Rugby Politics And Yet Again Scotland Suffers

POLITICS is a dirty game, sporting politics, particularly in a rough game such as Rugby Union, can be even rougher. That is a fact Zander Fagerson has just discovered.

 

 

Zander Fagerson - stitched-up by a poor referee

and Rugby's Dublin Mafia

He has just copped a four-week ban, following his red card against Wales, while Ireland's Peter O'Mahony got three weeks for his red card, also against Wales.

Now, POM is a known thug, he'd been getting away with that sort of illegal challenge for years, before finally being nailed. I get the impression, Fagerson would like to be known as a hard man – he certainly is heavily into the posturing which passes for aggression between forwards these days. But, a hard man – please, he's just too-nice for that role.

Then you look at the two incidents, the POM assault was a red card every day of the week, there were no mitigating factors. Fagerson, on the other hand elicited a degree of sympathy, with the TMO certainly trying to get Matthew Carley to downgrade the card to a yellow – something which didn't happen with POM. However, Carley, being an over-promoted half-wit, full of his own importance, was having none of it.

This is where rugby politics comes into it. World Rugby, The Six Nations, PRO14 and the British and Irish Lions all have their headquarters in Dublin. POM might be a Munsterman, but, he's still Irish – just saying.

In our frequent conversations, when we were putting the world of rugby to rights, wee Ron Evans, who graduated to the great press box in the sky the other week, devised this theory – from which neither of us could be moved. This was that Scotland would never get a fair crack of the whip in the matter of rugby refereeing, until we had at least two referees at the elite level.

Our reasoning was, a referee, having charge of a Scotland match, could quite safely yellow or red card a Scotland player for something, in the certain knowledge, there wasn't a Scottish referee on the roster who could send off one of the first referee's countrymen for the same offence. So, in terms of referee influence, Scotland was playing with one hand tied behind their backs.

Well, now we have an elite level referee, in Mikey Adamson. The Wee Man, however, is another too-nice Scotsman; as he demonstrated on Saturday when he missed the chance of eternal free drinks in Scotland's rugby clubhouses (when they re-open), by not yellow carding You Know Who of England.

Zander Fagerson, another reminder to us Scots – we're little people in the world of rugby, and rugby politics.

TCD and The Junta this week, with as much razzle-dazzle as they could be bothered to muster, announced the completion of Legoland, as I like to call their new mini-Murrayfield; the new home of Edinburgh Rugby.

OK, it's been a long time coming. Of course a separate smaller stadium as a home for Edinburgh makes sense. Credit to the SRU, they got it built in difficult times. But, and it's a pity there has to be a but, to my mind this new stadium shows a lack of ambition.

They may be slim, but, there are upright roof supports in front of the seats – very early 20^th century. It's all pre-fabricated, it won't last. It's too-wee: be adventurous and audacious – build it and they will come. The corporate facilities are, to me, inadequate. It's a chance missed.

For not much more cash, they could have built a more-permanent structure, with proper facilities. OK, Edinburgh will continue to use some of the facilities in the adjacent national stadium, but, they could have built a bigger (say 15,000 capacity) ground, for not much more than Legoland cost them.

IF Edinburgh progresses and attracts bigger crowds, in perhaps as few as five years time, they will probably need to spend more money on an extension and upgrade. Not getting it right first time will by then be an obvious missed opportunity.

REGULAR inbibbers of the pish that is posted on here are well-aware, I don't have a high opinion of the rugby-writing skills of The Guardian's Robert Kitson.

However, credit where credit is due, his book 'The Exe Men', the story of the rise of Exeter Chiefs, is a cracking read. Thoroughly researched, full of interesting facts, and some hilarious stories, it is a great piece of work.

Newspaper writing is a difficult craft to master; it involves imparting the maximum amount of information in the minimum number of words. Kitson, for me, isn't good at this.

However, magazine or book-writing is a different art, here, the writer can let his imagination flow (within reason), and, freed from the constraints of a tight word count, and even-tighter deadline, in this book, Kitson comes up with some very-readable purple prose.

It's a great story, well told, I commend it to the house.

I have finished Exe Men. I am now well into another rugby book: 'What A Flanker', the autobiography of former England back rower James Haskell.

It is a laugh-out-loud joy ride through his career. I have been helpless with laughter at some points as he reveals incidents from life with Wasps, England and The Lions. Get it and read it, it will brighten-up your day.