Disaster For Scotland - Again

ONCE AGAIN I find myself forced to break my vow about taking a summer break, to comment on another “Disaster for Scotland,” the doing our Under-20 team received from the Welsh, in Italy, at team time on Saturday.

I sat down to watch the live stream, via the SRU website, but pulled the plug and went back to the safety of Amazon Prime video after 16 minutes. By then I had had enough of the blatantly pro-Welsh commentary and the ineptitude of the Scottish squad.

The sad fact is, when it comes to age group rugby, the coaches, no matter how talented they might be, have to work with what is available. Talent is cyclical, you have good years, you have terrible years and I think we must face it, this year's crop of young Scots isn't particularly talented. Indeed, I am certain, at least two of them, had they had different surnames, would be nowhere near the squad.

For a decade or more, my old school, Cumnock Academy, set the benchmark for basketball excellence in Scottish schools – winning every age group Scottish Cup in more than one season. But, Bill Baillie, the Head of PE, who oversaw the school's hegemony always said, some years were harder than others. There was one particular team which stood-out, providing the entire starting five the first time Scotland beat England at Under-15 level – another two off the bench. Three of that squad went on to become full Scotland internationalists - one of them while still at school. But, there were other winning squads where hard work and good coaching overcame the lack of such star quality.

The football team I played in at school wasn't a particularly good one by Academy standards. The squad from the year below us, however, included Simon Donnelly's and Craig Burley's fathers, both named Tom coincidently; plus a left-back named Jock Craig who went on to make a name for himself in rugby. That team was lauded at the school until it closed. Three of them had short senior careers, but were never more than journeymen.

Recently, Pat Nevin fronted a BBC Shortbread documentary about the  European Championship-winning Scotland Under-18 team he played in. The only Scottish age group team to win a continental tournament, yet, only 5 of the 16 players in the squad trained-on to become full Scotland caps. It was much the same story with “The Lost Boys” - the  Junior World Cup runners-up, where only 3 of the 18 boys in the squad made it all the way through to winning full caps.

So, who knows, maybe one or two, or perhaps more, of the players who were beaten so-comprehensively by Wales on Saturday will come through to play in the full Scotland team, while, who knows what will happen to the victorious Welsh side.

Of course, the misinformed and the downright malicious were quickly on the case once the final whistle had blown in Treviso, jumping in to condemn the SRU and the Scottish system, and putting the boot into the FOSROC Super6, project.

Wales listed 26 players, of whom:

• Eight were linked to Cardiff Blues

• Six were linked to Dragons

• Six were linked to Ospreys

• Two were linked to Scarlets

• Three were linked to Exeter Chiefs

• One was linked to Harlequins.

The 22 players linked to the four Welsh Regions, between them had managed last season, three starts and nine appearances off the bench for their regions.

The 4 Welsh players linked to English clubs (3 Exeter Chiefs, 1 Harlequins) managed between them 20 games (impossible to sort-out starts from bench appearances, but, the Gallagher Premiership does have a cup competition where the presumption is that Academy and fringe players get preference).

Scotland's squad included 20 players linked to Super6 clubs:

• Six were linked to Stirling County

• Four were linked to Ayrshire Bulls

• Four were linked to Boroughmuir Bears

• Three were linked to Southern Knights

• Three were linked to Watsonians

Only 5 of the 26 Scots were listed as also being linked to either of our URC clubs, 4 with Glasgow, 1 with Edinburgh. None of our boys had appeared for their pro team. Therefore, while the Welsh squad had a trifle more professional experience, the reality is:

A squad containing 26 full-time rugby players beat a squad containing 5 full-timers. Hardly surprising.

Again I state the obvious, age group rugby is cyclical. Perhaps the 2022-23 Scotland Under-20s will be a squad of world-beaters, who at this point in time knows? To criticise the whole system on the basis of one or two bad crops is foolish.

I would like to think Scotland can do player development better. I would like to think harder work might help us overcome the problems we face. But, don't blame Super6. S6 is a money-saving project, still in development, an attempt to off-set the fact the SRU management feel they cannot afford to run more than two full-time professional sides, and for whatever reason, nobody else in Scotland is prepared to run a third or even a third or fourth such side.

