It's All About Us - The Big English Clubs' Mantra

THE DETERMINATION of the major English and French clubs to take over the game of Rugby Union football continues to impress me. I don't know enough, nor do I care, what our Gallic friends do, but, I continue to be amazed and in awe of the English exceptionalism which sees the Gallagher Premiership clubs, up to their waists in debt as they are, continuing to fight their power war with Twickenham.

Of course, mired as they also are by debt, staring down the barrell of enforced redundancies to try to stem a growing black hole in their own finances, the successors to Will Carling's Old Farts are not best placed to bring their troublesome clubs to heel.

In an ideal world, this would have little or nothing to do with us rebellious Scots, but, if in the world of geopolitical finance: “If the USA catches a cold, the UK gets pneumonia,” so too in sporting financial matters, you might say: “If England is in hospital, Scotland is in intensive care.”

The fact is, only in England and France do the biggest professional clubs appear to be paramount, elsewhere in the global game, the Unions run things. If the Unions stick together, the clubs can be brought to heel.

RFU President Judge Jeff Blackett

I therefore wish (and I know I am asking a lot here) that new RFU President Judge Jeff Blackett and the other “56 Old Farts” ®Will Carling – could grow a collective pair, at the same time show a wee bit of humility and get the other Unions on-board; then they could tell their big clubs: “We are going to do things our way, for the benefit of the wider game and not your very small bailliewick, and if you don't like what we are doing, go away and play with yourselves.”

It would be interesting to see how they would get on if cast out into the wilderness, where nobody else would play them, and they would have to recruit, train and pay their own match officials. They might thrive and prosper, but, given they are all currently loss-making enterprises, I think their chances of winning any battle with Twickenham, backed by World Rugby, would be small.

A wee aside here, I went onto the RFU website when writing this. Easy to find out who the paid executives are, impossible to find out who the Council members are. At least, with the SRU, we know who the elected officials are, but, like their counterparts in England, they seem to be under the rule of the paid guys.

Inverdale, now officially an Old Fart

I also noticed, the odious John Inverdale is now one of Twickenham's “Old Farts”. President of Esher RFC, he has been appointed Chairman of England's National Clubs Association, a position which carries with it a seat alongside the other 56 OFs on the RFU Council.

This may well be the only time you ever read this on Aristotle, but, I congratulate Inverdale on his election and wish him well. Certainly, if he carries on as he has started with an impressive in-depth interview with The Rugby Paper, we Scots might grow to respect the plonker – I doubt if we will ever like him.

BACK IN the 1980s, I was heavily involved in basketball in Scotland. Our club was one of the top outfits in the country and, simply to compete, we had to employ American imports.

We had one such player, a very-good point guard who, having just missed out on being drafted into the NBA out of college, ahd spent a decade working his way around Europe. He had played in the major European leagues, in Germany, Italy and Spain, before stepping down a tier to play in England, then joining us in Scotland.

Towards the end of his contract I had a chat with him, and he was swithering as to what he would do when he went back home for the summer. He came from Wapakoneta, Ohio, the same small town as astronaut Neil Armstrong and as he said to me:

“Every summer, I go home, I catch-up with my old school-mates, I walk round the Neil Armstrong Museum and I chill. Then I start looking for my next contract. That's been my life for a decade, maybe this year, I will need to start using my college degree and make up lost ground on my old college team mates, who never made it to the pros and now have ten years' business experience behind them.”

This is the reality of playing professional sport, at some point, jock strap, gumshield, boots etc give way to either a business suit and brief case or overalls and a tool box. They have to rejoin the real world.

Such a moment came for Scotland caps John Barclay and Gordy Reid earlier this year. Matt Scott avoided that fate, when he secured a contract with Leicester, after being cut by Edinburgh.

Matt Scott - a bit of a stooshie over his departure

Scott's experience has caused a wee bit of a stooshie, apparently he was willing to take a pay cut to remain with his home-town team, but, it didn't happen.

