Britannia Waives the Rules

ONE rule for the English, another rule for us, has long been one of the gripes of the Celtic fringes in all walks of life. In rugby, we remember how, after the Calcutta Cup was turned into the Calcutta Plate, John Jeffery was suspended for six months by the SRU, while co-accused Dean Richards of England barely had his wrist slapped by the RFU.

Doubtless some serious thought could unearth similar examples, but, I like to think I have a life, so we'll let it be; other than to say, there's a bit of the deja-vu about the ridiculously short sentence England's Mark Cueto has received after an alleged eye-gouging offence. Plus ca change ken, as my Fife-domiciled French pal Pierre might say.

Of course, one rule for one etc doesn't only happen in England. I still have issues with how we integrate Sevens into the rugby season. There can be no doubt, the short form of the game is a terrific template for honing skills: how to use space, probe for weaknesses etc, while the greater space soon exposes lack of pace or passing ability. With Sevens set to become an Olympic sport in 2016, there is a small chance it might overtake the full 15-a-side game, rather as Twenty-20 or one-day cricket has overtaken three and five-day play.

If we are to get the best from the way Sevens might prove an effective tool for expanding rugby beyond its current boundaries and if Scotland is to continue to play a full part in the form of rugby we specifically invented - the SRU has to get its act together. I know, I shivered too when I wrote that.

Melrose on a sunny Saturday is a marvellous advert for rugby. In fact, Melrose in a snow storm is still a great day - but, in today's professional, even semi-professional rugby, playing sevens during the 15s season is a nonsense.

When I was a boy, the season ran: 1 September to 30 April, no arguments, no extensions. Even in the Glasgow District, where I played most of my rugby, very little 15-a-side rugby was played in April.

If, back then, the main sevens circuit went: Gala, Melrose, Hawick, Langholm and Jedforest over the last five Saturdays of the season - in the West we went: Greenock Wanderers, Glasgow University, Ayr, Kilmarnock, Allan Glen's at the highest level of the Glasgow District club game, with a lower circuit which took-in tournaments such as Wigtownshire (never an event for which you struggled to raise a team, since the apres-rugby with the wild women of Stranraer was awesome), Dumfries, Irvine and Cumnock.

In those days, there were County Cups to afford mid-week play in April and there was the season-long chase for the Glasgow & District Knock-Out Cup. This much-missed tournament offered midweek matches in the Autumn, before emerging from hibernation for the chase to the final in March and April.

The Knock-Out was a terrific event, as, in my own back yard, was the Ayrshire Rugger Cup, organised by Kilmarnock and the Ayrshire Junior Cup, which was an Ayr fiefdom.

During a spell of missionary work in Englandshire, I spent some time in Yorkshire, where I played with Morley. The Yorkshire Cup, one of rugby's oldest tournaments was a huge part of our season and the Yorkshire RFU had it running like clockwork, particularly in the final weeks.

The smaller clubs had, as with the Glasgow KO Cup, been weeded-out in the autumn, so come April you had in successive midweeks - the last 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, then the final. There was also a tradition whereby, if your team was eliminated, you followed the team which put you out, and if necessary the team which beat them, all the way to the final.

I remember sitting on the bench for Morley in the final at Kirkstall Lane, looking around at a crowd of 12,000 - we won't get that many at Murrayfield on Saturday I bet.

The final was a great social occasion, with old friendships re-kindled each year. It was a wee bit like Melrose Sports in that respect.

Today, our season is longer - our leading club sides start playing, far less training, in July, and are still in action into May - but we've lost the traditions of sporting rivalries which over the years such events as these cups built up.

Rugby today is less of a players' game and unless we find a way of giving it back to the players, the game will suffer. I'm all for professionalism in how we approach the game, but that cannot be at the total expense of the play-for-fun guys who are the backbone of the game, and who, in the end, buy the replica jerseys, the debentures and the international tickets.