Maybe our player identification programme is failing. Perhaps we don't have the right coaches, or good-enough coaches in place. It might be our Academies are doing it all wrong. Maybe our pathways are over-grown.

Or, it might be, we simply are not, at the moment, producing good-enough players for this level of play. We cannot blame the players, they are doing their best, as are the coaches.

We cannot blame Mark Dodson. He might be the most-unloveable bar steward ever to run a national sporting authority; I believe that name I use for him, given him by the united Fathers of Chapel of the Guardian – TCD, fits him to a tee. But, the annoying thing is, he's good at his job – which is more concerned with the financial side of rugby than the playing.

Bill Baillie was good at his job, and he made a relatively small East Ayrshire school the power in the land at his chosen game. I would like to think, somewhere today, there is a Bill Baillie, who could do a job for Scottish Rugby.

But, right now, Saturday's events in Treviso hurt.

 

There's A Media War Going On, And Scottish Rugby Is Losing - Badly

I SPOKE TOO SOON – barely had I announced a temporary moratorium on publishing the thoughts of Aristotle, when something came up, which meant I had to offer an opinion – so, here it is.

BACK IN 1985 as a struggling freelance, I took a punt and put myself down to cover the Scotland Summer Rugby Tour. This was a series of matches played, in David Barnes's great phrase: “The arse-end of nowhere.” To be precise, the games were played in Victoria, Vancouver Island; Vancouver BC; Seattle; Edmonton and Calgary. Hardly even today A-list venues in the game.

I got the gig, covering the tour for everyone except the Herald group, who sent Bill McMurtrie. I got great help and assurances: “You file it – we'll print it,” from the likes of The Scotsman, Daily Record, Sunday Mail and Sunday Post. I also learned, the hard way – to never trust assurances from BBC Scotland, but, that's another story. I am under no illusions, I didn't get the gig on ability; sure, the papers who funded me trusted me to do an adequate job, but, with nobody else prepared to take the risk of covering it as a freelance, it was me or nothing.

The tour was a great experience. Sure, there were highs and lows, getting to see a great part of the world, getting close to the players and meeting some great rugby guys were the highs. But, it wasn't an entirely happy tour, losing to British Columbia was a definite low point. However, seeing the emergence over the games of the then uncapped Gavin Hastings, was being in at the birth of a legend.

Bill McMurtrie put me wise to the parameters of being, as we were: “with but not of the Scotland party.” I certainly learned early-on: “What goes on on tour – stays on tour.” There were two incidents which, had I chosen to report them, would have made the front page of both the Record and the Sun.

What I do recall is the friendliness and bonhomie of the SRU blazers, led by President Hamish Kemp, and the fact, Bill McMurtrie and I, as the only press representatives on the tour, had access to the Scotland team bus.

I was given the official up-market SRU pin badge, plus I had access to the pool of thistles pin badges which the tour party gave out, and Bill and I were included on the guest list for all the formal functions.

Of course, back then, there was mutual trust between the Union and the press – we realised we had a shared interest in doing what was best for the game. Somewhere between then and now, probably dating from when money really intervened in 1995, that trust has been eroded.

Another Scotland squad flew off earlier this week, to tour South America, playing games in Chile and Argentina. Mark Palmer of Sunday Times Scotland is apparently flying out to cover the Argentinian leg of the trip, but, he will be the only Scottish-based journalist travelling.

I am told, by other journalists who investigated the possibility of covering the tour, they got no assistance from Murrayfield. Mark Palmer already knows, access to the squad will be limited and strictly controlled, as the SRU uses Covid, rather as Police Scotland uses: “conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace,” as a catch-all to get their own way.

I know at least one Scottish newspaper group investigated the possibility of covering the tour, but, between the cost considerations and the unwillingness of the SRU to ensure the normal level of media inter-action, their Sports Editor decided it would be too-much bother to actually send someone. No freelance, although one did express an interest, could put together the sort of coverage package I could arrange back in 1985.

I will also be amazed if Mark Palmer gets a seat on the team coach, or any of the perks I enjoyed back then. But, at least, he has the financial muscle and resources of News International behind him, to ease his way.