Regarding Scott's experience, I look at football, our companion sport, but, with a much-longer history of negotiating player contracts. It is generally accepted in football that a top international player, going out of contract when 28 or 29 is facing the moment of truth. The new contract he negotiates will most-likely be his last big pay day. Once he gets into his thirties, he is a diminishing asset to his club. At best his future contracts will be one-year deals, prior to either dropping down a level, or retiring.

As he negotiates, that player can see the finish line approaching and he has to decide: “What is best for me going forward, to keep playing or to start planning for my future away from the game?”

I look at how the SRU is organised, and I feel they could do better by their Scottish players, such as Barclay and Scott.

That American basketball player I referenced, we could not actually pay him to play basketball – which was supposedly an amateur sport in Scotland. But, we could and did pay him as a Basketball Development Officer. As such, when not training and playing, he went round local schools giving coaching classes and “selling” basketball to kids whose first love was football. The kids loved having a real live American player visiting their school and the various guys we thus employed all had a great time and were well received.

Maybe the SRU, since they employ all the full-time players with Edinburgh and Glasgow, should be similarly using these guys to sell rugby round the non-rugby-playing schools, or passing on their expertise to young players, and, at the same time, preparing themselves for the day they have to join the real world.

I think it would work.

There Will Always Be An England - And We Lesser Nations Don't Matter

ENGLISH EXCEPTIONALISM is a fact of life in so many areas in the United Kingdom or the British Isles. And it is rampant right now in the world of Rugby Union.

I am, under this ridiculous, Brexit-fixated Conservative government, and its compliant right-wing media, becoming convinced we are regressing to the bad old days of headlines in the London newspapers such as: “Storm in the channel – continent isolated;” it's as if they are trying to convince themselves that England still matters.

Nick Cain

My reasons for taking this controversial stance? Well, I have just read a piece of pish from Nick Cain, a columnist on The Rugby Paper. The lack of self-awareness, a by-product of English Exceptionalism, is astonishing. When you read lines, right at the start of the piece, such as: “the tail is wagging the dog.”

For Fuck Sake! “The tail wagging the dog.”

• Rugby World Cups held – nine
• RWCs won by northern hemisphere countries – one
• RWCs won by southern hemisphere countries – eight

Consider the large numbers of Australians, New Zealanders and Pacific Islanders playing in northern hemisphere rugby, against the very, very few playing at the same level in the southern hemisphere and the Cain comments are even-more ridiculous.

For Cain, in his typically-English way, it's all about money. The RFU, being the largest and richest of the game's unions has to have the final say. England will make the rules, and England will waive the rules, when it suits them.

He comes across as an Anglo-Saxon version of a creature we are familiar with in Scotland, the stuck-in-the-mud 'Buftie' who believes: “It's aye been, and aye will be.”

As far as Cain is concerned, we shall have different seasons for northern and southern hemispheres, and, other than when the top international sides are touring – never the twain shall meet.

When I was a boy, we had regular seasons for sport. For instance, the rugby season started on 1 September and ended on the following 30 April. Of course, even then, the French were spreading their season; they didn't get their championship sorted out until the end of May or start of June, while in England, the Middlesex Sevens, at Twickenham were always on the first Saturday in May.

Today, the professional rugby season lasts 11 months – from mid-August until the end of the following June, so, why – according to Cain – would it be impossible to have a common global season designed to suit both northern and southern hemispheres?

I actually feel, at least at the very top of the club game, such a global competition is inevitable – but only if the big English and French clubs have their way. However, for such a competition to truly work, it would need to be organised something like the NFL, NBA or the top flight of college sport in North America – with initial “Divisional” or “Conference” games leading to national – or in rugby's case international knock-out play-downs: “Jittery June or July” becoming rugby's equivalent of college basketball's “March Madness,” when the various conference champions play down to crown tha national champions.

For the moment, the champions of the PRO14, Top14, Gallagher Premiership and Super Rugby, playing off to find the World Club Champions would probably work.

However, perhaps the best outlet for truly global rugby would be a tweak on World Rugby's suggested World League for international teams.

The problem in setting that up, however, looks to me like the need to convince the men who run the major English and French clubs: “Proper international rugby, the national sides, is far-more-important than what you guys are playing. You will always be second fiddle to the international sides.”

