Our Colonial Masters Still Getting It Wrong

REGULAR READERS of this tosh will know, I hold in high regard the wise words of Irvine Welsh, as verbalised by Mark Renton, in the legendary “It's shite being Scottish” rant from 'Trainspotting.

One of Renton's best points comes well into the speech, by which time he has worked himself up to full-on ranting mode, when he says: “Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant healthy society to be colonised by. No..we are ruled by effete arseholes.”

Scots, even Scots of the “House Jocks” tendancy, will appreciate the validity of Renton's reasoning, if they take the time and trouble to browse the commenta in this week's editions of The Guardian.

Last week, 'The Breakdown' was much-aerated by that nonsense about a British and Irish Leagure. This week's big news in the blog was all about the French second tier: Pro D2, and comparing it to the second tier of English Rugby Union – the ludicrously-named Championship. Then, hard on the heels of that oner, the paper has run a story, claiming seven of the ten Gallagher Prmiership clubs were: “balance sheet insolvent”.

Saracens, who not that long ago were chucked out of the league after they drove a Budweiser Clydesdales-sized coach and horses through the financial fair play rules seem to have learned little from their spell on th naughty step. They have just posted a £5.3 million loss, a figure which makes the SRU look well-managed. Eight of the other nine clubs posted £1 milion-plus losses, whiler the accumulated losses across the ten clubs amounts to £311 million.

Given this evidence, it is quite clear:

Professional Club Rugby in the UK is a loss-making enterprise.

However, your average English “Rugger Bugger” is still, (and here I offer the BTL – Below The Line comments around the first two stories as edvidence) wedded to the notion of an English Football Premiership-style professional league.

The evidence against this is clear:

• the clubs' stadia are too-small

• the core audience for each club is too-small

• the television deal is too-small

• the wage bills are too-big

But, still English Rugby clings to its comfort blanket of the primacy of the club game. They simply refuse to see it's the wrong product, managed the wrong way, and, it is unsustainable. In profressional football the benchmark for good financial management holds that:

Player wages shall not be more than 60% of turnover

Several Gallagher Premiership clubs have wage bills which equate to more than 90% of turnover.

It has been patently clear for years, the only level of Rugby Union which makes money is the International game. Apart from France, which is the outlier and has a vibrant, well-managed club game, every other major rugby-playing nation puts the needs of their international team first, with a just a small number of professional clubs, in which the governing National Union has a financial stake playing at a high level. In every case, Argentina, Australia, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa or Wales, their professional clubs are there to keep their international level players as close as possible to being International Ready.

I accept, not all of these countries are doing this as well as they might, but, England not biting the bullet and copying the management model of the other top table players, is only a recipe for disaster for the nation which we all class as: “The Common Enemy”.

Let us be grateful for this small mercy, because, if England ever gets its act together in Rugby Union, then we are all up to our necks in Private Frazer territory.

The thing is, some 50 years ago, way before Open Rugby Union was even being mooted, England briefly looked like getting it right. A History lesson: back then, the RFU and SRU had much in common as to how they ran the game.

Up here, you played for your club and if you were any good, you got picked for one of the District teams: Edinburgh, Glasgow, North and Midlands, Scottish Exiles, South of Scotland. In England, you played for your club and if you were any good, you got picked for your County team – sides such as Gloucestershire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, East Midlands, Warwickshire and London Counties were important entities. The County Championship Final, at Twickenham, was a huge occasion.

To hopefully build on the success of the Counties Championship, the RFU came up with the idea of Divisional Teams. These teams were first mooted in 1977, the idea of the great Dickie Jeeps, who saw Divisional Rugby as a bridging tier between the County Championship and the International game. He envisaged four Divisions: London, Midlands, North and South and South West.

Divisional Rugby had a somewhat chequered history, before finally being buried in 1995, just before Rugby Union went Open, but the concept always struggled to overcome the game in England's obsession with the club game.

In all, between 1977 and 1995, there were 13 DivisionalChampionship tournaments, with North winning five, London and Midlands winning three each and South and South West winning two.

Compare how strong the game was in the North of Englanfd back then, with how it is today, where Newcastle Falcons are the perennial basement boys of the Premiership and Sale Sharks, rather than representing the North of England, are more Boers in Bolton or Bury.