When the Scottish Leagues kicked off, nearly 40 years ago now, the SRU took pains to try to ensure that "traditional fixtures" such as the Glasgow clubs' September trip to the Borders for ritual kickings, and long-established rivalries such as Glasgow Accies v Edinburgh Accies could continue, regardless of these clubs being in the same division. It hasn't happened and this has been rugby's loss.

The SRU MUST grasp the nettle, sort out the season and put the passion back into the club game - or watch it die.

Let's regionalise rugby - the local rivalries are like the old clan wars, a means of keeping locl clubs together. Let's have a definite sevens season, with regional conferences underpinning a national circuit and the Kings of the Sevens title. Bring back the local cup competitions. If we make the regions the backbone - albeit with a smaller Premiership of semi-professional sides closer in status to the full-time pro sides, I think we can re-invigorate Scottish rugby. With regions we can resurrect an Inter-District Championhip and we'll have a better idea of who are the coming players.

We've got 15 years of failure to undo, but we cannot wait too long before we start undoing it.

Let's go guys.

Wider Still Yet Wider

SATURDAY'S live BBC transmission from Melrose Sevens was a joy to watch, and well done 'Rose for the first home win this century - there will be some very sore heads there this morning.

But, how typical of BBC Scotland to demonstrate they can do a good job of covering rugby, with this single set-piece, while over the other 364 days of the year they treat the game with at best a wee pat on the head, but more normally total indifference.

OK, I accept the Melrose "Sports" has over 100 years of history, is an international event and is perhaps as close to Wimbledon or Henley as we get in Scotland - a "must-attend" one day sporting jamboree.

But, just as Wimbledon is just one of the four Grand Slam tournaments, and Henley is a side creek off the main flow of rowing world cups and the four-yearly battle for Olympic gold, so Melrose is a diversion away from the main business of the game, 15-a-side rugby.

It was great for the Scottish club guys to be able to strut their stuff on national TV, but, Ayr v Melrose, at Murrayfield on Saturday is a much more important game; likewise Melrose v Ayr, back at the Greenyards, on 23 April. Why, if Ayr win both these games, Ayr v Currie at Millbrae on 30 April will be bigger still.

But, the TV cameras will not be there, except of course oor ain, wee, haun-knitted Scottish Rugby Television, with Ron Fucking Evans doing his tenth-rate Rory Bremner does Bill McLaren style of commentary. Better than nothing, or is it? Discuss.

Rugby has gone backwards in terms of media coverage since the game went professional. I know one or two professional media men who didn't even get interviews when the SRU's media department expanded. Graham Law is still one of the good guys, but there are others taking the Union's shilling and giving back at best fourpence.

Likewise, there is an attitude of football is the only game in town on the sports desks of Scotland's quality papers - the ones who will give rugby column millimetres - and no, I don't mean The Hun and the Daily Rantic.

Rugby in Scotland right now has a good story to tell - Ayr's April would make a gripping documentary, for if ever a team faced a spell of "must-win" games its the men from Millbrae.

Now this current scenario came about thanks to the uncertainties of the weather, but, let's enjoy it while we may - it is such a pity a gripping series of games will not have the coverage they deserve.

RUGBY has a definite problem on its hands these days, and I don't think the IRB are yet ready to tackle it. That problem is referees.

I am coming round to the conclusion that modern rugby is too-fast, too-intense and too-complex for one man to be able to correctly referee a game. Referees are under intolerable pressure, from the all-seeing eye of the TV camera at the top end, right down to the must-win attitudes in even the lowest league.

If the IRB don't act soon, we may find nobody willing to come forward to be a referee.

The latest official to come under pressure was Andrew Macpherson, after yesterday's Boroughmuir v Ayr Scottish Cup semi-final. Firstly, what the hell caused the SRU to appoint an Ayr referee to such a vital game, involving that club. Speaking as a former Ayr player, I've always felt, since he reached the top strata of Scottish referees, that to ask Andy to take charge of an Ayr game is very unfair on him.