England and France are the outliers – where the clubs hold the whip hand, everywhere else it's the Union which rules. Unless England and France are pulled into line, we will always be arguing.

OF COURSE, the arguments at the highest international and club levels only really involve TCD, Dom, The White Shark and Big Gav, our representatives on the various bodies – the rest of us have enough on our plate with the mess that is the current state of the SRU.

I know meetings are ongoing as The Junta and the various elected officials struggle with the current situation, but, realistically, nothing much will happen before the Autumn.

It may be possible to hold the AGM, I mean, BT Murrayfield is big enough that it could be held, with social distancing, in the ground, with the delegates seated in the stand. The Bigot Brothers of Scottish football manage to hold their annual meetings at “Castle Greyskull” and “The Tattie Dome,” so, why not Scottish Rugby.

Once we get JJ, Ian Barr,and either Colin Rigby or Keith Wallace installed in the top jobs, we can perhaps move ahead, get the governance issues sorted out and put the recent unpleasantness behind us, by really, finally, getting Scottish Rugby – to use a favourite Murrayfield expression: “Fit for purpose.”

Getting there, cutting through all the layers of self-interest, all that Aye Beenism, will be bloody difficult – but, if the will is there, we can do it.

Let's face it, as I see it, if we don't bring about radical change, and quickly, then the future for Scottish Rugby is not at all bright. In fact, as I see it, without change:

Let's Hope Smith Retiring Does Not Start A Trend

THIS WEEK'S news, that Matt Smith was retiring from rugby disturbed me somewhat. Hopefully, Matt will have a change of heart, he could doubtless do a good job in Super6 or the upper reaches of the National leagues, while, I would like to think maybe Andy MacPherson could work his persuasive magic and get young Matt onto the fast track refereeing course.

Matt Smith - pic courtesy of Craig Watson

A former professional, starting out in refereeing at 23, could, with the right guidance, go all the way in whistling – young enough and fit enough to withstand the rigours of the international sevens circuit for instance.

Mind you, the way it has ended for Matt demonstrates how the professional end of the game is aping the round ball code of football in its treatment of young wannabees.

I took over the St Mirren beat at the Paisley Daily Express 25-years ago, in 1995. I covered the Buddies for the best part of ten years. In my time there, they had what was considered a very-good youth development programme. I saw young players such as Martin Baker, Barry Lavety, Jamie Fullarton, Hughie Murray, Ricky Gillies, Brian Hetherston, Derek Scrimgour, Steven McGarry and Chris Iwelumo come through the ranks there, after signing from boys club teams.

He will never live this down, but, big Chris is still involved in football

Iwelumo won full caps, the rest won Scotland Under-21 honours. “Bubbles” Hetherston – perhaps the most-gifted of all was blighted by illness and did not live to see 30. Baltacha's career was also derailed by injury. St Mirren got good money for Baker, Lavety, Fullarton and Gillies, while Murray went on to break Tony Fitzpatrick's long-standing St Mirren appearances record.

They also had a young man in the reserve team that season, Chris Pollock, who came from Rangers. Chris had captained the Scottish Schools Football Team and mixed his football with studying at Glasgow University. He gave up football, got his degree and is now a full Captain in the Royal Navy.

An impressive body of talent there, but, of the players mentioned only McGarry, who is Head of the Academy at Perth Glory in Western Australia, is still active in the game. Fullarton is out of the game after leaving Halifax Town, where he had been manager up until last year. Gillies is director of a players agency, while Iwelumo, after obtaining a university degree in sports journalism, is now a media pundit.

So, ten promising teenagers going into the sport they loved, today, in their forties, only one is still actively-involved in the game, one is currently unemployed and hoping to get back, one is involved as a players' agent and the two who went to university have got good jobs outside the game.

So, from that small sample, less than half are even involved on the periphery of the game – and I believe that is an untypically good outcome for the dreams they all had as 16-year-olds setting out in the game.

Do we want rugby to go down that road, of signing young dreamers, letting them sink or swim and chucking them out when they no longer meet the game's needs? I hope not. I also wish Matt Smith well for the future.

