Ignore England - Let's Look At Ireland

CECIL RHODES, long before he became a target for the ire of those of a left-wing bent and born a century or so after old Cecil cashed-in his chips, famously said: “To be born English is to hold a winning ticket in the lottery of life.”

We Scots didn't get that, but, we did get the English as the noisy, annoying neighbours. Was this a good thing: maybes aye, maybes naw, as one of our own great philosopher poets remarked.

One thing we Scots have learned, living next door to Rhodes' Master Race, is perhaps best encapsulated in the wise words of Sir Richard Starkey, of Dingle, Liverpool, who wrote: “You know it don't come easy.”

Old Ringo got that right, particularly when it comes to Scottish Rugby. To we devotees of the handling game, north of the Tweed and Solway, to quote one of my sainted mother's favourite auld Scots truths: “it is aye either the mint or the midden wi' you.” Basically, there is no happy medium - we veer between being on top of the world, or struggling to cope.

Right now, we appear to be slithering around in the midden. On the back of the Zander Fagerson red card and our failure to convert pressure into points, we lost to a fairly-average Welsh side, wiping out the feel-good factor from winning at Twickenham.

We needed a boost on Friday night at Scotstoun, but, Glasgow Warriors huffed and puffed, before losing at home to Ulster.

I had a look at the squads in that night's game. Both sides were depleted by the fact, the fixture came in the middle of the Six Nations campaign, so, both were minus some big names.

Glasgow, however, were still able to field 12 full internationalists – 9 Scotland caps and 3 overseas ones. Ulster could only field 8 full internationalists – 7 Irish, plus one-cap All Black Alby Mathewson.

Ulster, however, might have had an advantage from the fact, 12 of their 23-man squad were locals and had come through the prolific Ulster Academy. Only 8 of the Glasgow squad were “locals” inasmuch as they had been introduced to rugby at a club within the Glasgow catchment area.

It was deja vu again at Murrayfield on Saturday night, when Munster came, saw and conquered Edinburgh. As the previous night, both sides were forced to field depleted squads. Breaking down the squads in the same way as for the previous night's game at Scotstoun, we find: Edinburgh fielded 12 internationalists – 9 Scotland, 3 Fiji, while the Munster split was 12 Irish caps and 1 South African. When it came to a local tinge to the teams, Edinburgh had 9 locals in their 23-man squad, Munster had 15.

Overall, there is little difference between the two Scottish and the two Irish squads over the two games. The two Scottish teams were able to field internationalists in 52% of their combined squad – the two Irish sides only had 46% capped overall.

However, when it came to giving locals a chance, the Scottish teams had 50% local players, agains the two Irish sides' 59% locals.

I am not suggesting, following the Irish pattern, of having four strong provinces, given a lot of freedom by the Irish Rugby Union, would make a difference, that is not proven, but, I have a feeling it might.

The IRFU perhaps realising long ago, the natives never liked London rule, and are just as unhappy taking all their orders from Dublin, allow a degree of autonomy to their four provinces which would never be allowed by The Murrayfield Junta.

“We ken best,” is the unchanging message from EH12, in spite of a growing chorus of “Dae ye fuck,” from their ever-increasing band of critics.

• Everyone furth of Murrayfield knows the SRU Academies are not working as well as we would want them to.

• Everyone furth of BTM knows a clear-out of the Performance Department might be a good idea.

• Everyone furth of BTM knows, when it comes to player development, there is a lack of joined-up thinking.

• Nearly everyone furth of Murrayfield wonders what Performance Director Jim Mallinder does for his comfortable salary.

• Since joining the SRU, he has become an invisible as his predecessor – The Lesser Spotted Johnson.

• Maybe not everyone, but, an increasing body of the Scottish Rugby Family are beginning to question is buying-in cheap foreign imports is the way forward.

OK, these are not normal times – we've got no rugby going on beneath the full-time, professional level, but, even with furloughs etc, surely a wee bit of thought should be going into where we are and where we are going.

I don't see us having either of our teams in the Heineken Cup next season, so, we might as well write-off what remains of this one and use it to give our young players more experience, ready for a right good, two-pronged attack, on the Challenge Cup next season.

THE TWO big rugby talking points over the weekend were the growing number of positive Covid-19 tests among the French squad – offering the tantalising glimpse of maybe, Scotland being awarded a 28-0 win, if the weekend's game cannot be played. (Naw, it will never happen for Scotland); and, the five red cards flashed during Gallagher Premiership games in England – three of them in one game.

I fear we are gong to see more reds shown this season, because as yet, I fear the: “get low in the tackle” message might take a little while to filter down through the various level of coaches to the players.

Nobody likes to see reds given, however, it is a safety issue, so we will have to put up with it until the message gets through – which could take some time.