Edinburgh Lost, And I For One Was Not Surprised

HANDS UP everyone who, like me, was just waiting for that late Edinburgh collapse on Saturday night, and Ulster's near-inevitable progression into the Guinness PRO14 Grand Final, against Leinster.

If you have sat in as many press boxes as I have, in so-many different sports, Saturday night's outcome would not have come as a surprise. It is a sporting truism, right across the board – if you don' put points on the board when you are on top, invariably that failure comes back to bite you.

When Ulster began to cut into Edinburgh's 12 point lead, I saw the writing on the wall. The home side had had their chance to put clear water between them and their visitors; they hadn't done this. Images of Karen Dunbar's well-brought-up Kelvinside lady began to swim before me at that point.

The sad fact is, throughout the Open Rugby era, on all but a handful of occasions, top Scottish sides have crumbled and/or under-performed in the really big matches. When the chips are down, in the must-win games, we have this long tradition of not winning.

Scots can win in other sports – Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart on the motor-racing circuits; Andy Murray on the tennis courts; Chris Hoy in a velodrome; David Wilkie in a swimming pool; the likes of Eric Brown, Bernard Gallacher, Brian Barnes, Sandy Lyle, Sam Torrance and Colin Montgomerie in the Ryder Cup, golf's most-intense competition.

However, in team sports – we seldom have enough truly World-class components to the team to consistently challenge at the very-top level.

Team-building is more an art than a science. But, there are certain rules which have to be obeyed. Let's look at the two sides from these islands to have won World Cups – the 1966 football and 2003 rugby England teams.

The Boys of '66 stuck to the received wisdom of building a successful, winning football team. They had a rock-solid central core: Gordon Banks, Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton and, although he missed the final – Jimmy Greaves. These four players were arguably the best in their positions in the world. They were augmented by some pretty special lesser figures: Ray Wilson was arguably the best full back on the planet. If you wanted a man-marking job done, few could do it as well as Nobby Stiles, Allan Ball and Martin Peters could stretch teams down the flanks, and, even though being knighted for scoring two goals in the final must make him the luckiest knight ever, Geoff Hurst did a cracking job as stand-in for Greaves.

Then look at the 2003 rugby team. Jason Robinson in the back three, the centre pairing, Jonny Wilkinson at stand-off, Steven Thompson at hooker, captain Martin Johnson at lock and a superb back row – that was the hard, solid spine of that team, backed-up by other players at the top of their game.

 

Look at the Scotland football team which stands abune them a' – the Lisbon Lions: Ronnie Simpson, as good a Scottish goalkeeper as we have had; Billy McNeill at centre-half, the Murdoch/Auld midfield axis, and the under-rated Stevie Chalmers on point. Add ther threat down the flanks of Craig and Gemmell, backing up Bobby Lennox and the genius that was wee Jinky and you had a very-special team.

But, the think about these three great teams is, their success was never built on. And, to my mind, for as long as the big clubs in both Scotland and England persist with this nonsense of buying ready-made players, with little connection to the domestic game – they never will.

We keep being told, never again will we see 11 Scotsmen, all born and raised within an hour of the club's ground, doing what the Lions did and conquering Europe. That's shite, it can be done, and I hope to live long enough to see it done again.

 

Certainly, Glasgow won the PRO12, as it then was, back in 2015. Not a pan-European competition, but, still a fine win. That team had a strong central spine: Hoggy, Finn Russell, Leone Nakarawa and Josh Strauss, and, 12 of the 15 were Scotland-qualified.

 

Man for man, put that team up against last night's Edinburgh XV, and the composite XV would not contain many Edinburgh players.

 

Glasgow's 2015 PRO12 winners
 

But, what has this history lesson got to do with Edinburgh losing? I head you ask. Simple really, look at the Edinburgh side – it lacks a strong spine.

Look at the spine of the Edinburgh side: Blair Kinghorn, only 23, still developing. The centres, Injury has blunted Mark Bennett's cutting edge, still a good player, but, not as good as he threatened to be before the injuries hit. The half-backs, please, for me, they are not even the best half-backs at Edinburgh. In the pack, Stuart McInally is good for about an hour, then he runs out of steam, ditto Grant Gilchrist, who has never lived up to the hype. Yes, they have a good back row, but, the balance is not there, and, most-crucially for me, they do not have enough leaders in their leadership group.

Edinburgh have two cracking wingers, but, they cannot get them the ball in threatening positions often enough. They lack a gain line-bursting ball carrier – if Bill Mata is stopped early enough, but, most-crucially, they lack midfield guile.

The trouble is, we lack a proper development system in Scotland. OK, we lack money, but, more-importantly, I think we lack a definite plan for developing our elite players. We are not exposing our young players to a strong enough level of competition and, for me, once our young players get a full-time professional contract, they are not worked hard enough, given enough encouragement and challenged enough.

As I have said before, I have a notion that Super6 will be a key facet of any improvement in Scottish rugby and a great tool in player development. Frankly, from the get-go, S6 has been badly handled by the SRU and, we will never know how good, or how fit for purpose it is, until they get a full season under its belt.

The set-up was hurried and bungled; Coronavirus then intervened. Already, we hear of at least one of the six franchises is in deep doo-dah, with players and sponsors abandoning ship. S6 has serious problems to overcome.

Post-Coronavirus, I don't see the longed-for third professional team happening any time soon. The future for performance rugby in Scotland looks grim.

Then there is the ordinary, grass-roots club game. OK, the end of October is now being flashed-up as a possible restart date. I would like to think this will happen, but, Ah hae ma doots.

A second wave of the virus is I would say, more probable than possible, which will put things back for a few weeks, maybe into 2021, and I can honestly see a lot of less-than-dedicated players drifting away.

Edinburgh's defeat was, I feel, symptomatic of the overall state of Scottish rugby.