Four RFU-managed English teams, joining the BKT United Rugby Championship, turning that league into a two-conference Northern Hemisphere (even if four of the competing teams were South African), that might well work. However, you can bet your bottom dollar, the Premiership clubs will move heaven and earth and use every trick in the book to prevent this from happening; and if it does they will do their well-honed Violet Elizabeth Bott impression until they get their way..

You can also put money on the RFU doing nothing to either bring them to heel, or doing anything positive to help the vast majority of England's rugby clubs.

The URC meanwhile, will carry on, but, while it is a success, it is nothing like as successful as it might be with English involvement.

FINALLY – last week I received my notification that the URC Media Guide for this season was now up on their website and could be downloaded. When the Celtic League first started, this media guide was an actual publication, a very-handy book to have. But, nowadays, like most things, it's online and none the worse for that.

The arrival of that online guide got me wondering, what happened to that once indispensibler guide to the game up here: The Scottish Rugby Record.

The last edition of the Record that I got was the 2016 edition, just before Buddy the Elf decided I wasn't, in spite of 50 years writing about Rugby Union, a rugby journalist. So, I asked one of the guys who is still personna gratia in EH12 what had happened to this publication.

He told me, the last edition he has is 2020, apparently, the Record was another casualty of Covid.

Well, even if it was, like the URC Guide, moved to an online publication, this is one very-handy booklet which the SRU ought to revive, immediatrely.

The Changing World Of Rugby Politics

YOUNGER READERS might not know this, but, the most-significant decade of the 20^th Century was the 1960s – that's when the world began to change, as the Golden Generation – the young men and women who had been the Poor Bloody Infantry at the sharp end of World War II, finally began to get into the top jobs, running countries and major corporations.

Then, hard on their heels, along we came, The Baby Boomers who became the first Teenagers and really began to change the world. One of the first big incidents which forced changed was what became known as: “The Profumo Affair” - the downfall of a British Cabinet Minister and the first time the general public realised, the men running things in Westminster were not the “Right Honourable Members” they were held-up as being.

John Profumo fell from Grace, not because he was shagging “Good Time Girl Christine Keiller” at the same time as one of the KGB's top spies in this country, but, because he lied to Parliament about it. Not keeping his dishonourable member in his pants wasn't a no-no, back then, but, telling porkies in the House of Commons was.

These days, you can tell all sorts of lies within Politics, but, keep it in your trousers or you're in bother – that's progress apparently.

Any way, after the last week, I am starting to wonder if Rugby Union Politics is any cleaner, as the aftershock from John Jeffrey's fall-out with the Scottish Rugby Union Board rumbles on. Even my old mate Stephen Jones of The Sunday Times, who usually only mentions Scotland every second year, when he joins his old Welsh pals for the bi-annual trek to Scottish Gas Murrayfield, has seen fit to comment on the affair.

Looking on from afar, it appears to me, JJ in his seamless rise to high office has upset a few people along the way. To me, his problem is, he has been appointed to every post he has ever held – he reached the position of Chairman of the SRU without ever having to win an election; thus, he doesn't have an electorate who have been sufficiently-impressed by the qualities he brought to getting the job and who are therefore invested in supporting him.

He was perhaps the ultimate example of how the Great and The Good find jobs for their own and keep authority in the hands of the Right Sort.

Along the way, he has been seen as, to an extent: “Mark Dodson's Man” and with TCD having left the building, JJ's main support has gone – so retribution can be sought and has been meted-out.

Certainly, he did himself no favours over “The Siobhan Cattigan Scandal” and it cannot be doubted, his part in that sorry debacle for the SRU has been a major factor in his fall.

So JJ has fallen, but, his fall demonstrates, even if the SRU is fit for purpose, as a body, it has major structural problems, not least the turf war between the Board of Scottish Rugby Limited and the Board of Scottish Rugby Limited, as to who actually runs Scottish Rugby – and that's before you factor in the presence of a third Board, The Club Rugby Board.

The official SRU Website lists the members of the three Boards – a total of 29 Directors; of these 29 persons, nobody is a member of all three boards, but 4 are members of two boards. These four individuals are: SRU President Colin Rigby (SRU Board and Club Rugby Board), Vice President Keith Wallace (the same two boards), Hazel Swankie (CRB and SRL board) and Company Secretary Robert Howat (SRU Board and SRL Board).

