We Have Some Players In Lions Contention, But, First Things First, We've Got A Six Nations To Win

I HAVE DECIDED to break the habit of a lifetime, and start picking my Lions Test and 'Dirt Trackers' XVs, based on each round of the Six Nations.

After every round I will assess the players, then pick a Test team, and a midweek team. I know, I am on-record as describing such selections as meaningless and annoying – but, since I cannot stop them, I may as well join-in.

My round one line-ups, as always in 1-15 order are:

 

 

Test XV	Midweek XV
Rory Sutherland (S)	Wyn Jones (W)
Ken Owen (W)	George Turner (S)
Tadhg Furlong (I)	Zander Fagerson (S)
Tadhg Beirne (I)	Scott Cummings (S)
Jonny Gray (S)	Maro Itoje (E)
Jamie Ritchie (S)	Mark Wilson (E)
Hamish Watson (S)	Josh van der Flier (I)
CJ Stander (I)	Matt Fagerson (S)
Tomos Williams (W)	Conor Murray (I)
Finn Russell (S)	Johnny Sexton (I)
Duhan van der Merwe (S)	James Lowe (I)
Robbie Henshaw (I)	Cammy Redpath (S)
Garry Ringrose (I)	Chris Harris (S)
Sean Maitland (S)	Louis Rees-Zammit (W)
Stuart Hogg (S) (captain)	Leigh Halfpenny (W)

Of course, there is no way that would be the Lions Test XV, or even that every one of these 30 players gets on the aircraft – assuming the tour goes ahead – it's all a bit of fun.

And, by the way, on a day when the seemingly ageless Tom Brady struck a blow for the oldies, at Superbowl LV, what a shame that Alun Wyn Jones looked but a shell of the Welsh powerhouse he has been for so long.

It is often said, timing when to quit is the hardest decision in sport, on Sunday's evidence, AWJ has maybe lingered too-long.

WHEN I first got into rugby back in the 1950s, England was not a particularly good team. Of course, back then the word of the “57 Old Farts” was absolute, the team was picked by a selection committee, which meant horse-trading of a high order went on – as it did in the other nations.

England's problem has always been: they have greater choice. For instance, the Irish squad is chosen from the players with the four provincial teams. These guys are, apart from the Belfast Giants ice hockey squad - who are mainly North Americans – the only full-time professional players in a team sport on the entire island of Ireland.

The Wales squad is mainly picked from the four regional teams, while the bulk of the Scotland squad play for either Edinburgh or Glasgow. England, on the other hand, has the pick of 12 clubs (13 if you count Saracens).

So, the coaches of the three Celtic nations, having a more-restricted choice, may be less-inclined to tinker with an under-performing team than Eddie Jones, which leads to greater consistency of selection and better team bonding. There are indeed occasions when small is not only beautiful, but the preferred option.

IN THE post-match madness of Twickenham on Saturday night, we saw the Fagerson brothers pictured holding the Calcutta Cup. Doubtless there is also a picture of the Gray brothers holding it, but, for me, the picture which summed it up, was this one below, of that manly embrace between Stuart Hogg and Rory Sutherland.

 

 

There we have it, two players, who first encountered each other as class-mates at Trinity Primary School, who studied together at Hawick High School and played together through the Hawick youth development programme and then, aged 28, shared in Scotland's first Twickenham win in their lifetimes.

Given the Hawick rugby legacy, I'd like to think, somewhere in the toon, today, there are another two Trinity PS pupils, who could go on and replicate the feat of Hogg and Sutherland.

For the future of Scottish rugby, I certainly hope so. A strong Hawick means a strong Scotland.

ONE OF my favourite British Lions legends is the one about Willie John McBride bringing his 1974 Invincibles to heel, the day after their series-clinching third test win.

To a man, they were still pissed from one almighty Saturday night hooley, when South African TV decided to re-show the previous day's match. Of course, some of the team wanted to sit down and watch the game in which they had played, only for their leader to remind them: “That's history, we move on.”

He was already thinking of the final game, and the chance to remain unbeaten on-tour. Well, I sincerely hope, none of Saturday's victorious Scotland team wants to go back and revisit the Twickenham win. That game is in the past, it cannot be changed.

On Saturday, they are at home, to a not very good Welsh team. That match, and winning it, has to be our focus. Get it win, then park it, and move on to the next game.