Now, I appreciate Rugby Union at best plays fourth fiddle, maybe even second viola when it comes to Scottish sports coverage in the Scottish media, where the pecking order is:

1. The Old Firm

2. The full Scotland team

3. Any other fitba

4. Rugby.

I also wonder how much of The Herald and The Scotsman's drop-off in circulation is due to the fact they no longer appear to treat rugby union as a front-line sport, and how much is due to other factors. I certainly know a lot of older rugby fans who no longer take either paper because: “neither paper covers rugby seriously any more.”

When you see “journalists” with the job title “Senior Rangers/Celtic Writer” at a historically important newspaper – which no longer employs a Rugby Union Correspondent, well, you have to ask what the fuck is going on on their management floor.

Certainly, the games in South America will be covered by Premier Sports, (the Chile game) and Sky (the games in Argentina), which should do wonders for their subscription numbers, but, in the absence of real journalists on the ground in South America, this is an opportunity for the much-maligned SRU Media Department to step up to the plate and do their job, selling rugby, by perhaps putting out a daily bulletin from the camp to the Scottish media.

The fact, I don't think they have anyone talented enough to write a press release which would not have to be totally re-written to be printable, plus the fact, I don't think they would know a good story if it reared up and booted them in the cojones, says much about the talent (or lack of it) within that department. I mean, when the Honcho is a half-wit, it doesn't say much for the cowboys.

Suppose Stevie Clarke was to take his Scotland football team off to South America at the moment, why they would need a second coach to convey the press party around. After all, if either half of the Old Firm go off to somewhere warm for a pre-season training trip, the “fans with lap tops” from the 'Lap Top Loyal' and the 'Celtic Family' are right behind them, in numbers.

There's a media war for sports fans going on, and, Rugby Union in Scotland is losing-out – badly. This is not healthy for the game.

The 21-22 Party Is Over

WHEN a football club, even a small or middling one, changes its manager, the sign writer whose job it is to indicate who uses which office is in for a busy time, since more often than not, the new man coming in brings his own back room staff with him – his own trusted assistant, perhaps his preferred goalkeeping coach, and maybe his mate as Head of Youth Development.

Now, it might have been that, in the previous management team, the top man was a numpty, whose failings trumped the good work of his underlings – or vice versa. Perhaps the previous regime's defensive coach had kept the top man in the job for longer than that guy's particular talents merited – it doesn't matter, the chances are, if the top man goes, he goes too.

In football, we virtually never see, as has just happened at Glasgow Warriors, an assistant coach being promoted/recruited to a club without a Head Coach. It may well be, the SRU has already recruited Danny Wilson's replacement, and the as yet unnamed new boy is happy to have Pete Horne installed as Skills Coach. After all, the Murrayfield High Heid Yins' ability to shock and stun the world has been, for me a constant for at least the last 60 years. You can never say: “They'll never do that” when covering events around EH12.

So, while we await confirmation of who will be wee Pete's new boss, let's just congratulate him on his new appointment. I've heard of fast-tracking people, but, in going from squad player to the coaching staff, via the Bulls pen, the wee man has shown Usain Bolt levels of acceleration.

I've already sent Pete a congratulatory text, I think he will be a good appointment, but, his rapid promotion leaves big Glen Tippett with a huge hole to fill in the Millbrae technical area. He not only has to replace Pete, assistant coach Rob Harley is off to France.

Names in the frame for the Alloway job – well, I will throw-in a new panel of Stuart Fenwick, Frasier Climo and Robbie Fergusson for starters. I trust the High Heid Yins at Ayr got some notice of Pete's new post, announcing it to the world on the morning of the Ayr Annual General Meeting was otherwise not the best timing.

And still we wonder – who's getting the Glasgow job?

Mind you, Mark Palmer, whose ear is always close to the ground, reckons Todd Blackadder is the favourite. The former Edinburgh player and one-time All Blacks captain has seen his coaching star wane somewhat in recent years, perhaps a victim of the Curse of Bath, but, he could well be the experienced hand to get the Glasgow ship sailing in the right direction.

It also helps that Blackadder is a forward. Given the make-up of the Warriors' coaching staff, they really need a forward expert in situ.

CONFINED as I am to my gulag in the East Ayrshire foothills, I no longer get the SRU's weekly press briefing, so I missed my chance to hear Jim Mallinder's chat with Barney and the boys last Monday, and had to settle for the TOL take on things for information.