A total of 10 of the 29 directors are there “by appointment” - 15 directors, all primarily on the Club Rugby Board are there by virtue of having been elected by their peers from the clubs.

Three directors: Robert Howat, Shona Bell and Gavin Scott are there by virtue of their jobs as SRU employees; although I assume, Alex Williamson, once he arrives as Chief Executive Officer, will, as Dodson was before him, be on the SRL Board. I would also assume, whoever becomes the new Chief Financial Officer will also take a seat on the SRL Board. But, I again ask the question: Why isn't the new Director of Rugby (once one is appointed) on the SRL Board?

I don't have a problem with three boards: CRB runs the Club Game, SRL runs the Professional and International Game, the SRU Board has oversight and the final say. It ought to be that simple, but, this is Scotland, so we have to have in-fighting and Clan Warfare across the boards.

Perhaps we need to tweak the current management arrangements around the three Boards. Having one person – and the obvious candidate would be whoever was President – as a member of all three boards would perhaps seem appropriate; although some might say this would put too-much power in the hands of one person. Also, it has to be accepted, the quality of the holders of that post does vary.

I also feel, now that TCD is history, the new-Look Junta has to look seriously at the quality of Non-Executive Director (NEDs) we are recruiting to oversee the management of the Union. The SRU Board is split 50/50 between appointments from the Scottish Rugby Family, I do feel, however, we should be looking for a definite Rugby Union background, playing and spectating/administration, from the NEDs we appoint. This should not be seen as indictment or criticism of the sitting NEDs, I just feel, their Rugby Union background ought to be made clear and such a background ought to be mandatory.

The same criteria should also comer into play with the SRL Board. Again, it is not clear what Rugby Union background most of the five NEDs can claim. Hazel Swankie has done the hard yards, some of the others less-so.

As to the other enduring issue from the fall of John Jeffrey – who speaks for Scotland at the top table of World Rugby, well, that's a whole other ball game. We need a diplomat and, if the Jeffrey Affair has taught us one thing, it is that there is a severe shortage of diplomacy inside Murrayfield.

 

We Wuz Robbed!!!

GLASGOW WARRIORS had enough territory and possession to have won with a bonus point, in Belfast on Saturday night. They were the better team for most of the game, but, they made too-many mistakes and lost. That said, Ulster's best player was Referee Adam Jones, who showed himself a complete “Homer” by the way he favoured the home team.

It is difficult enough to beat 15 Ulstermen in Belfast, I would say it is bloody impossible when you are effectively playing 16 men. Aside from the referee effect, I see World Rugby's efforts to kill all the game stands for continued. We know you no longer have to put the ball in straight at the scrums. It now appears you don't have to throw it in straight at the lines out either.

But, for me Mr Jones' two biggest blunders was his repeated refusal to penalise Ulster when they held Glasgow players into the breakdown. Three times, I clearly heard him tell the home team they were doing this; but, did he penalise them? Did he hell.

Then, at the end, the winning Ulster try – that was as blatant a crawl over the line as I have seen, a clear double movement. But, by then, I am convinced the Welshman had money on an Ulster win, We wuz robbed!!!

I FOLLOWED UP events in Belfast with the Argentine v South Africa game. From the Bokke's fast start, I feared they would blow their hosts away, but back came Los Pumas to grab the lead.

The second half was a ding dong affair and in the end it came down to Mannie Libbok missing a late potentially match-winning penalty. Poor Mannie, he is establishing something of a pattern around missing crucial kicks. Most of South Africa will be absolutely certain Handre Pollard would have nailed that late penalty. But, in truth the better team on the night triumphed.

So the possibility of the World Champions adding the Rugby Championship to their list of victories has to wait another week, until the return match in South Africa. I would not be rushing to write-off these Pumas just yet.

It was a gladiatorial contest, as was the earlier match in Sydney, between Australia and the All Blacks, another one in which one side's (New Zealand's) blistering start appeared to have the game won, before the opposition came back, but, in this case, the ABs recovered to get over the line.

It was a long day of rugby-watching for me, I had also watched Samoa v USA and Japan v Fiji in the Pacific Nations Cup. Can I jut say, that young Fijian fly half, Caleb Muntz, is one helluva player, while another youngster Ponepati Loganimasi, just up from their Sevens squad, also looks like one to be feared.