Take it one game at a time, keep winning, take the Six Nations and they will have left a far-more-lasting legacy than a first Twickenham win in almost 40 years.

Getting carried away after beating England is an old Scottish habit. Sure, it's great to beat them, but, there are higher peaks facing us.

I SAW over the weekend, Simon Berghan I set to be the latest Scottish player to do the M8 shuttle run – switching from Edimnburgh to Glasgow.

I may be wrong, but, it looks to me as if his arrival at Scotstoun will mean the departure of Darcy Rae, a Scotland internationalist whose face does not seem to fit with Danny Wilson.

Rae, in common with all the Scotland-qualified Warriors tight-heads, is younger than Berghan. He is also, for me, a better prop. It seems daft to jettison a 26-year-old West of Scotland boy, in favour of a 31-year-old brought over from New Zealand.

What message does that send to the many rugby-mad youngsters in the West, whose dream is to play for Glasgow.

I wonder at some of the personnel decisions being made by the Murrayfield apparatchiks these days.

For Once, Let's Not Be Scottish, Let's Keep The Heid

 

 FOR ME, it was one of the most-telling clips from a wonderful documentary. There was Allan Wells, having by the thickness of a cigarette paper taken the blue riband track event of the 1980 Olympic Games, jogging round the Moscow stadium on his lap of honour. Between typically Scottish semi-embarrassed waves to the crowd, Wells can be heard reminding himself: “Keep the heid, keep the heid.”

Wells' wise words should be the litany for Scotland this Sunday morning. We must Keep the Heid. Sure, we have just beaten England at Twickenham, for the first time since 1983 – 38 years ago. (Did anyone else note the significance of those two numbers – 8 and 3? - Wilson Shaw's game – 1938; Jim Aitken's team's win – 1983; 38 year gap till Stuart Hogg's team wins.)

I digress. We are all floating on air this morning, we have got the Twickenham monkey off our back – but, this is Scotland, where do we go from here? Can we kick-on from Saturday and, no pressure here, maybe win the whole bloody thing – The Guinness Six Nations?

As I write, I am waiting for this afternoon's clash between Ireland and Wales. We must not think: “We went to London and won, with home advantage, we can beat Ireland and Wales.” That kind of thinking can only get us beaten.

We have to travel to Paris. OK, it was only Italy, but, France were more-impressive winners in Rome than we were in London. Of course, we managed that rarity – Scotland beating England without hitting the heights. A team at the top of its collective game, with the amount of possession we had on Saturday, would be expected to score more than one try, and blow the opposition away.

The fact, even on a collective bad day at the office, England could get away with a losing bonus point, shows they were still, even on an off day, a bloody hard side to beat.

We won, but, let us do what Scotland has a long history of not doing after big wins – Let's Keep the Heid.

FOR VARIOUS reasons, too-many to list here, former Ayr and Scotland B full back John Brown never got even the one Scotland cap his talent deserved. John still takes an active interest in the game, and his beloved Ayr, and his opinions are always worth seeking out when at Millbrae on a Saturday.

For years now, John has been lamenting the disappearance of the Spiral Kick from the game. John was an master of this skill, right up there with John Rutherford, another fantastic exponent of the art of the spiral.

He would regularly rail against its absence from the Murrayfield coaching book – now, however, it is back with a bang. Stuart Hogg launched several beautiful spirals at Twickenham on Saturday. These got me salivating; when you think of the distances the skipper found on a dreich London afternoon in February, what damage might his spirals do up on the high veldt in South African sunshine?

INTERESTING to read some of the reactions to yesterday's win, both in the mainstream and on social media. I did like the headline in the New Zealand Herald's match report. The report itself was a syndicated piece, penned by The Daily Telegraph's Oliver Brown. It was a very fair and measured piece too,

However, the production guys in Auckland clearly had fun, topping the piece with the headline:

Scotland dealt a grievous blow to England's inflated pride

 

Bill Lothian, one of the elder statesmen of Scottish Rugby Writing admitted on social media – he had, during the second half, been wondering how Scotland would choose to blow this one. I must admit, I was, for a time, also thinking this, but, as 20 minutes to go, became ten, then five minutes to go, my confidence rose as I realised we were playing a particularly poor England team – we would not blow this one.

As ever, that picture of the wrecked chariot was brought out, but, in the btl comments on various social media platforms, there was a distinct absence of foaming-at-the-mouth England fans, insisting we had only won because England were so bad.

