An Extreme Diet, But, It Paid Off

IT HAS been a somewhat fraught week here in the Sports Philosophy faculty at the Department of Stating the Bleeding Obvious, within the School of Hard Knocks. A major computer fuck-up has rendered me incommunicado, until now.

So, where to start: well, let's get the good news out of the way first. As we know, Lanark RFC are returning to league play this season, while in a further indication of better things in South Lanarkshire, CLYDESDALE RFC is also rising from its presumed deathbed. In fact, the two near neighbours met earlier this week for a social game.

Star of the show was Clydesdale President Larry Walker, who was leading from the front, propping for his club. Nothing wrong with that, except, Larry only played after winning his battle against Cancer. The battle was a lengthy one, but, throughout it, he never wavered in his determination to get back playing for his club, and, six stones lighter, it was a case of mission accomplished this week.

Brilliant show Larry, but, I can think of easier ways of shifting that much weight.

I HEAR too of a well-attended and interesting meeting of the West Regional Leagues North clubs at Scotstoun, at which matters of mutual concern were debated with members of the Rugby Development Department and the various clubs.

I have a lot of sympathy for Sheila Begbie and the RD elves, in their support of the clubs, since, as was clear at the meeting – there is no one size fits all solution to the problems facing them.

The issue of how best to re-organise the leagues came up. You have a case where what would work for a club in the Greater Glasgow area might not work for a community club from a large town, of a rural club from a village.

For instance, some of the rural clubs struggle to raise teams during peak times in the agricultural year – lambing time, or when they are at the4 silage, while “town” clubs look for a more consistent season, to keep the bar ticking over.

Mind you, I did laugh when I heard of one club, in a “tourist” area, who reckon they could survive pretty well without playing rugby. Their town's pubs and hotels are so-busy and packed by visitors on a Saturday night, the locals gravitate to the club to get peace and quiet.

AYR RUGBY CLUB is facing a season of change. A lot of attention is being focussed on their Super-6 side: Ayrshire Bulls, who, of course, don't get into action until November, while the Ayr RFC 1^st XV will be playing in National League 1.

This is the side which will start the defence of the Scottish Cup, against Dundee HSFP, at Mayfield, on Saturday. And, to warm-up, new Ayr coach Stuart Fenwick and Vice President Jim McKay, led a group of 52 players to Bainbridge in Northern Ireland last week-end, for 1^st and 2^nd XV games.

The party included a few graduates from the successful Ayr youth development programme and Stuart is confident his young charges will be able to give a good account of themselves in the new season.

The trip certainly produced some good team bonding and was a worth-while exercise.

Meanwhile, Ayrshire Bulls announced a further three signings this week, they are: loose-head prop Ruaridh Sayce, utility back Ollie Smith and hooker Lewis Anderson, who is returning to Ayrshire following a year playing for Hong Kong Scottish.

Sayce and Smith were with the double-winning Ayr squad last season.

GREGOR TOWNSEND this afternoon announced his squad to travel to Tbilisi on Saturday for the first international against Georgia. The squad, as ever in 1-23 order is:

Allan Dell, Stuart McInally (Captain), Wilem Nel, Ben Toolis, Grant Gilchrist, John Barclay, Hamish Watson, Matt Fagerson; Greig Laidlaw, Finn Russell; Sean Maitland, Sam Johnson, Rory Hutchison, Darcy Graham, Blair Kinghorn. Replacements: Grant Stewart, Jamie Bhatti, Zander Fagerson, Scott Cummings, Josh Strauss, Ali Price, Adam Hastings, Huw Jones.

It looks a strong team, and I reckon at least 14 of the 23 will be on the plane to Japan, while one or two of the rest are being given a last chance to clinch a place, prior to Toony announcing the final World Cup squad of 31 next Tuesday.