I DID not devote my entire Saturday to Rugby Union. I took some time out to reinforce my belief that this current Rangers team is unworthy of the name. When you have swathes of unoccupied seats directly behind the goal at the Copland Road End of Ibrox, then you know your team is in trouble. The Bears are staying away in droves.

I was, however, multi-tasking while watching Rangers v Dundee. I was simultaneously attempting to catch-up with the afternoon's events in the Arnold Clark Premiership. By 5.15pm, the BBC Shortbread online results service had every Premiership result up, once again, the SRU website failed to meet their 6pm deadline for having all the results up.

OK, I've banged this drum before, and I've been told by dedicated and well-known Clubmen that it's down to the clubs not living up to their part of the bargain and having the results in in-time. I still say, if Ron Evans could do it, why cannot the grossly-over-manned SRU Comms Department do it?

But, there is a problem out there in clubland. Some clubs are very good at using their twitter (now X) feeds to keep those members who cannot get to a game up to speed, but others clubs are still, I fear, somewhere in the late Victorian era when it comes to getting their messages out there.

If your club is in the Premiership, you, as club officials, really need to be pro-active on social media, streaming score flashes and so forth. You are running sports businesses which need to attact supporters and keep them aware of what is happening.

Having week-old messages as your latest X flashes will not cut it. Not posting score flashes when you are getting thumped isn't a good look either.

I HAVE TO SAY, the Premiership is unfolding much as I thought it would, with Ayr, Heriot's and Watsonians, the three richest teams in Super Rugby, pulling clear at the top, Musselburgh losing touch a bit at the foot and the other eight teams hurting each other since they are so-close in terms of talent.

Kudos to Glasgow Hawks for leading the chasing pack, I do have a soft spot for the guys at Balgray, there are some first-class Rugby Men in that club.

Mark Cairns' belief that his side's poor start to the season was a temporary blip appears to have been born-out by their home win over Hawick on Saturday, I expect to see them now start to climb the table.

JUST IN CASE Buddy and The Elves in the Comms Department think I am going soft on them, I note, at 8am on Sunday, more than 12 hours after the result was up on the BBC website, and even later than its appearance on the Borders Rugby Radio and TV's results service, the outcome of the Dundee v Gala game (Gala won 27-17) in National 1, still isn't up on the SRU website. They got shot of John Jeffrey for less!!

The big result in that division on Saturday was surely GHA beating Stirling County 60-22 in their top of the table clash at Braidholm. That GHSA, with home advantage, won it, cannot go down as a shock, but the margin of victory certainly has raised a few eyebrows.

 

How Hard Is It To Organise A Fixture List?

I HONESTLY don't know who makes the final call, but, given his track record over his tenure in office, is am (perhaps wrongly) blaming Buddy the Elf, the Chocolate Fireguard who runs the SRU's Communications Department, for the mindless decision to make last night's Watsonians v Edinburgh Academical Arnold Clark Premiership match a live television broadcast.

That match kicked off at 7.30pm; five minutes later, just two miles away, at The Hive, Edinburgh v Leinster, the opening game in the new BKT Unitd Rugby Championship season also kickerd off.

I concede, Watsonians v Edinburgh Academical may well be the 21^st century, Rugby Union version of the old Brooklands motor racing events: “The right crowd and no crowding”, but, to quote the Scottish Rugby Union's Mission Statement, and this is a direct quote from their own website:

Scottish Rugby is the governing body for rugby union in Scotland. We work hard to grow the game and inspire Scotland through rugby.

Does having two such high-profile games on live television at the same time help grow the game and inspire Scotland through rugby?

Of course, having such a clash is nothing new. I was discussing this with another Rugby Union writer yesterday and he reminded me the opening fixture in the then new FOSROC Super Six competition saw Boroughmuir entertain Stirling County; that match was live on TV, from Meggetland, and at the same time, an Edinburgh home game was being broadcast on another channel.

Football is in many ways the Death Star to all other televised sport – it's got McDonald's/Coca-Cola level saturation. Football could probably survive a Celtic Champions League tie on TNT Sport clashing with a SPFL game being on BBC Shortbread. Rugby Union in Scotland cannot afford the luxury of clashing coverage.