I remain convinced, an awful lot of people within the Scottish Rugby family are either too-thick to get it, or, probably worse, unwilling to accept, just how much the game has changed as the top levels become more and more professional. The Performance Department is now arguably THE most-important department inside Murrayfield, but, I don't think too-many people out there in clubland have grasped that yet.

Take last week's announcement about the added support for Women's rugby and the decision to create two semi-pro sides, which, we understand will hopefully play in England's Premier 15s competition. If/when this happens, these two teams will come under the aegis of the Performance Department.

Just remember – Scottish Rugby's management model is:

• We aim for a winning Scotland team, filling Murrayfield by playing entertaining rugby – which the fans want to see.

• The profits we make from the above state of affairs keeps the game alive and flourishing.

BUT – Because the global game, at elite international level is now fully-professionalised, we have to have professional players playing at a lower level for their clubs. Professional CLUB rugby has been shown to be a loss-making enterprise. Therefore, in the absence of Scottish clubs and club owners willing to take-on the risks of what has been proved to be a loss-making enterprise, we, the SRU, have to manage/subsidise the performance end of the club game.

So – to make things work in the best interests of the game in Scotland, things have to change. How we manage this change is the next big challenge.

The new Governance set-up will, barring an as yet unseen left-field intervention, be passed at the Union's AGM in August, just in time for the SRU's 150^th season. Good timing I would say.

That 150^th season will be interesting and, I suspect, by its close, rugby in Scotland will be a lot different. It's going to be a roller-coaster ride too.

I have my own view of where we should be heading, but, I don't think that view would be popular – particularly among the still quite large “It's Aye Been” fraternity within the game up here.

FINALLY – given that timing is everything, I feel this is a good moment to announce, I am taking a short break from blogging. This decision has been made for two reasons – one: well, apart from summer international tours, which don't bother me that much, we are now in the close season, so, with very little happening, I am not motivated to try to find stuff to blog about.

Two: after that wonderful display by the Barbarians at Twickenham yesterday, capped by that outrageous back-heeled conversion from George Kruis, could it get any better.

But, worry ye not; Inch Allah, I will be back for the new season.

Much-Ado About Not A Lot

SATURDAY'S FOSROC Super6 Sprint finale, between “Glasgow Warriors” and “Edinburgh” was a joyous sun-kissed romp. It wasn't quite a case of: “The cry was no defenders,” however, there was an element of: “You score three tries and we'll score four,” as the ball was thrown around with gay abandon.

But, the reality was, other than boosting Ayr's bar takings, it was a fairly pointless exercise. I would suggest, other than the excellent Rory Jackson, Harrison Courtney, or Kwaga van Neikerk, none of the participants is likely to be seen in either Edinburgh or Glasgow colours in the new season. With the Under-20 players in camp preparing for their summer tournament, few potential full-time contract earners were on-show.

Super6 remains a work-in-progress; the SRU Performance Department still hasn't shaped it to what they want and, I suspect, if things go to plan, this will be the only time we will see such a match completing the domestic season.

My own feeling is, greater efforts will be made over the next few months to ensure, we do finally get cross-border games played at the end of next season. Only when we get these games up and running, will the true value of S6 become apparent.

Saturday's game was always going to be a hard sell, and let's be honest, the SRU doesn't have a great record at selling rugby, but, watching the television match stream, it was obvious to me, a lot of Ayr fanatics, who would go out to Millbrae to watch the grass grow, were elsewhere on Saturday – and I don't think too many of the Warrior Nation or the 'Burgh Battalions were prepared to travel outwith their comfort zone to the wilds of Tam o' Shanter land.

I have to say, however, the TV broadcast was a good advert for rugby at this time of the year – all those fans, plastic pint tumblers in hand, watching the game, much more civilised than fitba at this time of year. I think there is a market for rugby in good weather, if only the SRU was good at marketing.

THE BIG match of the day, however, had to be the Gallagher Premiership final between Leicester and Saracens, at Twickenham. My late elder brother played for Saracens when he first moved to London in the 1960s, so I have a soft spot for that club which has lasted even the presence of Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje in their ranks.