I am not alone among Ayr sympathisers in feeling he sometimes tries too-hard not to seem pro-Ayr and penalises them unfairly. It seems, yesterday, he pinged 'Muir once or twice when his decisions were controversial, so maybe, for once, he called an Ayr game straight.

But Andy's Meggatland malaise pales into insignificance when set alongside some of the controversies during the Six Nations: scrums collapsing, squint feeds, forward passes, interference running and so on.

In American Football's NFL, there are only ever 22 players on the field at any one time, but they are being watched over by SEVEN referees - such are the complexities of the rules.

Rugby has 30 players on the field, if anything more-complex laws and just three officials, two of whom can be up to 50 metres from the action - plus, of course, the Television Matfch Official to advise on contentious tries. At the top level of the game, we might well look at employing more officials, to sort out the illegalities and allow the game to flourish.

The first half of the first season would, I wager, be hell on wheels, but, once things settled down, I am sure rugby would flourish.

It's worth a try, however, given the pig's ear they made of the last experimental law changes, I feat the IRB might man age to muck things up.

We Try Harder

AVIS'S "We try Harder" slogan has long been held-up as one of the great examples of positive negative advertising. Avis stated the obvious - yes, they were second to Hertz when it came to being the biggest car rental firm, but, because they were number two, their staff tried harder to please the customer.

I can vouch for the veracity of this statement, one particular example of an Avis rep going the extra mile when I hired from them kept me going back to them for a long time.

Maybe the SRU should adopt the Avis philosophy when it comes to running the game - yes, football is the number one team game in Scotland, but, we try harder to put the sporting feelgood factor into Scottish sporting life.

The BBC's Sportnation programme this week had a live debate on the state of Scottish sport away from football. Was it a good idea to keep the big game out? Maybes aye, maybes naw. On one hand, had football been involved, that game and perhaps two particular clubs would surely, as is the case in the media in Scotland have dominated.

So, the programme, worthy as it was, was flawed from the start. It was further flawed by the timing - nobody from government could appear, since the Scottish government is currently in charge, but not in power since parliament has been dissolved prior to the May election. The fault line widened by the refusal of Sportscotland to get involved.

Diversion for a wee rant here - when is somebody going to do something about Sportscotland. It has become almost an arm of the civil service, unelected, unaccountable and to my mind only there to keep its increasingly bloated staff in jobs. WHAT THE FUCK DOES SPORTSCOTLAND DO?

Rant over - where was I? Yes, no Sportscotland. At least Gordon McKie, Honcho of the SRU turned up, and I must say fought his corner well. Give the man credit for appearing.

But, neither this debate, shallow though it was, nor any grass roots rebellion, will in the short term sort out the failings of the SRU and in particular the over-centralisation which is so-hampering our game.

When rugby went professional, the guys running the game adopted an all-or-nothing approach. You were either a 100 per cent professional or you were nothing. Now you might argue that a 100% Scottish professional only equates to 70% of a New Zealand or South African professional and reading Kenny Logan's autobiography and in particular his views on the difference in approach between Wasps and Glasgow will have you further doubting this valuation. But, you have to question if the SRU's approach has been the right one.

I would suggest that, since Scottish football went down the road of full-time clubs, it has gone backwards internationally, likewise, Scottish rugby post 1995 isn't punching above its weight as it did in the amateur days.

Look at Scottish golf - we still do well in the major international competitions, Scots are an integral part of the British and Irish Walker and Curtis Cup teams and the Eisenhower Trophy squad. But, once these successful amateurs turn professional, they wither. We haven't had a Ryder Cup playing hero since Sam Torrance or Monty, it's 17 years since Paul Lawrie won his Open.

Lee McConnell, lovely girl though she is, is a speaking extra in international terms, we haven't had a leading man or leading lady since Allan Wells, Liz McColgan or Yvonne Murray. In fact, it's the same in almost any sport you could name.