There is another, more-cynical view of how last night's clash came to pass, which is that BBC Shortbread does not care what the SRU thinks, wants or does. The view from Pacific Quay in Glasgow is that: “We are the Masters of the Universe and what we say goes”. I have seen this mindset in operation across a few sports, when the boys from the Beeb saunter in and take over at a provincial ground, before swanning-off into th sunset, to not be seen there again for half a decade.

To return to that line about growing the game and inspiring, a look at the fixture schedule for the Premiership this season will have you wondering if anyone inside The Junta is capable of intelligent thought.

The SPFL, the body which runs the Scottish Football Leagues, tries as far as possible to spread the fixtures, For instance, when Rangers are at home – Celtic are away; Hearts are at home – Hibs are away. The same thing happens with the two Dundee sides, the two Ayrshire sides and the Fife and Lanarkshire sides.

Why not in Rugby? The Premiership spread is: five teams from Edinburgh, four from the Borders. Two from Ayrshire and one from Glasgow. There are 22 rounds of fixtures, take away the two head-to-heads and of the remaining 20 rounds, there are only four – rounds 8 and 9 and rounds 19 and 20 in which Ayr are at home while Marr are away, or vice versa.

Things are better in the Borders, where in 10 of the 22 rounds, two of their four teams are at home and the other two are away. That said, we are led to believe that any fan leaving his hame toon to watch the lot down the road might be placing himself in mortal danger both during and after the game – when he got home, so perhaps the availability of a good game, to attract the neutral isn't a factor down there.

The thread remains constant, however – I do not think the SRU markets the game of Rugby Union in Scotland as well as it could.

Can I say here, while I welcome the moves to reduce the over-blown staff numbers at Murrayfield, as a means of tackling the Union's dire financial position, I fear they will more-likely sacrifice the Indians who do most of the work, rather than the Chiefs, whose inadequacies as managers got us into this mess in the first place. But, if they cannot run an efficient organisation with the numbers they have, I shudder to think what will happen when the staff cuts start to bite.

EDINBURGH v LEINSTER on Friday night was a cracking watch. You always had to fancy Leinster to win it, which they duly did, but, Edinburgh gave them a hell of a game, kept going to the end and got their reward with that late try to snatch the second bonus point.

The home team let themselves down with some avoidable errors, I felt, but, it was onloy their first game of the season, and while losing at home is never a good way to start, there is hope there. One or two of the lesser names showed up well, but, there are definitely things to still work on.

That perennial Scottish problem of a line out that works consistently was again on-show, but I was delighted to see how well D'Arcy Rae coped with the usual illegal scrumming of cian Healy. Once again, however, an otherwise good referee was too lax in what he allowed the Irish team to get away with at the breakdown. And I would certainly have marched Leinster back ten metres for their reaction to that yellow card for the aerial challenge on Darcy Graham.

 

Johann, Willie And The White Shark - A Scots Morality Tale

JOHANN LAMONT is one of a whole host of Scottish Labour politicians whose head is metaphorically hung up in the trophy room in Alex Salmond's house; a potential subject for a “Where are they now?” piece in a Scottish newspaper – if we still had newspapers worthy of the name up here. She is like most former politicians, seen as a failure – yesterday's woman.

But, perhaps Johann will have a legacy, because in the wake of this week's kailyard row which has seen John Jeffrey toddle off Rugby Union's world stage, maybe Johann was right and we Scots are just not equipped to run our own affairs.

Seymour Skinner, Principal of Springfield Elementary School also hit the nail on the head during one of his exchanges with Groundskeeper Willie, when he informed Willie: “You Scots are a fractious people”.

This observation naturally led to Willie informing his boss he had just mader an enemy for life – well, it's the Scottish way. Or maybe Willie, being an immigrant in Springfield, had had an underdone cat for lunch!!

But, I digress; to return to the Jeffrey Affair. It is fairly common knowledge in Scottish Rugby that the former White Shark has made a few enemies in The Junta, during his ascent to high office both within the Scottish Rugby Union and World Rugby. But, that's paret of political life, and once you get onto the SRU or World Rugby – you're up to your neck in Rugby Union Politics.

There is a quote, attributed to Winston Churchill, which goes: “Those benches over there are occupied by The Opposition – your Enemies are behind you”. Well, the enemies who sat around the same Murrayfield committee table as Jeffrey have had their revenge and scuppered his bid to succeed Sir Bill Beaumont as Head of World Rugby – bang goes the tap on the shoulder and the: “Arise Sir John”.

