SRU Decision-Making: Could That Lot Pick Their Noses? I Often Wonder.

IN A previous writing life, I penned a Saturday column on the back page of the newspaper which then employed me. The final section of each week's column saw me awarding the much-coveted “Mince For Brains” award, which went to whatever local sports man or woman had made the biggest boob that week.

Were I to bring back the MFB as it was known to this blog, well, I feel I would have a tough job not giving it each week to some apparatchik beavering away on behalf of, or even a member of, The Murrayfield Junta.

Taking a quick swatch at the excellent The Offside Line this morning, I noticed, Jamie Bhatti is set to return to Glasgow Warriors for next season. (shakes head in disbelief).

When I watched Bhatti on a regular basis in the old Premiership, I didn't rate him – there were better club props out there who didn't get the breaks he got. I admire how he has taken his chance when it came, but, to me, he has never been and never will be “Scotland Class.”

My first question on the Bhatti signing is a simple one: why him?

According to Danny Wilson, the Warriors' coach, quoted in the TOL piece: loose-head prop is a position where Glasgow needs greater depth.

So, let's take a look at Warriors' squad depth at loose-head:

1. Oli Kebble – Scotland cap.

2. Alex Allen – Scotland cap.

3. Aki Seiuli – uncapped New Zealander.

4. George Thornton – Scotland age group cap.

5. Tom Lambert – Scotland age group cap.

I doubt that Warriors need six loose-heads, so, we have to presume at least one of the five currently on the staff will be leaving, to free-up a spot for Bhatti. I wonder which player will be surplus to requirements

If you look at the other side of the scrum you find:

1. Zander Fagerson – Scotland cap.

2. Darcy Rae – Scotland cap.

3. Enrique Pieretto Heiland – Argentinian cap.

4. Adam Nicol – Scotland age group cap.

5. Murphy Walker – Scotland age group cap.

So the club already has ten props on the books, which seems to me to be a wee bit of over-kill. Even with Kebble and Zander Fagerson away on international duty, they still have eight players jostling for four places in any match-day squad, which strikes me as a wee bit of belt and braces over-kill.

If Glasgow do need to bolster their forward resources, I would suggest, that need is in the middle row of the scrum rather than the front.

After all, before they released Bhatti to his current short-term deal with Bath – where, by the way, he has yet to even make it onto the bench – he was one of five loose-heads and four tight-heads on the capital side's books:

1. Pierre Scheoman – South African-born project player

2. Rory Sutherland – Scotland cap.

3. Dan Gamble – Scotland age group cap

4. Lee Roy Atalifo – Fijian cap.

5. Simon Berghan – Scotland cap.

6. W P Nel – Scotland cap.

7. Murray McCallum – Scotland cap.

8. Sam Grahamslaw – Scotland age group cap.

being the others.

He wasn't getting enough game time at Murrayfield. Will the situation be any better for him at the other end of the M8?

It is a drawback of the SRU's management model that we only have two full-time professional sides and these have to operate with lower budgets than comparable sides.

With so-few openings each season, and the current lock-down's on-going effect on Super6 – which ought, if operated properly, to be the bridging tier between age group rugby and the professional game, those people at the SRU who make the decisions as to who gets a contract and who doesn't, MUST make the right choices when it comes to recruitment.

The evidence is, over the past decade, they have made a few wrong ones, and the system, once they are picked-out as perhaps having the right stuff, has been flawed for years.

The current shut down has given us a rare chance to rip things up and start again. Sadly, that chance does not appear to have been taken and I can see the lengthy list of players who didn't “train-on” from youthful promise to actually making the grade growing even longer.

When it comes to player development, the SRU's system is, like so-much of the SRU – not fit for purpose. I do not see this position changing any time soon.