Listening To That Rubbish was Simply Not Justified

I GOT into sport at an indecently-early age. I can remember watching “The Matthews Cup Final” aged six. The following year's Scotland v England game is the first international I can remember, and, before I was at secondary school, I could rattle off the results, and the Scotland team, for every Scotland v England game since the original 'Wembley Wizards' of 1928.

I can (just about) remember us being tonked 44-0 by the Springboks, but have a better memory of the 1953-54 All Blacks, mainly thanks to the tales of full back Bob Scott being able to kick the ball the length of the park, bare-footed. So, I have had a long and enduring love affair with the two most-popular forms of football in Scotland.

But, last night – I gave up on the Glasgow v Edinburgh game. I prefer to listen to such games on BBC Radio Shortbread. Particularly when Peter Wright is on-song, the pictures are better than via TV.

Last night, however, even with an on-form Wrightie, and some sparkling asides from Fraser Brown, I gave up and went back to binge-watching the marvellous 'Justified' - and the delectable Joelle Carter (pictures below) on Amazon Prime.

 

 

Murrayfield – you have a problem. With so-few full-time professional teams and players available at the moment, I fear over-familiarity is breeding, if not contempt, then certainly boredom.

The players see so-much of each other, at Scotland training sessions, in PRO14 games and so-forth; every player almost knows what his opponents are going to do, before they do it. I fear, going forward, we can look for more and more-frequent bore-fests like the last two. The players in the SRU's employ may not all be possessed of the ability to provide “Wow” moments, but, I fear such moments may become fewer and fewer in the years to come.

I don't have the answer to this problem, but, the high heid yins at HQ need to come up with one, if they want to keep the fixture vibrant and meaningful, once the fans are allowed back in.

One other wee point I might make to the PRO14 refereeing administration team. Please, keep Mike Adamson away from this fixture. I fear, because he is a former Glasgow player, Mike, almost certainly sub-consciously, bends over backwards to avoid accusations of bias. This means, he cannot do his normally first-class job in this fixture.

So, take him out of the firing line and don't ask him to do this game again. Let the next tier of referees down have the experience.

Another referee, of an earlier vintage, Kelso's George Murray, heard the final whistle last week, aged 85. In an excellent obituary, on the official SRU website, Graham Law paid fulsome and eloquent tribute to a man who was more than just a match official, and who was a weel-kent face and a well-regarded man, right across the game up here.

Legend has it, George's final act – short of blowing the final whistle, in his final game in the middle – a Border League clash between Jed-forest and Langholm, was to penalise Langholm's Cyril Johnstone right in front of the home posts – to give Jed a match-tying penalty.

“What was that for George?” the bold Cyril enquired.

“For 20 years of bother from you,” was the legendary answer. Nobody could dislike a referee who could come up with that one. Nigel Owens, eat your heart out.

I COULD never be mistaken for someone who gives a shit, so I don't know, but think it unlikely that English Rugby is still run by the successors to dear Will Carling's “57 Old Farts,” but, if the Heinz Boys are still in-charge, they are allowing a great opportunity to pass them bye.

In the world of rugby governance there are two outliers – the RFU and the FFR, who in turn govern the game in England and France. There, the big clubs rule the roost, everywhere else, the governing bodies, to a greater or lesser degree, control the star players.

Certainly, in some parts of France, while there may be a titular “Monsieur Grand” making the big decisions at the various clubs, you will find Monsieur Le Mayor and the local authority have a say, perhaps owning the ground, or ensuring Monsieur Grand sees his fiefdom as including a bit of upholding local rather than personal prestige, while in England, since owning a Premier League football team is now too-expensive for all but the most well-heeled patriots, owning a Gallagher Premiership rugby team is now how they piss their fortunes as far up the wall as possible.

The current Covid restrictions, to my mind, give the RFU a perhaps last and unique chance to curb the power of the big club bosses.

We know below Premiership level, all rugby is off for the forseeable future. Why doesn't the R|FU place similar restrictions on the top flight. We know all the top clubs except Exeter Chiefs posted losses the last time they published their accounts. Therefore, it is doubtful if they could hold out over a lengthy shut down.

Rugby will recover once the restrictions are lifted and we get back to grass-roots playing, and, higher-up the food chain, we see spectators once again allowed in.

Maybe if the RFU could find a way of stopping the big teams from playing and force them out of business, they could take the top players into centrally-controlled contracts, get together with the PRO14 and maybe even the Top 14, to a sort of European NFL, under the umbrella of the Unions.

Such a scheme is surely not beyond the wit of the game's rulers – it could be the game's salvation.

IN MY last post, I made a definite left-field proposal for rugby. In the below the line readers' comments, nobody accused me of talking pish. Hell, I might be on to something.