Even in curling, which is only played in Scotland on these islands, we've somehow gone backwards since Rhona Martin delivered the Olympic gold medal-winning stone of desting back in 2002. The Martin rink were all part-time sportswomen, since then top-level curling has become almost a full-time job and we haven't won the gold medal in the two intervening Olympiads.

Back in the 1980s Scottish basketball was as good as anywhere else in Great Britain and guys such as Bill McInnes were stalwarts of the GB team which tried and narrowly failed to qualify for the Olympics. Then along came David Murray to put money into the game, it expanded too-quickly, and contracted even faster and today basketball in Scotland has one milling professional team, with everything else back at church hall level, well down on 30 years ago.

Maybe the message is - Scotland doesn't do full-time sport all that well and we are happier and more successful playing our top-level sport on a part-time basis. Look at bowling, the ultimate play-for-fun, locally-centred sport. It is one in which Scotland leads the world: Alec "Tattie" Marshall, David Gourlay, Paul Foster, all Scots, are the game's mega-stars.

If that is the case, maybe the SRU ought to scrap the two professional club sides, streamline the club game and engineer it so we have 10 or 12 semi-professional club sides, with the top two playing in the Heineken Cup, the next two in the Challenge Cup and the next four in the British & Irish Cup.

Rather than having 60 full-time professionals in Scotland we would have a lot more guys prepared to put in the effort while not being in thrall to the game for their total income. Also, with long-established clubs rather than hybrid special teams involved, I wager total crowds would be up, and media interest would perhaps be greater. And, like the boys and girls at Avis - they'd try harder.

Scrap the professionals and go back to the clubs - one step backwards, two forwards, it's the way to go.

Mark Twain Had a Couple of Points

AND THOSE points were about lies, damned lies and statistics and also about reports of his death being greatly exaggerated. These old chestnuts came into my head when I read Martin Hannan's piece about playing numbers in this morning's Scotsman.

Sadly for the Murrayfield blazeratti, almost every public pronouncement of theirs nowadays is regarded as having been uttered by Lord Haw Haw, at least in the eyes of a small but vocal portion of the Scottish rugby community. The SRU don't need enemies so long as some of their friends are alive.

I do not for one second believe the SRU officials, paid and unpaid, aren't trying to grow the game as hard as they can; it's simply, I wouldn't give some of them house room.

We really are a funny race, we Scots. The clan system might have been abolished centuries ago, but this land is still riven by self-interest, factionalism and narrow-mindedness.

I don't think any other nation has an expression which comes anywhere near: "Him, ah kent his faither". The same self-interest which saw Scottish nobles, aye you, Robert Bruce, turn their backs on Sir William Wallace, is still evident today. There is still much sense in Bill Shankly's refusal to have any more than three Scots in his Liverpool team on any one day - on the grounds that with more than three, they started to fight amongst themselves, to the detriment of the team dynamic.

The SRU says playing numbers are up. From what I can see, they're talking bollocks. I live in Ayrshire, we've got eight clubs in the county: Ardrossan, Ayr, Carrick, Cumnock, Garnock, Irvine, Kilmarnock and Marr - when I first got into club rugby, more than 40 years ago we had nine, Dalry HSFP and Old Spierians, who subsequently amalgamated to form Garnock were on the go, but Carrick didn't exist.

Back then, Ayr fielded five adult XVs every week: 1sts, 2nds, A1s, A2s and 3rds; Kilmarnock fielded four XVs, as did Marr, Cumnock and Irvine each fielded three XVs while Dalry and Old Spierians each fielded two - 23 XVs. That's 345 adult players each week in Ayrshire - there aren't that number playing in the county today. Ayr only actually field two XVs as Ayr, plus the Millbrae XV. All the rest field a mere two XVs.