How typically Scottish. I don't know, I cannot say. Perhaps JJ was a total C*nt, but, to quote Steve Coogan: “Everybody's a bit of a c*nt sometimes”. The wise thing might have been to get him into a room at HQ, tell him to his face where you thought he had been a c*nt then, if he apologises and honestly promises to change back him to the hilt. And if this caused waves around Scotland, tell the complainers: “Yes, he's a c*nt, but, he's our c*nt and we're backing him”.

If he went full Donald Trump and insisted he had been right and had done nothing wrong – well tell him to his face: “We are not backing you – because”; then come out and tell the Scottish Rugby public why you are not backing him.

But, having one board backing him and another not – that is a terrible look for Scottish Rugby

By the way, you can bet your bottom dollar, in the home Unions of those would-be Heid Bummers of World Rugby who are still in the race to succeed Beaumont, there will be people bad-mouthing their man, but falling out among ourselves has always been a Scottish thing.

To again quote that great Caledonian philosopher, Groundskeeper Willie: “Brothers And Sisters Are Natural Enemies. Like Englishmen And Scots. Or Welshmen And Scots. Or Japanese And Scots. Or Scots And Other Scots. Damn Scots They Ruined Scotland!”

I don't know about ruining the SRU, but, some Damned Scots certainly ruined John Jeffrey's career in Rugby Union Politics.

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WHILE I AM venting my spleen – if the United Kingdom was a fully-function country of equals – which it clearly isn't, some of all those billions we have syphoned off into funding Olympic and Paralympic medals over the years would have been diverted into building a state of the art National Stadium, somewhere in the middle of the nation, just off the M62 corridor and with good road, rail and airport access.

But, of course, it has never happened, and it won't, all the power lies within the M25 corridor and, in London, every map has a big blank section, north of Watford Gap, which says simply: “Here Be Dragons”.

It's slightly different up here. If we ever regain our Independence in Scotland, and now I am closer to 80 than 70 I am resigned to never seeing that happy day. Once we have sorted-out the many problems the new government of an Independent Scotland will inherit from the 300-plus years of this unfair and lop-sided Union, we ought to get going on building a proper national stadium, with the good access I mentioned above, somewhere in the Stirling-Perth area.

Of course, the perennial squabbling between Edinburgh and Glasgow will ensure this never happens. The Weegie fitba lobby will want it there, and we all know the Edinburgh rugger buggers get a nose bleed if they cross the City By-Pass.

On a similar track, when reading the SRU Comms Team's press release on the new National Academy, I noticed it will be based at Oriam.

Indeed, to quote directly from that press release: “The Scottish Rugby high performance department will also now operate from office space within Oriam on a daily basis. As part of a long term agreement with the national performance centre there will also be closer collaboration with both Oriam and Heriot-Watt University, looking at facility development and mutually beneficial projects across sports science, research projects and sports management.”

Which begs the question, what are they going to do with all those now empty facilities at Murrayfield, now so-many apparatchiks are being decanted to the wilds of Riccarton?

I WAS BEING TOLD – my concerns over the ramifications of Scotstoun's synthetic pitch and the possible knock-on effects of making that stadium the centre-piece of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2026 was (in Glesca patois) “pish talk” - until a couple of my Facebook friends – guys who get their sporting kicks from Athletics – agreed with me.

If that synthetic pitch stays – there could well be no field events at the Glasgow Games. Now this will not be of much concern to the High Heid Yins in the four individual Commonwealth nations British Athletics, we don't have many medal contenders in the throwing disciplines: Discus, Hammer, Javelin and Shot.

Of the 24 field event medals won at the last games, in Birmingham in 2022, England, Canada and New Zealand each won 4, Australia won 3, Jamaica won 2 and Cyprus, Grenada, India, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan each won 1.

So, that's some pretty big nations you are going to piss off if you tell them they're not going to have a chance of medals in events they are rather good at. As one of my Athletics friends remarked when I raised the issue of the synthetic pitch with him: “As so often, the devil is in the detail”.

When Even The English Say: "Beware Of The English"

TUESDAY'S ONLINE EDITION of The Guardian was very-interesting, if you are into Rugby Union. Their first issue of their weekly 'The Breakdown”, rugby blog had Robert Kitson's take on the suggested British and Irish League.

