How Many Non-Scots Is Too Many For Our Professional Sides?

YOU DO your best to be fair to the Murrayfield Performance Department, the guys who make the hard decisions when it comes to our semi and full professional players. But, just occasionally, they turn round and figuratively boot you in the goolies.

I have nothing against Tongan winger Walter Fifita. Seems a nice boy, almost-certainly good to his Mammy, probably a good winger, and certainly a big boy – but really, is he what Warriors need right now?

Sure, they could use a guy of Fifita's stature (six foot four, 18 stones-plus), but in the boiler-house of the pack, where they are currently a bit short-handed. They have a sufficiency of wingers and, had they wanted one with a bit of bulk, they maybe should have held onto Robbie Nairn, relegated to the FOSROC Super6 competition, after a mere five appearances for Glasgow.

Once again, the decision-makers behind our two full-time clubs are not following through on the SRU's remit to encourage Scottish talent. It's becoming a big bit much.

I will never get fed-up saying this: a genuine world-class “marquee” player, a guy with the x-factor, who can turn a game in an instant, like Nakarawa first time round, I'm ok with that type of non-Scottish-qualified player. I could live with a NSQ! Veteran, perhaps looking to make his first move into coaching, coming along to pass-on his experience to the young Scottish players.

But, otherwise, let's go with Scottish talent. There is no relegation from the URC, we can afford to play young Scots and let them learn and grow. The SRU is recruiting too-many non-Scots, on and off the field, it's time this was stopped.

Mind you, I still have no objections to Murrayfield hoovering-up Scottish-Qualified players such as The Sharks' Dylan Richardson, who is supposedly on Gregor Townsend's radar for a call-up to the Autumn Internationals squad.

We need all the good, SQ players we can get our hands on, but, I feel we could easily get bye with fewer NSQ players in our professional squads.

SO, RUGBY PLAYERS (male), can now wear leggings or tights, courtesy of World Rugby, big deal. I am old enough to remember the mild furore – I think The Guardian covered the story, about the 1966 Lions in New Zealand wearing tights in some games.

Apparently it was an unusually dry winter in NZ that tour and some of the players were picking-up grazed legs, something to do with the type of grass there. So, they invested in pairs of American Tan tights, thus sparking The New Zealand Herald, then as now always willing to stick it to the tourists, into suggesting the Lions were only chasing big New Zealand girls, and the tights were a form of bribery for the ladies' affections.

Fast forward almost a couple of decades and I once had one of my wee tip-offs to the Sports Desk exquisitely re-crafted into a lovely story by the great sub-editor and writer Michael Green, author of that timeless classic of the game: “The Art Of Coarse Rugby.'

My tip-off was, on a truly Baltic” day at Millbrae, I think Melrose were the opposition, Ayr and Scotland winger Stevie Munro, and Ayr and Glasgow stand-off Grant Steele both took the field wearing tights. Munro also wore a woollen knitted under shirt, knitted by his mother, who had also knitted one for Stevie's Dad, a trawler skipper, to wear while at sea.

All true, but Michael made a terrific wee piece for the Sunday Times sports pages out of my telephone call. That was in the 1980s, so, there's not a lot new in rugby. And, having played on artificial surfaces, I definitely recommend the protection of tights or leggings.

DONALD McRAE is, for me, the best wordsmith currently operating in our specialised field of sports-writing. His articles in The Guardian, particularly on his specialist subject of boxing are always “must reads.”

I commend to the house his interview, in Wednesday's Guardian, with Sonny Bill Williams, the All Black icon, currently plying his trade in the lucrative but often painful world of Heavyweight boxing.

It's a cracking piece, and, after reading it, I immediately ordered Sonny Bill's autobiography. The former AB's centre really is one of the most-interesting sportsmen around today.

Of course, out of the limelight of expectation which follows SBW around, we in Scotland have oor-ain rugby player turned boxer in big Nick Campbell. Nick, once of Glasgow Hawks, Glasgow Warriors, Ayr and Jersey Reds served his boxing apprenticeship in the amateur ranks, before turning professional about 18 months ago. He has the physical size to make it in the pros and, at 31 is still comparatively young in Heavyweight terms.

Campbell v Williams, that fight might pull a few thousand into Scotstoun or 'Legoland,' at Murrayfield.