I like to hold up the North American professional team sports – American Football, Baseball, Basketball and Ice Hockey as the model of how to do it. There, the kids are discovered playing sport at High School; they are recruited by colleges, given scholarships and, at the end of their four years – the very best go on to become millionaires playing their chosen sport, the not so good go out into the real world, but, with the security of a degree or some kind of qualification.

Football over here uses and abuses young talent, then discards the failures without a second thought. I would hate to see rugby going down that road.

IT'S OFFICIAL then, Leone Nakarawa, “The Offload King” will still be a Warrior when rugby returns. That's good news. However, cynic that I am, I fear the massive salary a world-class talent like Leone can command, plus the good salary Richie Gray can also command partly explains how Warriors are a bit short on numbers at lock.

Mind you, Nakarawa, Gray, Scott Cummings, and Kieran McDonald-Seran, with Rob Harley able to fill-in as required ought to be a sufficiency of locks for a season. And, by going with just these five, it offers the opportunity for some of the younger S6 locks to fill-in when required.

I firmly believe, the days of the 50-plus playing squads are over and we will see a new reality around professional player numbers in Scotland.

No Actual Games Yet - But Still Plenty To Talk About

DAVE RENNIE never said much to the media during his spell at Glasgow. Sure, he did the mandatory pre and post-match stuff, but, perhaps because our game is a distinct minority sport in Scotland, he never had much of a media presence otherwise.

But, now he's Australian National Coach – although currently in-quarantine in an Auckland hotel, he seems to be making daily pronouncements in the media. His latest, reported in of all places the website Wales Online, has him pontificating on what is known in Australia as: “Giteau's Law.”

Matt Giteau of "Giteau's Law"

The reason for the Welsh interest is, they have their own version of Giteau's Law – which states that a player playing outside Wales can only be picked for the national side if he has won a minimum of 60 Welsh caps.

We don't have such a law up here, perhaps because, the SRU fears without our experienced players playing for clubs other than Glasgow and Edinburgh, we would be even-less competitive than we currently are.

But, if we did bring in such a ruling, which players would we lose?

I checked on “The Scotland Men's Squad” as listed on the official SRU website. And from that I learned, we have nine players, who have fewer than 60 caps and play their club rugby outwith Scotland. These player, and their caps total, are:

Allan Dell (32 caps); Jonny Gray (57); Chris Harris (18); Rory Hutchinson (5); Byron McGuigan (10); Sean Maitland (48); Matt Scott (39); Sam Skinner (7); Duncan Weir (28).

Jonny Gray (57 caps) doesn't actually appear on the list, since he was injured during the curtailed 2020 Six Nations campaign, but, it would be crazy to omit him from the list. And, for obvious reasons, we should also include Finn Russell, who has 46 caps.

Jonny Gray - A scottish version of Giteau's Law would

mean he could no longer be considered for the team

Scotland skipper Stuart Hogg, with 76 caps, would still be available to the national team, while Richie Gray , with his 62 caps would still have been available to Scotland had he chosen to remain in France, rather than returning to Glasgow.

Losing nine players – roughly one-quarter of our international squad would seem to be a somewhat high price to pay for implementing a Scottish take on Giteau's Law, plus, it would immediately make redundant the Scottish-Qualified scheme, which has been a fruitful recruiting ground for players over the years. And, with only two full-time teams, both funded by the SRU, we would be in a way cutting off our nose to spite our face if we were to go down the 60-caps limit route.

Therefore, I don't see Scotland doing this.

ANOTHER subject up for discussion at the moment is a bit of tinkering with the format for the Heineken Cup.

As things stand, Europe's top club competition is open to 20 clubs, from the three top European Leagues – PRO14, Top14 and the Gallagher Premiership. Initially, they play down, in five four-club pools, to find eight quarter-finalists, and from then on it's straight knock-out rugby until we find a winning club.

This season the 20 clubs have comprised seven each from the PRO14 and English Premiership and six from the Top14. Of course, cutting 20 clubs down to the eight quarter-finalists has its problems. The five pool winners go through, but only the three best pool runners-up.

