Filling A Blank Sheet Of Paper - There's The Problem

I RETURN today to the vexing issue of what may transpire as the club members get around to discussing the points raised by the Governance Review Commission's suggestions as to how the game is run up here in the years ahead.

In announcing the Commission's findings, President Ian Barr spoke of a: “blank sheet of paper” approach. I can see those four words striking fear and alarm into the Aye Been sector of our game, to whom any change is to be fought against.

The thing is, Governance covers how the game is managed; it does not necessarily cover how many leagues we have, the duration of a season, the actual playing of the game – Governance is all about who makes the decisions about these things – there is a difference.

Some older guys still involved in the game, long for the more-innocent days of John Law or Bill Hogg running things from Murrayfield. Back then, they ran what was in effect a civil service type secretariat. Of course, with their long years of experience, when Messers Law or Hogg said to the enthusiastic amateurs who sat on the SRU committees: “Perhaps, that is not a good idea gentlemen,” well the 'Bufties' generally listened.

Received wisdom in this 21^st century is that the Great Leader TCD decides what is to be done, calls a meeting, presses a button and up shoot the hands of the elected members in agreement. I get the impression we are witnessing a change in culture, with the elected members set to take back the control their predecessors appear to have surrendered to the paid “suits.”

Certainly, under Ian Barr, Vice President Colin Rigby and the newer members of the SRU Council, the balance of power appears to be swinging back to the elected officials. The Governance Commission's conclusions seem to support this welcome change – however, the proof will be in what emerges from the consultation period.

The suggested switch to more-localised decision-making, via the proposed Regional Boards, is to be welcomed. I recall a conversation with one of the most-experienced club officials, some time ago, during which he mourned the loss of the old District meetings, at which the views of ALL the local clubs would be aired.

These passed when Council members were elected by each of the national leagues and regions – which meant the only inter-action between clubs was with clubs of their own standing. To use my own Ayrshire as an example: whereas in the old Glasgow District days, all the clubs would meet at the District meetings. Of late Ayr only ever spoke to another Ayrshire club in that one season when both they and Marr were in the Premiership. Ardrossan and Carrick were, briefly, both in National 3, Garnock, Irvine and Kilmarnock were in West 1, so they saw each other, while Cumnock, in West 2 seldom even saw another Ayrshire club.

A return to District Boards and meetings will lead to cross-fertilisation of ideas and give every club an idea of the problems facing others, this has to be good for the governance of the game.

The real battle, however, will not be over governance. It will be about the format for playing the game, an issue which is somewhat removed from governance.

The Review has already signalled, Scottish Rugby now has two tiers, the “Performance” game and the “Community” one. How these two distinct parts interact will have a major bearing on the health of Scottish Rugby going forward.

What follows will surely not go down well with those clubs, and their members, who think, because It's aye been that they are a big club, once there are words on the “blank sheet of paper” the club might still be a big one, in terms of history and perhaps facilities and membership, but its allure and influence will have decreased significantly.

They will not be “Performance” clubs. Their players will not be in the running when it comes to international appearances at adult level. These clubs will need to find a new meaning.

But, that could be a good and successful one. Let's assume the division between the performance game and the community one is established. We will see Super6 become Super8, and possibly, a few more years down the line – Super10.

I would like to see serious consideration given to treating the community game as rugby's equivalent of Junior Football – as a second-chance level for those players who missed-out on getting into the Academy as teenagers to show what they can do to the Performance side of the game; and as a place to which former performance tier players could return if they wished to keep playing for fun.

The SRU's determination to make the community game strictly amateur (i.e. no player gets paid) is admirable – however, as I keep having to remind people, rugby is an Open game, if a club wishes to legally pay a player, then I don't think the SRU can stop this. I believe, players in the club game will continue to be paid, but, not many of them, and probably not much.

Below S6/8/10 – let's regionalise. This will mean running the regional leagues could be delegated to the Area Rugby Boards which have been suggested by the review commission.

The Border League already works, we could see similar regional leagues in the North, Midlands, East and West Regions. We could even see, as happens in the Scottish Hockey Union's District Leagues (and in the North and Midlands regional leagues today) – second third and soon teams from the bigger clubs playing against first teams from smaller clubs across Scotland.

This season, we have 45 National League teams in four divisions;( Premiership and three National Leagues). I would suggest, we do not have 45 teams of sufficient quality to justify this. But, these same clubs could provide excellent amateur sport in regionalised leagues:

Border League – 8 clubs

Berwick

Gala

Hawick

Jed-forest

Kelso

Melrose

Peebles

Selkirk

East League – 10 clubs

Boroughmuir

Currie

Edinburgh Academical

Heriot's

Lasswade

Murrayfield Wanderers

Musselburgh

Preston Lodge

Stewart's-Melville

Watsonians

North and Midlands League – 10 clubs

Aberdeen Grammar School FP

Dundee HSFP

Falkirk

Gordonians

Highland

Howe of Fife

Kirkcaldy

Perthshire

Stirling County Wolves

Strathmore

West League – 15 clubs

Ardrossan Academicals

Ayr

Biggar

Cartha-Queen's Park

Dumfries Saints

GHA

GHK

Glasgow Academicals

Glasgow Hawks

Greenock Wanderers

Hamilton Bulls

Hillhead-Jordanhill

Marr

Newton Stewart

West of Scotland

There is, I feel, a case for the West League promoting the top team in the Regional League to give a 16 club, two-conference set-up, similar to the new Unted Rugby Championship set-up.

There are some tasty match-ups in these leagues, and even the potential for an end-of-season knock-out tournament between the league winners to find Scotland's Champion Club. What's not to like?

Throw-in a Scottish Cup and Regional Cups, and we could have a vibrant season of closely-fought games between near-neighbours. We could eliminate most of the long-distance games and keep the players more-involved. And, perhaps come up with a properly-structured Sevens season.

But, let's get the governance sorted-out first, then look at the fixture list. We have time on our side to get it right and should use that time to talk things out calmly and sensibly.