In Ayr, Ayr and Belmont Academies played rugby, each school putting out five XVs, the other Ayrshire senior secondaries: Ardrossan, Cumnock, Irvine Royal and Kilmarnock Academies, Dalry High School, Marr College and Spiers School each put out five XVs as well - with Ayr, Kilmarnock and Marr some years having two different XVs in a particular junior school year - that's over 500 school pupils playing regularly.

Ayr's efforts in the schools have been laudable, more schools are playing the game, but there aren't the same number of XVs on the go and outwith the public schools in Scotland, schools rugby, not just in Ayrshire, is a disaster zone.

I accept that with mini-rugby at primary school level, plus the growth of midi-rugby numbers have held-up and probably grown, through the clubs taking-up the slack which followed the teachers' strike of the early eighties - but received wisdom is that the fall-out rate at ages 16 to 18 is greater now than it was then.

Therefore, if we exgtrapolate the Ayrshire numbers across Scotland, we have to at the very least to doubt that the SRU's figures demonstrate a growth in rugby.

In my own club, the youth section is a shining beacon of hope for the future. We've got some tremendously dedicated and hard-working guys, including I'm glad to say several former first team stalwarts, who encourage the kids and work bloody hard to secure the club's future.

But, we've also got a few who never move far from the bar, are there all the time and seem to think it's their duty to mump and moan, pour cold water on achievements and generally cast a pall of gloom over events.

We even had one former committee man, a pe teacher at the main feeder school, who went out of his way to keep his pupils away from the club, in case they learned that he smoked, drank and was a total prat after three pints.

We've got another bunch whose stance is: "Aye, ah'll help the club, once they get rid of him, and him, and him too". Sadly I've seen this particular type of sad Scotsman in other clubs, in other sports, in other parts of the country.

It's almost: "I'm a Macdonald, he's a Campbell - it is our lot to be at war and unable to co-operate until the end of time". It's sad, but, that's Scotland.

Sadly, I see some of that attitude within Murrayfield. I sense a doctrine within HQ of: our way or no way; only we know what is the best way forward; it's our ball and you'll play with it the way we say.

We are always told, Scotland's greatest export has always been our people - those displaced cleared Highlanders, who got onto small, barely sea-worthy ships and set sail for Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and North America, where they built new nations and prospered, or took that glorious prospect, the high road to England, where they found it easy to succeed in competition with the indiginous population.

The brightest and best left - it's their descendants who run so many of the institutions of their new lands. Those who stayed at home, the dullards, the fearties, the ones who moved to Glasgow, or married their cousins and stayed in their home glens - well their descendants are running the SFA, the SRU and are the backbone of that unloved bunch, Scottish politicians.

We need an infusion of new blood - or, as our farmers call them, a few guid oot-crosses to improve the breed.

Otherwise - we're awe doomed.

Nobody's Child

IT will soon be 16 years since club rugby, the backbone of the game in Scotland, was cruelly cast-aside in the rush to professionalism. The 1990s Alickadoos who formed the Murrayfield Blazeratti decided in their wisdom that Scottish rugby, if it was to compete in the new all-singing, all-dancing professional game, needed a new structure.

That structure was four, then three, then two, fully-professional clubs, and that they and only they - the Murrayfield Mafia, were qualified to run it.

So, they took all the best players out of the club game and what happened? No, the club game didn't die, in fact, in spite of being starved of cash from Murrayfield, and starved of most of the oxygen of publicity from the Scottish media it has flourished.

The two professional sides' seasons are petering-out to the drip, drip of players leaving, voluntarily or otherwise, the Six Nations campaign was - well two or three hundred years ago a couple of generals would have been shot, pour encourage les autres - while our other international sides were, well, is pish too strong?

But, look at the much-maligned club game and in particular at Premiership A. The format might not be ideal, certainly it has happened more by accident than design, for which we have to thank the Weather Gods, but - what a climax, particularly if you're from Ayr.

On Saturday, Skippy Kelly's pink and black army will descend on Meggetland to face Boroughmuir in a Scottish Cup Semi-Final; win that and they are back in Edinburgh on Saturday week to face Melrose in the Scottish Cup Final.