This imbalance has seen suggestions that the competition be expanded to 24 clubs; but, what happens then is still up for debate.

My personal fear is, if you expand competitions too far, you risk diluting the quality of the teams involved. Go up to 24 teams, you risk involving clubs who finished as also-rans int heir leagues in the supposedly higher tier of international competitions.

Going up to 24 clubs in the Heineken Cup would mean involving clubs who currently, on the back of an indifferent club season, would normally only qualify for the second tier competition – The Challenge Cup.

Now this might aid the spread of the game, with teams from lesser Europeahn leagues joining the likes of Italian Top12 champions Calivisano and those seemingly-permanent qualifiers for the Challenge Cup, the Siberian side Enisai-STM, in having a crack at the lesser lights from the three big leagues.

I am not against this, but, would prefer to see the top competition – the Heineken, treated as an even-more elite competition, perhaps only open to the top 16 teams in Europe.

If rugby goes down the expansionist route, we could end up, like football, with pre-qualifying for Europe starting in high summer, and with teams who have a bad run in the pool stages of the Heineken being parachuted into the later rounds of the Challenge Cup, as happens in football between the Champions League and The Europa League.

This, of course, is one of the hidden costs of professionalism. Clubs require bigger and bigger squads, costing more and more in wages, so, they need to play more and more games to try to cover the basic costs.

Costs spiral, debts increase and you end up with a product which is unsustainable.

Rather than seeing the elite level of the game expanding more, I would rather see a smaller, more-exclusive top layer, open to those willing to pay for it – leaving the rest of us to enjoy “real rugby” an amateur game for all builds, which is aimed at the players, but which those of us who once played can still enjoy down at our local club.

Ripples Spreading To Begin A Conversation Which Needs To Happen

BIG GORDY REID certainly opened a can of worms with that very-funny, and highly-preceptive podcast which he did with Tom English and Andy Burke, for BBC Shortbread. The ripples from the wee stone he flung into the debate, when he voiced his disquiet about Super 6 have since spread all over Facebook, with some weel-kent faces joining-in.

Gordy Reid

Gordy did not enjoy playing in the FOSROC Super6 with Ayrshire Bulls this season; that much was obvious from his on-field body language. Indeed, watching from the stand, it seemed, most of the time, he was simply “going through the motions” and he seldom looked like an internationalist playing down a level. I do know, some of my fellow “silverbacks” in the Millbrae stand were distinctly unimpressed by his efforts.

There was one burst of life – when he came back on after his yellow card against Stirling County – when he made the sort of impact you might expect from an internationalist playing down a level, but, otherwise, he failed to make the same impression as the likes of George Hunter or Steven Longwell had made as Ayr props.

However, this criticism of Gordy is tempered by the knowledge, with Gordy, what you see is what you get, and it was clear, to those of us who had seen him grow-up with Ayr, inside his head was not right.

His criticism of S6 is also, I feel, a bit presumptuous. This competition has had a difficult birth – indeed in many ways it is still in the neo-natal ward. It was born prematurely, was a forceps delivery and the maternity ward suffered a power failure immediately after delivery.

Maybe, if we had seen the cross-border part of the plan played out, we would have a different view on S6. In any case, I still believe it will be at least year three, before we can even begin to assess its value or any apparent success.

MAYBE, just maybe, IF we emerge from the pandemic with the SRU's finances relatively unscathed, or if from somewhere, a billionaire benefactor arrives able to properly fund the third professional team, we could see proper full-time professional A teams formed, where our best young talent might develop. But, failing this miracle, S6 is going to be the development arm for Scottish rugby talent going forward.

Super6 was always a compromise

I have always contended: S6 was a compromise, an acceptance by The Junta they could not fund the elite end of the game as they wished to. In their reduced circumstances post-pandemic, this state of affairs looks like continuing, so, we must make the best of it.