When even Kitson, who is just about the Gallagher Premiership's biggest cheer-leader, can see, the only people with anything to gain from the formation of such a league would be the cash-strapped and increasingly-desperate English clubs, well, you don't give much for the chances of such a league happening.

But, with CVC Capital Partners involved, you can never say never.

What I did find interesting, however, was reading the BTL (below the line) comments from readers, with an awful lot of the contributors, proud Englishman to a man, pleading with the Celts to have nothing to do with the proposals and saying: “Don't touch it, the English will screw you for their own ends”.

When even English fans are saying don't trust us – surely the Irish, Scottish and Welsh have to tak tent and tell them where to get off.

BACK IN the 1950s, when I got into watching and playing sport, it was a simplet world. The first team I followed was the local Junior Football team – Lugar Boswell Thistle. Our dream season was 1955-56, when I barely missed a game, as we went all the way to the Junior Cup Final at Hampden, with an XI which barely changed week-by-week.

My hero, Jock Fraser was the goalkeeper, Captain Davie Love and Charlie Cathie were the full backs; the half-back line was Andy McEwan, Jim Baird and Jim Donnelly, while up front we had Alex Bingham, Jimmy Collins, Sandy Sharpe, Hughie Neil and Eric Wilkie. That team went out, regular as clockwork – although Charlie Cathie did miss a few games with a leg injury, in which case Jock Stirling vame in at left-back.

When I moved on to following Senior Football, Kilmarnock was my team and there was a whole group of us who followed them everywhere, in my pal Curly's Dad's mini-bus. The Kilmarnock team was also a constant: Jimmy Brown; Jim Richmond, Matt Watson, Frank Beattie, Willie Toner, Bobby Kennedy, Vernon Wentzel or Rab Stewart, Jackie McInally, Andy Kerr, Bertie Black and Billy Muir, then Brian McIlroy.

That was Season 1959-60, today the sporting landscape has changed and squad rotation is a huge part of a Head Coach's skill-set. This is particularly true in Rugby Union, given the athleticism and sheer physical intensity of playing that game at professional level.

In professional Rugby Union in Scotland, there is the additional strain for the players of having to serve two masters. They may have signed contracts to play for Edinburgh or Glasgow Warriors, but, the reality is, their ultimate boss is the Scottish Rugby Union and when push comes to shove, the needs of the Scotland International team trump those of the club side.

Received wisdom appears to be that the maximum number of games an elite player can play in over a season, which these days runs from Sep[tember through to early Jue, with perhaps a month tagged-on at the end for a Summer Tour, is 30 games.

The BKT United Rugby Championship runs to an 18-match regular season, followed by, for the top eight teams, a maximum of a further three knock-out matches. Then there are the European competitions: a minimum of five group games, followed by, for the successful teams, a further four knock-out rounds.

If Edinburgh or Glasgow was to have a dream season – there's your 30 games there, with a further possible nine Scotland games (four Autumn Tests plus the five Guinness Six Nations matches) then, in mid-2025, for some there will be the British and Irish Lions Tour to Australia, for others a Scotland Tour of up to four Tests.

Thirty games maximum from a potential 40-match schedule means, for the club coaches, Franco Smith at Glasgow and Sean Everitt at Edinburgh – a bit of juggling when it comes to who plays when.

Edinburgh's player roster runs to 44 players, of whom 28 are full Scotland caps. Glasgow has a 47-man roster, 26 of whom are full Scotland caps. As things stand, Gregor Townsend is always going to select the likes of Finn Russell, who plays for Bath and Toulouse's Blair Kinghorn of course, for the national side. But, if push came to shove and he had to selecta national squad from the playing pools of our two clubs, he could do it without too-much inconvenience to Scotland.

But squad rotation and balancing Scotland's needs with those of the two clubs will remain a delicate business this season, even before the inevitable injuries and knocks come into play.

At the end of the day, Rugby Union is a simple game – the forwards dictate who wins games, the backs decide by how much. But, at elite club and international level, just how the Coach gets to that outcome, that's where they earn the big bucks.

Methinks Messrs Smith and Everitt will be earning their corn this season.

FINALLY – in the course of writing my blog post about the implications for Rugby Union of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, I spok to Alex Mack, who I am sure will not object to me describing him as: “The Heid Bummer” of Hyndland Rugby Club.

