Better - But These Are Still Early Days

SPORTS WRITING is sometimes seen as the last refuge of the written cliché. At the end of the day, practitioners of the art of sports-writing are following an age-old trade, covering, in the case of football, cricket or rugby, a game more than a century old, in which very little new happens. Thus, a temptation to recycle old terminology and we have dejas vu all over again.

One of the time-honoured cliches is the one about a league campaign being: “a marathon rather than a sprint.” If that one, cliché number 57 by my count, hold good, what can we say about a World Cup campaign?

Certainly not a marathon, but, too long for a sprint. Perhaps a World Cup is a middle-distance race. In which case, we are maybe only coming up to the end of the first lap. The runners are still sorting themselves out, and getting used to the pace.

In which case, it is far too early to be getting excited about results in the current round of warm-up games. Of course I was disappointed at the poor showing in Nice last weekend. But, while a lot happier with what I saw at BT Murrayfield yesterday, I am not going to be shouting from the roof tops that all is well.

There were some good things seen yesterday, but, watching the replay on Free Sports this morning, I thought: yes, we are doing some good things, but, we are still a wee bit off the pace, that, however will come.

A lot of passes didn't stick, moves were not read, good chances were spurned, but, the basic shape was better against the French in Edinburgh than it had been in Nice.

We are getting there, slowly, and I am sure, by the time we run out against the Irish in Yokohama, we should be up to the required speed.

I do not for one moment think, on that day, the men in green will be as rank as they were against England yesterday, and, for our Celtic cousins, I fear they may have managed to ape the age-old habit of Scottish football teams, to have peaked the year before a World Cup.

One thing which I felt was clearly established yesterday is, Wayne Barnes is now the world's number one referee. I really hope we get him in the final in Japan, the bonus to which would be, it would mean England hadn't made it – although I dare say, Inverdale, Guscott & Co will have their name on the trophy already.

A WEE query which came my way over this weekend was this, asked me by a club official, who said:

“We are being told, 190 of the 210 squad places in the six Super-6 franchises have been filled, which leaves 20 players to recruit across the half dozen franchises.

“The squads have to be completed by 30 September. Does the players' salaries start from then, or from now, when we understand they are already in-training.

“So, could players perhaps turn out for the S6 clubs' “amateur” club sides in National League 1 – but mysteriously be upgraded to S6 players on 31 September?”

That gets us into QI territory – ie, nobody knows. We are told, there is a “gentleman's agreement,” whereby the six clubs have agreed not to field S6 squad members in their NL1 squads. Will this stick?

I suppose, this is just another example of the mistrust and uncertainty which has been such a feature of the formation of Super-6. It needs, even at this late stage, sorting.

THAT WAS another cracking exclusive that big David Barnes and The Offside Line came up with last night: with the news that the new players union, formed by big Tim Swinson, had taken a leading role in negotiating the participation deal between the SRU and the Scotland squad, for the Rugby World Cup.

At least two of Scotland's football World Cup campaigns never recovered from a pre-tournament bust-up between the squad and the SFA, so kudos to both sides for sorting things out so well and so-far ahead of the tournament.

WAY BACK last century, when writing about sport was still a part-time, paying hobby for me, I earned my main crust working for a tyre company.

One evening, the boss and I were summoned up to Parliamentary Road in Glasgow, where one of our trucks had collided with a Royal Mail van. One of the postmen was sitting on the pavement, moaning loudly and complaining of a bad back; an ambulance had been summoned. There was then an interesting conversation between my boss and a big Glesca polis who was on the scene.

“Whit's wrang wi him?” the boss enquired.

“Looks tae me like a bad case o' compen setting in,” replied the world-weary policeman.

Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, we got a letter from the mail man's representatives, Messrs Soo, Grabbit & Runn, explaining that their client had suffered life-threatening injuries and was holding our truck and driver responsible.

Unfortunately for him, both the boss and I had noted the Royal Mail van had not had a passenger seat, so, the badly-maimed client had no damned right to be in the van, and any injuries sustained were his own fault.

We heard nothing further on the claim.

But, that was then, this is now, where ambulance-chasing lawyers are a growing breed and the compensation culture is well-established. There was an interesting we story in the Guardian at the weekend, it seems, in Ireland, where spourious compensation claims are now a fact of life, a couple of spectators at matches at the Aviva in Dublin are suing the stadium for damages of around €60,000 – after spectators were hit by the match ball.

Scottish clubs, you have been fore-warned.