Then, on 23 April, they head for the Greenyards, to hopefully again face Melrose in what is a virtual Championship decider, league leaders v the team in second place. Win that and, on 30 April, at their own Millbrae, Ayr will face Currie in a definite Championship decider. Win it, they've done the double and the mighty Skippy can return to Australia a hero.

Four weeks to go, everything up in th air and decided over these four Saturdays - that's what rugby is all about - real competition for real prizes. To be fair, the Herald and The Scotsman will cover these games, in fact, the Herald management might even allow Kevin Ferrie out of Glasgow to cover them - but, the publicity afforded Ayr, Melrose, Currie and Boroughmuir will still be nothing like the publicity given to the under-performing Glasgow and Edinburgh professional sides.

When will Murrayfield admit, they got it wrong and return to nurturing the grass roots, the true heart of Scottish rugby - the clubs?

MA BURD - a lovely sixtysomething widowed grandmother - was baby-sitting four of her grand-children on Saturday night. Sixty miles away I was similarly employed with three of mine. No relaxing Saturday night dinner a deux in a nice restraunt for us.

So I discovered, Saturday night TV is grim. But, thanks to the wonders of the internet and the BBC iplayer, I turned on BBC Alba and watched Munster v Leinster.

The match was a cracker. OK, I do not have the Gaelic, but I knew enough of the players to identify them and could see what was going on. At least Gordon Bulloch didn't have to undergo a crash course in speaking ochone-ochone before acting as a studio analyst and Saturday night was saved.

Good game too - great to see BOD being pinged, at long last, for hanging-to the guy he had just tackled - a long overdue yellow card; terrific display from Big Wagga at lock for Leinster; and some great kicking from ROG for Munster. Very few scrum collapses either.

But, let's face it, BBC Alba is nothing more than political window dressing by BBC Scotland. Cultural my arse; if Gaelic is a dying language, let it die. It would, I venture to suggest, better pay BBC Scotland to ditch the Gaelic programmes and instead, using that same channel, initiate a BBC Scotland Sport channel,provided someone at Pacific Quay realised Sport and Scottish Football are not one and the same.

If BBC Alba, speaking in English, covered Scottish football (and not just the Bigot Brothers and their hangers-on in the SPL), Scottish rugby, in fact, Scottish sport in general - they'd be doing us all a huge favour and they'd get their reward with increased audiences.

MY 15-year-old grandson is six foot four and still growing. He plays lock for his school and for our local club. But he's missing games just now, because he's on a growth spurt - two inches since the start of the year.

He missed an Ayrshire Schools Cup semi-final last week, but, there will be others. No teachers are involved in running his school side, just one helluva-enthusiastic member of the local club, who doesn't get either the assistance he needs, or the credit he is due for turning what are potentially a bunch of big neds into a team.

The Ayrshire Schools Cup is an initiative dreamt-up by Ayr RFC and run by Skippy Kelly and Glenn Tippett. But, it goes largely unreported, and doesn't yet have the profile of any of the Scottish Schools Cups. But then, Ayr, Carrick, Cumnock, Girvan or Kyle Academies are hardly Fettes College, Edinburgh, Dollar or Glasgow Academy, Merchiston and the like.

But, rugby is out there and it's time Scottish rugby paid more attention to the state schools and less to the public ones.

I remember, back in the 1970s, one of the great Daily Record political own goals. That was a time when South Africa was the place to which nobody dare travel, because of apartheid, but, The Scottish Thistles, in reality the Scottish Schools XV, went there on a somewhat controversial tour.

The Record's Labour credentials, of course, meant that it was dead agin the tour, but, they sent a photographer down to Glasgow Airport to take a picture of the team as they flew out. Next day this photo was published, above a lengthy caption which showed exactly where the Record stood: the tone was patronising in the extreme, something about: "Some of the young gentlemen from the Scottish Thistles rugby tourists, a party of young blades from some of Scotland's poshest schools...blah, blah...".

