I WILL ADMIT – I struggled somewhat to stay awake during the third quarter of Sunday's 1872 Cup clash: at that stage it was already obvious that Glasgow Warriors would win this first leg.
OK Boan Venter's two late screams of rage offered Edinburgh a glimmer of hope for Saturday's second leg, at Scottish Gas Murrayfield, but, if you honestly think the Capital outfit can give Warriors a 19 point start and still win the whole thing – I'll have a pint of whatever you're drinking.
Back in the game's Amateur Era, the annual Inter-City Match was seen as an additional International Trial. Today's choc-a-bloc professional schedule means we no longer have space for Trials, but, given 38 full Scotland caps were on-duty among the 46 players who stripped; it stands to reason, with the Guinness Six Nations 2025 looming on the horizon, the person among the near 28,000 spectators inside Hampden Park paying the most attention was probably Scotland Head Coach Gregor Townsend.
Conveniently – to help Toony's selection thinking – the way the sides lined-up, he had 13 straight head-to-head match-ups involving Scotland-qualified players. OK, being from the West of Scotland, I may be a tad biased in favour of Warriors, but, from my vantage point in front of my television, I thought Warriors won the head-to-heads 13-0.
I would not say that any of those Edinburgh players who we consider First-Choice Scotland Players played their way out of the national side, but, they certainly have ground to make-up in Saturday's second leg.
I now turn to the other big talking point from Sunday's game – what did the rugby supporters make of Hampden? “The Old Lady” is a lot different from the slum I first entered over 65 years ago. Long gone are the rivers of urine running down Sommervill Drive – a common occurrence back in the old days of 130,000-plus crowds for the bi-annual clash with the Auld Enemy. Long gone too are the piles of empty bottles which, back in those days of deposit glass bottles, proved to be the source of some profit for the young gentlemen of the Soothside of the city.
But, those of us who have gone there in both the old days of the towering terraces and in more modern times, following the botched rebuild of the ground in the mid-1990s, fine ye ken, it was a poor renovation, done on the cheap. Thirty-years on, Hampden is clearly not fit for purpose.
The BTL forum on The Offside Line is always full of complaints about the facilities at Murrayfield, after every big game there – yet, for all its faults, Murrayfield is a lot better than Hampden; perhaps because, the SRU isd still to a degree run by people who have to face their public, when they go back to their clubs.
The High Heid Yins at Hampden are well-separated from the PBI of the Tartan Army and never have to answer for Hampden's inadequacies. Also, there might be a feeling: it's mainly thee Old Firm fans who go there and they wold probably wreck a half-decent stadium.
If Scotland was a proper Country, with (and I may be reaching for the Moon here) politicians who cared about their nation and its standing in the world, we would have a single National Stadium, built on a greenfield siter, somewhere more-central, with good transport links and modern spectator infrastructure.
Aye dream on, that aint gonna happen any time soon, and certainly never while all the meaningful power in in London. So, I suppose we are stuck between the slum that is Hampden and the soon to be slum – unless the SRU finances miraculously imporve – Murrayfield.
The BTL section of TOL made interesting reading post-match, the natives in the Capital are not happy bunnies. With the two Edinburgh football teams getting off the basement of the SPL, the timing of Sunday's debacle was not good for the rugby team. I suspect a difficult week around Murrayfield.
Finally on the subject of Sunday: I thought Hollie Davidson had a cracking game, such a shame she will be restricted to Assistant Referee dutis in the Six Nations, while inferior male officials get the whistle.
ON SATURDAY I watched the Sharks v Bulls United Rugby Championship clash from Durban, won on the back of some superb defence by a well-under-strength Sharks. One thing which struck me was, in the very-first scrum olf the game, the Bulls' pack nearly shoved the Sharks' eight back into the Indian Ocean. I fully expected Referee Morne Ferrera to award the Bulls a penalty. However, he called “scrum dominance” and allowed play to continue.
Sadly, in subsequent scrums, when the visiting pack was equally dominant, he reverted to officiating type and penalised the Sharks. I am not, at this stage, suggesting we re-write the Laws of the Game, but, I feel World Rugby would do the Game of Rugby Union Football a huge favour, if they made minor adjustments to their advice to Match Officials.
Instead of facilitating the search for scrum penalties. Should we not perhaps be taking steps to return the scrum to what it has always supposed to be: a means of restarting play after a minor breach of the laws has caused play to break down.
I would make it illegal to hold the ball in a scrum – other than at an attacking five-metre scrum. Scrum halves should be encouraged to play the ball as quickly as possible, to keep open play going. If this approach was adopted, we would not see clubs playing for scrum penalties and would have a more-fluid game.
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