Scottish Rugby - Now Beyond Satire

IT IS getting harder and harder to take Scottish Rugby seriously. We are not in a good place, but, from the outside, looking in, as I am, I get the distinct impression The Junta at BT Murrayfield simply does not give a flying fuck, so long as their own wee empire keeps going.

I have a lot of time for some of the insiders, President Ian Barr is one of the good guys, as are several on the Council. Against this, That Cunt Dodson is well-named, and he has surrounded himself with some quite nasty henchmen who appear to be a law unto themselves. I fear for where we are going under the present regime.

Of course, we Scots don't help ourselves. We have a long history of allowing chancers to run things for us, and that is a difficult habit to break.

So, time for a wee rant:

I note, this week, Edinburgh has signed South African Henry Immelman – WHY? Don't they already have enough non-Scots in their ranks? Have they no obligation to promote and develop young Scottish talent?

I have written before – and now do so again – There is no relegation in the PRO14 – so, there is no need to buy-in non-Scots as cover for when the top players are away on Scotland duty. Give younger Scottish players the exposure, trust them. Sure, there will be bad results, at first, but, in the long run, it is better to breed young Scots than to buy-in non-Scots.

Dave Rennie's final season as Glasgow Warriors' coach was viewed as disappointing, but, under the Kiwi, Warriors still posted a “winning season,” by winning 11 of their 21 games – 52%.

So what do we make of Danny Wilson's first season? Six wins from 20 games – a 30% winning record? This is a 42% fall-off in wins. With that record, does Mr Wilson deserve to continue? I think not.

I have had to soak-up a lot of flak for my support of the FOSROC SUPER6. I still hold, this has been a flawed concept from the start, badly thought-through and implemented by Murrayfield. That said, I still think, given we only have the two full-time professional teams, S6 (better still S8), is the way ahead in bridging the gap between the club game and the full-time professional one.

BUT, when you see Ayrshire Bulls - one of the S6 clubs advertising in a rugby website for non-Scottish players to play hooker, tight-head and lock, you have to wonder what is going-on. Bringing-in players in those positions from the English Championship or abroad is NOT in the script as most of us have read it. This needs sorting-out, quickly.

I see nothing wrong with bringing-in young players from outside Scotland – provided they are Scottish-qualified and under-23, otherwise, forget it.

I spoke with one of the Heid Bummers of the Bulls and he said: “The reality is, we are short of players of the required standard, and dealing in a shallow player pool – there is no short-term 'silver bullet' Scottish answer to our player problem. We don't like it, but it is how it is.”

He is, however, hopeful of an answer being found, but, this is unlikely to be any time soon.

The continually excellent Offside Line this week published an interesting think piece by Gavin Blackburn on the SRU's proposals to invest more in state schools. I commend this piece to the house, well-worth reading.

However, here again, even if we get more kids playing rugby in state schools, and better lines of communication between the clubs and the schools, it is going to take a good while for us to see positive results.

But, the main thing now for a bright future for Scottish Rugby is – that we get back playing the game, sooner rather than later. Once we are back in action, the world will look a lot brighter.

The Lions' squad will be announced on Thursday, and, hopefully, there will be more Scottish names than in recent squads. That's the thing with Scottish sports on the main stages – it's the hope that kills.