Aye right, as I recall the picture showed boys from Ayr(Tony Adair, public schoolboy!!!), Galashiels and Greenock Academies, plus a couple from state schools in Edinburgh and Dundee.

If a Scottish Schools XV was heading off to South Africa today, I wager the only one of these schools to have a boy near the squad would be Galashiels - and that's why we're struggling - initiatives such as the Ayr RFC one, run by Skippy and Glenn are too few and there is very little in it for state school teachers today to have the hassle of runnjing teams, to the detriment of rugby and other games.

Can somebody please sort it out?

Without A Prop To Lean On

SO, Hawick couldn't find two props for this afternoon's scheduled game with Glasgow Hawks, and, with the Border Sevens Circuit starting up, up the road at Gala, this game might never be played.

This of course would compromise the integrity of the Premiership and the Scottish Championship race - but come on, south of Soutar, April is Sports Month, the 15-a-side game does not matter.

I know the massive role the Borders clubs have played in Scottish rugby since 1871. There alone in Scotland, rugby rules. But, in this 21st century, we cannot have the tail, no matter how strong a tail, wagging the dog. In Scotland as a whole, 15-a-side rules, the leagues are coming to the boil and sevens should take second place.

What does concern me is - the fact that there do not seem to be two props still standing in Hawick. Aye Right. This one smells.

TO GO off on a tangent from the Great Hawick Props Mystery, one of the effects of professionalism has been the extension of the rugby season. Obviously, since people are now being paid, the time devoted to finding the money to pay these guys has to be extended.

When I was a boy, starting out in my club's drinking XV, you weren't allowed to play before 1 September in any year and your season, barring sevens tournaments, for which Murrayfield's permission had to be obtained, the balls were put away on the night of 30 April.

That gave you a 35-week season - add five weeks of pre-season training, while recognising that some of the players barely did five hours - and you had a season which was long enough.

Today, the professionals will be lucky if they get even two weeks off. We start playing league games in August and are still playing the following July. Now given the greater strength and fitness of even the semi-professional players in the Premiership, and allowing for the greater pace and intensity of today's game - that might be too-long a season.

There haven't been too-many, but the length of the modern season means double cricket/rugby internationalists such as Norman Mair will no longer be seen in Scotland, which is sad in the context of two primarily amateur sports.

I SEE Glasgow Warriors are bringing-in Mike Cusack from Doncastger Knights for next season. Good luck to the lad, however, it is sad that the vacancy for a prop in the Warriors' squad hasn't gone to a young Scottish prop from the top flight of the club game.

I've only seen Cusack play once - for Knights against Ayr at Millbrae. That afternoon, coming off the bench, he came off second-best to Ayr's Gordon Reid, a young prop, still only 23, who has already been called into the Warriors' squad, has played for the Scotland Clubs XV and was 2009 Premiership Player of the Year.

Surely, with that background, Reid is worthy of a place with one of our two professional clubs and I don't see Cusack as being that much better or even just better.

As a former Ayr player I'm delighted he'll be staying at Millbrae, but I'd love to see him at Firhill and I believe Warriors missed a trick by going for Cusack - a few more Ayr guys might make the Friday night trek up Firhill Road to see two of their own, Reid and Pat McArthur, in tandem in the Warriors' front row.

I accept, if the SRU could afford them, the good which perhaps signing a really top-notch experienced former All Black or Springbok could do for Warriors or Edinburgh. I cannot accept recruiting a journeyman prop from an inferior professional league over a big, young, promising and ambitious prop such as Reid.

If the SRU will not promote their own, they should get out of professional rugby.

The Natives Are Restless Carruthers

IT'S like a scene from a 1950s Rank Organisation picture. Stewart Granger and Tony Britton, (Fern's dad) clad in khaki safari suits are enjoying sundowners, seated in chairs around a camp fire. In the background, incessant drumming, growing in volume, can be heard.