However, it would be ungracious not to acknowledge what a good season Leicester have had – leading the league from gun to tape; theirs was a deserved triumph. Also, with playmaker George Ford off injured, how great for Freddie Burns tobe the man to deliver the title with that late dropped goal.

From a Scottish perspective, it was a tad unfair on Tim Swinson that he didn't even make the bench for what would have been his final game, while Matt Scott definitely played his part in the Tigers' victory. A pity too that Andy Christie out-paced his potential support runners in that late charge of his, which just might have turned the game Sarries' way.

BBC News at after ten o' clock on Saturday night, went big on the Twickenham game – with quite extensive coverage of a match, shown live on the rival BT Sport channel.

The first B in BBC, in case they have forgotten, stands for British. Unfortunately for those of us in the Celtic fringes, the high heid yins of the corporation increasingly seem to think the B stands only for England.

The Twickenham game wasn't the only Grand Final of a British Rugby Union League taking place yesterday. OK, the game itself was played in Cape Town, and it did feature two South African sides, however, the United Rugby Championship is a British Isles-based competition, there are 14 clubs involved and seven of these sides are based in the United Kingdom – the four Welsh, two Scottish and Ulster, from Northern Ireland. So, the URC while an international competition, has a definite British element – what a pity the British Broadcasting Corporation couldn't be bothered mentioning it in a sports news round-up which included items on the US Open Golf Championship and Formula 1's Canadian Grand Prix.

NEXT WEEK-END'S rugby action comes from Chile, and the Scotland A team's match against their South American hosts. I appreciate times have changed in the intervening 45 years, but, the presence of a Scotland squad in Santiago, gives me a chance to rehash one of my favourite stories of Scotland's sporting representatives misbehaving when abroad.

The 1977 football match between Chile and Scotland, during the summer tour of South America, was a controversial one. General Pinochet – Margaret Thatcher's favourite tin-pot dictator, was in-charge of a military junta in Chile at the time, and the fact the national stadium had been used as a holding camp for dissidents had the left wing of the UK's chattering classes somewhat miffed.

But, then as now, the SFA high heid yins were unmoved by politics, all they wanted was a good junket on the association's tab.

I am reliably informed by one of the players who was on the trip, they were well-warned that there was a 9pm curfew in situ, so, if they were going out, be back well before then, and, to be fair, even the usual suspects behaved themselves.

However, the SFA 'blazers' – the hingers-oan from the various committees, then as probably now, believed, rules were for little people – they were above that sort of thing, and they had an open invitation to go and meet the ladies in Santiago's most up-market brodello, located in a frand building just a short stroll from the team hotel.

As I was told the story: when 9pm came and went with the 'blazers' elsewhere, the players got their sundowners and congregated on the front verandah of the team hotel. At around 11pm they could hear the deputation of the great and good noisily returning from their evening out, and, as they neared the hotel, round the corner came a Chilean Army Land Rover. The soldiers in the back saw the pedestrians stravaiging down the road, so they did what they were trained to do – opened fire with their machine guns.

According to my playing contact, the sight of the SFA high heid yins diving through the hedge into the hotel grounds for cover was the highlight of the trip. Fortunately for the intended targets, the soldiers' aim was definitely off.

I trust, TCD, the White Shark and the other travelling dignitaries from Murrayfield do not have to worry about a repetition during their stay in Chile.

Much Wailing In Wales

THE QUEUE of Welsh rugby legends, waiting to put the boot into the Welsh Rugby Union apparently stretches from the Welsh side of the Severn Crossing, all the way to the end of the motorway at Swansea. The Taffia are clearly unhappy at the state of the game in the Principality – and this isn't helped by their football team qualifying for the football World Cup in Qatar.

Having briefly dipped my toe into Welsh rugby while working there, I would say their problem is – the Welsh would rather get a kicking from an English club than from an Irish, Scottish, Italian and now a South African team. If the Gallagher Premiership was to offer places to the four Welsh Regions – they'd be gone from the United Rugby Championship in an instant.

They also have, as we do in Scotland, a bunch of backwoodsmen who want nothing to do with regional rugby and who still harbour the delusion that their club could, if given the chance, compete at club rugby's top table.

The trouble is, as the end-of-season URC awards have shown, the three home nations are going to have to up their game a lot, now the Saffers have got to grips with the URC. In order to compete with the South African sides, they can either, start recruiting even-more players from the Rainbow Nation, or, work harder on bringing their native talent up to South African standards.