We should also get it into our thick heads, the likes of Sean Lineen, Glen Tippett and the other “Kilted Kiwis” who are at the heart of S6 see it as our equivalent of the Mitre 10 Cup back in their far-away homeland – a competition which sorts out those players who can be trained-on at the top level. Ideally, probably, we should be looking at expanding S6 to S8 or even S10, but, that's for the future.

Post-pandemic, we might finally stop shuffling the deck chairs and come up with a proper format for Scottish Rugby, one that works. For me, this would be:

• The two or three full-time professional sides playing in the PRO14
• Super8 or Super10 semi-professional development teams
• a maximum of 20 elite club teams playing in two “National Leagues”
• Strictly amateur, more-localised leagues for the play-for-fun players

We might have to tinker with the Laws for the amateur game, making it less-physical and more fluid and enjoyable, but, that's an argument for another day.

I think we would need to insist on minimum standards for the national league clubs, and although it could well take a long time to appear, but, less self-interest among the clubs – a lot of which have a guid conceit o' themselves which has not been matched by performances.

We need to radically change how we organise the game up here. Change is a-coming, but, this will take time. However, the mood for change is definitely there, as witness some of the comments on the Facebook thread which big Gordy's comments initiated.

However, the SRU is a wee bit like a supertanker, it's a big, slow-moving monolith which takes a long time to get up to speed, and equally long to alter course or stop. Even with the current hiatus, changing course will be a slow job, however, well done to Gordy for his contribution to the necessary conversation.

Gordy Reid is Mr Entertainment In Scottish Rugby

IF YOU do nothing else, even remotely to do with rugby this weekend, take the time to listen to the BBC Scotland Rugby Podcast, currently available on the BBC Scotland Sport website.

Gordy Reid - Social Media Superstar

Tom English and Andy Burke do a great job of being joint straight men to the one and only Gordy Reid, as the big man from Mossblown gives a magnificent half hour discourse on the game. I will not print any spoilers here, and I do not necessarily agree with all my big mate Gordy came up with, but, it is a brilliant broadcast – listen and enjoy.

GET WELL SOON, is my message to SRU President Dee Bradbury, who is currently in Intensive Care, after sustaining a heart attack/stroke on Thursday night.

Dee Bradbury

Madame La President is in hospital in Glasgow and her family has asked that their privacy be respected at this time.

Fate has not been kind the the first lady of World rugby, with all the things which have gone wrong on her watch, but, Dee has always been an absolute lady; she is a bonnie fechter and I wish her a speedy recovery.

WEARING ITS right-on credentials this week, The Guardian ran a story suggesting the RFU was looking to stop the Hooray Henrys from Twickenham's West Car Park from encouraging the Master Race by breaking into “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” at the drop of a bowler hat – because of its associations with slavery.

Well leaving aside the fact that the song, complete with actions, has long been a part of apres-rugby in your average English club house, I feel we Scots should be defending the right of the English to sing this song.

If they stop chariots from swinging low, we willl be 

denied our opportunities to use this picture

After all, if they don't sing it – we have no reason to cut-in, telling them where to shove the afore-mentioned chariot. Then, what are we going to do with all these photographs of crashed chariots we post on social media when, as always happens, the English mess-up when on the verge of doing something special.

I AM decidedly jealous this week, after the clubs in Caledonia Region got together and presented Press and Journal Rugby Correspondent Jack Nixon with a very-nice decanter, to mark his 80^th birthday.

Jim Rae passes-on a special card to Jack Nixon

(picture shamelessly stolen from the Offside Line)

Jack has been the P&J's rugby man for a quarter of a century, so the tribute demonstrates how well he has covered his beat.

My reason for jealousy – I've been writing about Ayrshire Rugby since the 1960s and all I ever get are banning orders and abuse – must be something in the water here in God's County.

THE RUGBY guys down there in the game's heartland in the South of Scotland have long felt, The Junta at Murrayfield has been out to get them, to try to nobble the South's grip on the club game.

I am not so-sure, as one of the local “Silverbacks” around here said to me this week, after reading the SRU's Phase Two Return to Rugby guidelines: “Aye, meet outside, in groups of eight, from three different households, that might work in Hawick or Galashiels, where they are all related, but maybe not elsewhere.”