It's s shame that, through necessity, the rugby club bars are closed at the moment – there would have been some wild booleys, from Shetland to the Solway, had they been open last night.

GUARDIAN headline writers hold a hallowed place in British journalism. When your back catalogue includes such legendary offerings as: 'Queen in Palace brawl,' or you come up with slick one-liners such as: 'Kevin Keegan could not lace George Best's drinks, far less his boots,' then the present-day staff are custodians of a mighty empire.

So, kudos to whoever came up with this cracker: 'Owen Farrell could tip the balance in a Six Nations defined by rival No 10s.'

That wee gem was probably wasted above another Robert Kitson puff-piece around England's armless captain. A different choice of words too, methinks. Wrecking ball GBH assaults, rather than tip tackles, are more the Farrell style. In fact, for me, Farrell should really be wearing number eight – he's my idea of rugby's Scott Brown, minus the skinhead haircut and the homespun Hill of Beath charm.

Kitson, has a serious man crush on Farrell. And, given how badly he reflected against a Finn Russell, operating at something less than “Finn-Plus” on Saturday, Farrell has to find a way of getting up to speed for international rugby, without playing at a high level between games – no easy task.

Finally, before this first weekend of the Six Nations is put to bed, I wonder how many Scots will have made it into those annoying: “If the first Lions Test was next Saturday, this would be the starting team” opinion pieces.

Today - As Ever - We Travel In Hope

THE HOPE THAT KILLS US, edited by Adrian Searle, is an anthology of Scottish football fiction. Nothing wrong with Scottish football fiction, it is often better and more-entertaining than Scottish football fact – which tends to be very-depressing indeed.

However, when it comes to hope killing followers of Scottish sport, I tend the people in real danger are the members of the rugby battalions of the Tartan Army, particularly when that hope is based around the bi-annual trip to Twickenham for the Calcutta Cup match.

This year, of course, there will be no need to travel in hope, thanks to Covid; that, I feel, has got many of us feeling good about this afternoon's match. After all, referee Andrew Brace and his team will not have around 80,000 Hooray Henries and Henriettas baying for every decision to go England's way and encouraging Owen de Milo and the other brave English yeomen: “rebellious Scots to crush.”

Of course, we cannot be certain that Brace, a distant relative of the O'Homer clan will adopt his normal stance of noticing every wrong committed by Scotland and nothing untoward in what England does – even the “tackling” of their number ten. However, we do have the wonderful Joy Neville keeping a watching brief in the outside broadcast van – which should be a plus for us.

I am hoping rustiness among the Saracens contingent in the England squad might play into our hands. Overall, there is little to choose between the two squads, indeed, if asked to select a composite XV from the XXX starters, I would go, in I-XV order, with:

Rory Sutherland

Jamie George

Zander Fagerson

Maro Itoje

Jonny Gray

Jamie Ritchie

Hamish Watson

Billy Vunipola

Ali Price

Finn Russell

Johnny May

Chris Harris

Cameron Redpath

Anthony Watson

Stuart Hogg

That comes down to ten Scots and five Englishmen. OK, our record at Billy Williams' Cabbage Patch makes anything by Sydney Devine sound good, but, this year, I feel we can be genuinely confident of our chances.

So roll on kick-off. OK, ITV Sport will be broadcasting, so we will have to endure Sir Clive Woodward, and to a lesser extent, Jonny Wilkinson, but, at least, we will be spared Inverdale and Guscott. Let's be thankful for small mercies.

IT IS no secret to regular readers of these ravings, that, when it comes to Buddy the Chief Elf and his SRU Media Department, I don't think they could run a bath. Yes, there are some highly-competent operators in that department, but, when the weakest link is the guy at the top – it's a recipe for repeated disaster.

Edinburgh does have the excellent Stuart Rutherford – Johnny Rudd's Son – as Media Manager, and, until the middle of this week, he had the excellent Scotland Team Media Chief Michael James working with him.

The equivalent Glasgow team has fallen a long way from the early days of Bill McMurtrie and Ron Evans, or even from the days of Mark Palmer and his successor – Jeremy Bone. Now, they make Murrayfield look competent.

So, Edinburgh were on-point as regards the poor media coverage of Thursday afternoon's A team game at Scotstoun, between Warriors and Edinburgh.

With no media coverage, (why not?); the press were not even allowed into Scotstoun, the game was a chance missed – to keep the Warrior Nation and the Edinburgh Family on-board with what was happening.