Granger downs his G&T, lights his pipe and turns to Britton: "The natives are restless tonight Carruthers", he remarks - then a spear flashes across the screen and just misses his head.

Cue action.....

Much the same scenario unfolded at Murrayfield yesterday as Gordon McKie and Andy Robinson faced selected members of the Scottish press corps. Fortunately for them, none of the rotweillers of the red top tabloid hack pack were there; they are only unleashed for the big set-piece press conferences at Castle Greyskull or the Tattiedome - (Ibrox and Parkhead for any middle class, rugby-loving readers).

Nope, Messrs Ferguson (Scotsman), Ferrie (Herald) and Morrison (Scotland on Sunday) are much too well-bred to go for the jugular, but, if young Alasdair Reid had got out of bed on the wrong side, McKie and Robinson might have had to dodge a few bouncers.

So, no spear chucking, but the natives are still restless.

Professional rugby has never sat well with Scottish rugby's natural audience. For every rabid Robbie Dye on the hill at Mansefield, for every undiagnosed psycho in the packs of "the three Cs" - (Carrick, Cumbernauld and Cumnock, the successors to the Poison Dwarves of the Scottish Division, always looking for a fight) there are maybe one hundred awfully nice Hooray Hamishes who went to an Edinburgh Merchant School, or to one of the Academies in Glasgow.

These bastions of the smug Scottish middle class - and no middle class, even the English, does smug so well - might mump and moan about Scotland being stuffed at Murrayfield, but by the time they're into the second post-match Merlot: "Aye well Cameron, maybe we'll do better against the Paddies or the Taffs" is their position.

But, even the ever-so-nice Scottish supporters from Stockbridge, Kelvinside, Broughty Ferry and the sand stone villas on the outskirts of 100 wee market towns are getting ever so slightly pissed-off by repeated under-performance.

They would accept narrow defeats from guys who were teachers, accountants, dentists or lawyers Monday to Friday, but still turned out for their old school's former pupils club or represented their town team on a Saturday, before answering the nation's call on five or six Saturdays per year.

They will not accept under-performance from full-time, well-paid athletes. But, by the same token, Hooray Hamish and the lovely Heather will not pay the going rate to fund full-time, professional sport.

That's the circle the SRU has to try to square. England and France are big enough countries to support professional football and professional rugby. In Wales, with a nod to Cardiff City and Swansea City, the four "regional teams" - Blues, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets are the big hitters in Welsh sport. Similarly in Ireland, since yer Mick in the main street is either a closet Liverpool, Manchester United or Celtic fan (Rangers fan up North), or follows his county side in Gaelic football or hurling, Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster are the big players in professional sport on the island of Ireland.

Up here, the Old Firm are the big players, followed by the other SPL teams and, because sport is the last vestage of the clan system, we all love our particular rugby club or junior football team and cannot quite bring ourselves to give the same loyalty or funding to the two professional rugby sides which have been foisted onto us.

The Glasgow and Edinburgh hard core fans support them with the fervour you would expect from a Scottish fan, but, if backed against a wall, these same fans would probably admit to being Heriots, or Boroughmuir, or West of Scotland, or Hawks supporters first, Glasgow or Edinburgh fans second.

The fans don't like the centralised Murrayfield control of the professional game. Yes, probably, just as the Old Firm pair are Scottish football's only realistic hope of any success in Europe, then a big Glasgow team and a big Edinburgh team are Scottish rugby's best bet for Heineken Cup success.

But, better that such clubs grow out of a long-established club, firmly rooted in its town or city and with the relationship with its fans which it takes generations to grow, rather than a new, expensive highbrid, grafted onto the existing root stock.

The SRU never got that and until they do and loosen their dead hand, professional rugby in Scotland is doomed to under-achieve.

The SRU in its stewardship of professional rugby below international level is perhaps the last nationalised dinosaur still breathing.Time for a cull.

But, I don't see us cueing the action any time soon.