A Hawick Man At HQ - Is The SRU Ready For This?

 

I WAS delighted to hear today that wee Rob Chrystie (pictured above), has been appointed Head Coach at the Edinburgh Rugby Academy.

It has always been a joy to speak with Rob before and after games, whether he was coaching Melrose or the Southern Knights. He is a first-rate coach, he has a proven track record in bringing through young players, he's a really nice guy and he deserves this chance at HQ.

Mind you, even though they have the likes of Ross Ford in there, the Knights will find him a hard man to replace before the new Super6 season kicks off in the New Year. I wish Rob and his successor well.

Next up will be appointing someone to the same job at Glasgow Warriors. I have my own idea, I'll get on to my bookie and see if there is a market.

I CAN never quite work out what the protocol is around the roof at whatever they are calling that big stadium in Cardiff these days. All I know is, after the amount of rain which had fallen on Wales, and which continued to fall during Saturday evening's game – I don't know why the roof was left open.

I have heard it suggested it was a means of trying to curtail the difference in skills level between the Welsh and the All Blacks. But, if the ABs were perceived as being more-skilled and better handlers in the dry, then surely that advantage would be even-greater in the wet.

Rugby Union is a winter sport, for my money, if you've got a stadium with a roof, in winter keep it closed, unless you know for certainty, it isn't going to rain or snow.

Speaking of roofs – I wonder how far down the road a roof for BT Murrayfield is. I presume the SRU have long-term plans for how they could further improve what is already a very-impressive home for Scottish rugby. They have plans for regular maintenance and upgrades, I just wonder, how far off is a roof?

Putting a roof on the national stadium is, I would surmise, well down any to-do list at HQ.

On Saturday, 40 of the scheduled 71 first-team league games were not played. I had a look on the SRU website at the fixtures, results and league tables pages for the club game and found:

• Covid was given as the reason for 10 call-offs

• Waterlogged or unfit pitches were given as the reason for 16 call-offs

• Insufficient players was the reason given for a further 4 call-offs

• Leaving question marks over why the other 10 games weren't played.

Those 40 call-offs represent 56% of the scheduled number of games. OK, we had a lot of rain in the build-up, but, given Hawick could drain what was, on Friday “Mansfield Loch” and get their game with Marr played on Saturday – to be rewarded with a win, you've got to ask, did some other clubs try hard enough, or, are they doing enough around pitch maintenance?

The position was even worse in the Reserve Leagues, where no less than 23 of the 30 scheduled games weren't played. Here the breakdown was:

• Covid given as a reason for 2 call-offs

• Waterlogged pitches accounted for 7 games

• Insufficient players was given as the reason for 6 call-offs

• No reason was given for the other 8 call-offs.

OK, with global warming, or whatever, we may not get the hard winters of my youth, but, to lose that many games on one day, even before the clocks had gone back, well, it's not a good look.

 I can remember, more than 20 years ago, then St Mirren manager Tom Hendrie saying: "In the future, I feel excessive rain falling, rather than frost and snow, will be the biggest danger to pitches." Tom had an Honours degree in Mathematics, and was ridiculously over-qualified to be a fitba manager, but, I think he knew what he was talking about.

By the way, over the week-end, I saw a you tube clip of the 1975 “Water Polo Test” between the white-shirted All Blacks and Scotland. They would never play in such conditions today, and, incidentally, Andy Irvine had what looked like an impressive butterfly stroke!!

ONE OF this blog's devoted fans sent me a link this morning to a Fox News report from Australia. Apparently that long-term friend of the SRU, “The Lesser-Spotted Johnson” might have found his jaiket oan a shoogly peg, when he turned up for work as Director of Rugby in Sydney this morning.

The word is that that cash-strapped Aussies are set to overhaul the high performance department at Rugby Australia. While in Europe, Scotty boy had a seemingly miraculous ability to lose one job and pick-up a better one, so it might be foolish to write him off just yet, back among his ain folk.

However, the news piece rattled off the list of potential fall guys from RA's high performance department, the list of names was: Johnson, Adrian Thompson (national head of talent management), Ben Whitaker (high performance, professional services), Scott Bowen (sevens), Jilly Collins (women’s rugby), Nick Taylor (contracting manager) and Chris Webb (Wallabies manager).

Don't anybody show that report to the Blessed TCD, or he might decide he needs to recruit a few more nodding dogs to The Junta, to make him feel secure. By the way, can any Aussie tell me: What do all these people do?