Now I can remember playing against Hyndland, on the big pitch at Scotstoun, back in the 1960s, when it was Scotstoun Showground, with the old wooden stand. Hyndland has been playing there for 100 years and Alex has a great story of how, when he won a Rugby Volunteer Award a year or so back, Al Kellock invited him onto “Our pitch” for the presentation, only to be telt: “Son, I've played on this pitch a damned sight more times than you have”.

Well, Alex assures me Hyndland pays something like £8000 per annum to Glasgow Life for the use of the limited facilities they have access to at Scotstoun. In that case, we have to ask: How much is the SRU paying Glasgow Life, for the far-greater use of the Scotstoun facilities which they enjoy – and is this value for money?

If Warriors are going to be even temporarily decanted from Scotstoun to suit the Com monwealth Games, might it not be time for the SRU to look for an alternative home for them elsewhere in the city?

I can think of at least one potential alternative.

 

Commonwealth Games Questions For Rugby

SO THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES are to be held in Glasgow in 2026. All Scottish sports fans will welcome this news, but, a wee question – what will it mean for Rugby Union?

On the face of things and given what little we currentlyh know of the plans – it looks as if Rugby Sevens might be one of the sports jettisoned to meet the need for a scaled down Games. Early indications are that only four venues will be used: Scotstoun will host the Athletics – the main core sport; Tollcross Pool will host the Swimming – another of the core sports; The Chris Hoy Velodrome will host the Cycling – another of the core sports, leaving one other venue, such as the SEC Campus, to be nominated for the likes of Gymnastics, Badminton, Boxing, Netball and other sports.

And what about Lawn Bowls, another staple of the Commonwealth Games. Some of the lesser Commonwealth nations have a habit of doing well on the greens, so there is a case for that sport being among the ten selected.

The nomination of Scotstoun as the Athletics venue will certainly have a knock-on effect on Glasgow Warriors. For a start, the Scotstoun pitch is synthetic, as such it cannot be used for Athletics Field Events – Discus, Hammer, Javelin and Shot Putt, so, that's a problem to be solved. Might it mean a new pitch, suitable for use in Athletics, being laid, which would probably require Warriors to play elsewhere for a large part of Season 2025-26.

The Glasgow Games will almost-certainly be held in mid-to-late July – early August, but, should that main pitch require to be relaid, then it will be out of action for some time before then. Also, what happens after the Games? Will the athletics-friendly grass pitch be dug up and a new synthetic pitch laid down, or will the grass pitch be kept. Either way, there is a very-good chance of Warriors being inconvenienced for some time.

Looking at alternative scenario; there is one remaining grass pitch on the Scotstoun Campus, which could, at a pinch, be used for the four throwing events: but, there is not much room there where they might build temporary spectator stands, and that pitch is used by some university sides – so further disruption to Rugby Union.

Suppose Sevens is one of the jettisoned sports. I don't think that idea would go down too well with the likes of Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and South Africa. OK, it's a team sport, but, the Games overall would be greatly-diminished by a lack of team events.

Even allowing for the politics of the decisions on which sports remain IN and which go out, it would be sad if Sevens was missing from a Games, being held in the land which invented it.

Of more interest to the Rugby Union community in Glasgow and the West will be the inconvenience to Warriors. They go into season 2024-25 as BKT United Rugby Championship winners. If, and there is no reason to doub t they can, Warriors continue to compete at the sharp end of their league tickets for Scotstoun will continue to be sought-after. We expect to see the “House Full” signs going up regularly around Scotstoun.

There could well be one or two Warriors going to Australia with the British and Irish Lions in the Summer of 2025. Suppose they keep the feel-good feeling growing around the club and the ground into season 2025-26 – what would happen if and when they have to temporarily move-out to allow for the preparations for the Games?

Would the fanatics of “The Warrior Nation” fancy what might well be the SRU's preferred alternative, during the preparatory work for the Games – Warriors playing their home games at Edinburgh's Hive Stadium?

Might they prefer to do a temporary deal with a Glasgow football stadium – Partick Thistle's Firhill – Warriors' home before Scotstoun, or Queen's Park's Lesser Hampden?

Might they prefer to take the handful of home games they will almost-certainly have to take elsewhere – round club grounds such as Ayr's Millbrae, or Stirling County's Bridgehaugh? Decisions, decisions.