THE ONE reliable thing about the Scottish weather is its unreliability. Thus, on an evening when we wanted dry conditions and little or no wind, Glasgow Warriors' and Edinburgh's players had to contend with a Scotstoun Hooley as they fought out the first leg of the 1872 Cup.
The heavy rain and swirling wind meant two teams who like to run with the ball had to attempt to do this in the most-unforgiving of circumstances. It is to their credit that they put on such an interesting game.
In the end, Edinburgh;s indiscipline cost them dearly. Eventually, referee Sam Grove-White – who I thought handled the game very well – had to reach for his yellow card and send visiting captain Grant Gilchrist to the naughty chair; while he was serving his ten minutes, Glasgow struck twice to put the match beyond the reach of their opponents. Those short-handed minutes cost Edinburgh dear.
Perhaps the most-frustrated person in the sell-out Scotstoun crowd was Scotland Head Coach Gregor Townsend, accepting, he cannot cap Man of the Match Josh McKay for Scotland before the Six Nations of 2027 – assuming the Kiwi remains with Glasgow until then. McKay is in a rich vein of form right now, as he demonstrated last night.
Townsend will also be hoping that George Turner's injury is not as bad as first feared, although, the irrepressible Johnny Matthews did come off the bench to score his ninth try of the season.
And what about that 50/22 box kick which young Ben Afshar produced late in the game? An injury crisis gave this gifted young man his chance, a lot earlier than anyone predicted he would get it, and he has certainly grabbed his opportunities with both hands.
Still on the subject of small cameos – did anyone else notice the way the Edinburgh scrum went forward in the final scrum of the game – the only one in which D'Arcy Rae was involved? Just saying like.
Edinburgh now have a 12-point deficit to make up in the second leg of the Cup clash, next Saturday. A tough ask, although not impossible. Let's hope for good weather and a cracking exhibition of running rugby.
WITH NO Scottish Rugby yesterday, I settled down to watch Bath v Harlequins on TNT Television, who naturally sold the broadcast on the head-to-head between His Gallusness and Marcus Smith.
The pair even arranged a spot of handbags, after Smith refused to give up the ball to Finn, after a brilliant 50-22, out of absolutely nothing, from our boy. Advantage Finn, who treated his rival to a smile. Smith perhaps produced the better individual cameos, while Finn had an off day with the boot.
However, he pulled the strings as well as ever, showing his maturity with a great all-round performance, bringing the best out of his team mates and proving, even if he only rated a 7.5 out of 10, that score for him was worth more than Smith's 8 out of 10.
NEWISH SRU Chairman John McGuigan has indicated, trying to put more bums on seats is an essential part of how The Junta intends improving the Union's finances moving forward. Well, if they are at all serious about this, some of the Murrayfield apparatchiks will need to seriously lift their game.
For instance, I received a wee note this week from a father, whose daughter is one of our current top internationalists. Like most of the current Scotland squad she plies her trade in England's PWR – Premiership Women's Rugby, however, on Saturday, 30 December, she and several of her international team mates are temporarily being repatriated to line-up in the Edinburgh v Glasgow women's match, which will be played as a warm-up to the second leg of the 1872 Cup.
The thing is – the 1872 game will be played on the big pitch, inside Murrayfield, while the warm-up women's match will go on at the adjacent Hive. Why the fuck is this? It's stupidity gone mad.
Here we have a rare chance to showcase some of the really big names in Scottish women's rugby, talented lassies we seldom see on home pitches, because they are good enough to play in the higher-class English league. If the SRU was at all serious about promoting the women's game, they would be shouting about this from the roof-tops.
And, why put the women's game on at The Hive, by downgrading the game to the wee ground, TCD and the Junta are effectively saying: “in our eyes, our top women are second-class citizens of the rugby world.”
But, that's what we've come to expect from the third-class people who are running down our game.
FINALLY – here's one of those left-field notions I occasionally come up with.
I have recently noticed one or two colour photographs of rugby in the 1970s, which have featured players in internationals playing with the old leather Gilbert Match balls.
The balls used in internationals were really only ever used the once; after that, certainly in Scotland, one would be preserved for that Scottish Rugby Museum we are still waiting to see built. I gather there is a warehouse somewhere in Edinburgh where one ball from every home Scotland game since 1871 sits, awaiting display. The lesser balls were used for national team training.
The match ball from the first game at Murrayfield has been retained as a sort of Field Marshall's Baton, carried into each home game by the Scotland Captain.
Well, why don't we go back to using leather balls in internationals? I appreciate today, in internationals there are a number of balls used; so how about:
The ball they kick-off with is marked, that's the one that goes into that museum – when it is eventually built.
The other balls are signed, post-game, by the players, and donated to clubs to be raffled-off for club funds.
It would also be interesting to see how our top players coped with real leather balls, rather than the laminated ones they have grown-up with.
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