.

Maybe the SRU should be putting resources into keeping these guys playing, even when they go off to university and college, for the long-term benefit of the game. At their club, they get things done for them – adults make the arrangements. Is it the notion of having to become “gown-ups”, by taking their turn at organising their teams, which puts them off? Or is it, they are so used to being told what to do, they cannot think for themselves? Or, is it merely laziness?

Whatever, the student players who gets involved, who plays his part in making sure his university team works, is I feel, more-likely to stay in the game, and, back at his club, become the club official of the future, and a living means of helping rugby thrive and grow.