If, as I suspect they will, the South African sides make big waves in the European competitions next season, well the decision-makers in the northern hemisphere unions have big choices to make, and they had better get them right.

HAVING lang syne attained the blessed status of Old Fartdom, I am allowed to begin declarations with: “In my day we.....” so, I am about to go there.

As I have frequently reminded you dear readers of this bilge, when I was a boy, the rugby season started on 1 September, then, rare Sevens dispensations aside, it ended on 30 April, thus giving us a 35 week season, leaving, as everyone who did O Grade Arithmetic will know, a 17 week close season.

The FOSROC SUPER6 SPRINT SERIES ends next weekend with the East v West game. This is a season which began on 30 July last year. They then played through until late October, closed down, resumed in mid-April and will close again next week. This means theirs has been a 45 week season. Not much difference then, except the breaks have made it seem much different. The next S6 season will start in August, in fact, the SRU issued the fixtures on Saturday. I feel the days of year-round rugby are upon us.

SPEAKING of S6, I see Heriot's have parted company with Head Coach Andrew Kelly this week – leaving Stuart Edwards and Fin Gillies to keep things going until a new appointment is made.

I honestly never felt Kelly and Heriot's was a good fit, while he has probably been guilty of being too-loyal to a group of players who were Premiership-grade at best. A massive rebuilding task awaits whoever gets the gig, I think.

The Nails certainly got a new coach bounce for their final game against a very-weakened Boroughmuir Bears, but, I feel a lot of good recruitment is called for in Edinburgh between now and August.

CONTINUING my crusade to upset certain denizens of Fortress Fullarton, by going on further about S6, I thought that was a cracking final last night, between Watsonians and Stirling County.

I felt for County, giving it their all into the red in an effort to get that title-winning bonus point, only to lose it to an interception try. But, well done Watsonians, who in the end deserved to take the Sprint Series title.

Interestingly, the two finalists did it without two of their main men, since neither Archie Russell of County or Michael Badenhorst of Watsonians featured in the Sprint Series.

Little time for rest, recovery and recruitment, as it will all resume in seven or eight weeks' time, when the full Autumn campaign kicks-off.

SO THE URC Grand Final will be an all-South African affair. Well done to the Bulls and the Stormers. The onus now is on the Irish, Scottish and Welsh sides to bounce back to become competitive, and for the Italians to keep improving.

If the three Celtic countries rise to the South African challenge, I think the Gallagher Premeirship clubs will soon be moaning, as they could be left behind, more-so given the way they are being forced to cut costs.

I fancy the South African sides will make big waves in the European competitions next season, how the media, particularly in England, reacts, could be fun.

SARACENS v Harlequins in the Gallagher Premiership semi-final was a real, old-fashioned cup tie. I appreciate, Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje are probably the least-likeable players in world rugby, but, you have to admit – they can play a bit.

That off-load by Farrell for Nick Tomkins' first-half try was something else, a wonderful piece of skill. And what a cameo off the bench from Sarries' Nick Isiekwe.

From a Scottish point of view, I think we now know why Sean Maitland is no longer a first-choice for Scotland. Given a head start and a clear field, he was cut down from behind by Marcus Smith. That is not international-class pace.

But, I know he's been brought back before, but preferred to return to Saracens in an assistant's role, but, might it be worth Glasgow Warrior's time finding-out how much it would cost to bring Kelly Brown back to Scotstoun as Head Coach – then paying the asking price?

The Leicester v Northampton tie was another cracker, with Rory Hutchison having a very-good game for the Saints. It should be quite a final.

FINALLY – Big David Barnes, the man who has turned rugby-writing in Scotland into a virtual one-man cottage industry, was unavailable for most of the past week or more. There was a cryptic text message: “Speak on Monday, tied-up with Hawick Common Riding all this week.”

Sources inside the Station Bar tell me Barney was last seen, tied to a chair inside The Hut, being fed rum and milk intravenously. I am concerned for his welfare, I mean, it's not as if a bearded six foot nine inch tall journalist is easy to hide in Hawick, far-less Scotland.

All I can say to the Big Man is: "Safe oot - safe in."