Glasgow didn't even post a team list, and while Mr Scottish Rugby Reporting – David Barnes – performed another excellent feat of investigative journalism in compiling a match report – which got a great number of hits on The Offside Line; as can be gauged from the critical reaction on social media – not covering the game properly was yet another own goal from Buddy and his hapless elves.

An interesting wee aside about the game; with our Number One referee: Mikey Adamson, on Six Nations duty this week, Hollie Davidson had the whistle at Scotstoun, another accolade for my favourite referee.

JOHN PULLIN, whose death, in his 80^th year, was announced on Friday, produced one of the legendary rugby quotes. In 1972, at the heights of the Northern Irish “Troubles,” Wales and Scotland refused to travel to Dublin to face Ireland. England travelled and lost, allowing Pullin, as captain, to tell the post-match official dinner: “We're not much good, but, at least we turn up.”

 

 

When it came to hooking, Pullin, a West Country farmer, on the family farm in Aust, Gloucestershire, by day, was very good. He won 42 caps for England, and played in seven Lions' Tests over two tours, in 1968 to South Africa and with the legendary 1971 tourists in New Zealand.

Back then, hookers hooked, and the ability to take strikes against the head was a considerable part of the hooking dark arts – Pullin got more than his share of these, at a time when he was competing against some other legendary number twos – Frank Laidlaw for Scotland, Ken Kennedy for Ireland and John Young and later Bobby Windsor for Wales and Tane Norton for the All Blacks. He was as good as any, both in the tight and around the park.

He was the first European national captain to lead his country to victories against the Southern Hemisphere 'Big Three” - Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. He also enjoyed victories over the All Blacks with three different sides: England, The Lions and, in that never-to-be-forgotten Barbarians match, in Cardiff in 1973.

Indeed, in that match, he had the distinction of being the only non-Welshman to handle during the length-of-the-park drive which began with Phil Bennett side-stepping across his own 22, and finished with Gareth Edwards diving over in the corner to score “The Greatest Try Ever.”

He played 298 games for Bristol, where he was an honorary vice-president. He had battled illness over the final few years of his life and, following his passing, more than one tribute has assessed him as one of the greatest hookers in rugby history.

That is a richly-deserved and factual listing.

Timely Words From One Of The Great And Good

THE 800 or so words which follow in bold italic type are lifted from a Facebook post by former SRU President Ed Crozier, (pictured below). Wee Ed has a terrific record in promoting rugby in Glasgow, beyond his own Cartha-Queen's Park club. I encourage everyone to read and digest Ed's timely warning.

 

 

 

“FOR months now I have been warning of the damage being done by coronavirus to the grassroots of rugby, and one of my main concerns was that we could lose a generation of players, namely those moving from youth to adult rugby.

Those who disagree with me have said that such players will not be lost to the game. Like every other player in the various age groups, they will suck it up and emerge at the end of the pandemic to take up the sport again, or so the theory goes.

Then yesterday morning a most fascinating piece of research landed in my inbox.

It was based on a recent survey by GolfSupport.com of more than 6000 people and asked them which sports they had taken up in the past and whether they had stuck with the sport or quit.

More importantly the poll asked those who had quit a sport just how long it took them to make up their mind it wasn’t the sport for them.

To my dismay, but not my surprise, rugby was the biggest internationally played team sport that people quit. If you accept the pollster’s calculation that you need to train three times a week for up to six months to reach what they call amateur level – I started with two midweek training sessions and was playing in the 2nd XV on the Saturday – then rugby really suffers.

For after boxing, shinty and dance – which I don’t count as a sport anyway – rugby comes next as the sport which people give up the quickest. The survey found that the average time from taking up the game to quitting is just seven weeks, which GolfSupport.com’s experts say is just 27% of the time it takes to become an amateur player.

I can understand people giving up boxing quickly – I did so myself after looking in the mirror and deciding I had too much to lose (sense the irony) – but I was genuinely upset though, as I say, not shocked to learn that people who take up rugby often quit after just a few weeks.

GolfSupport.com stated that they found 33% of those quitting a sport claim a lack of motivation as the primary reason, whilst 25% feel they do not have the time to maintain training.

The cost of training and equipment was cited by 24% as the reason for quitting, while just 18% cited physical injury. That last bit is good news because it proves that sports coaches are doing their job in at least keeping new players safe.

Interestingly, of the 39% who stick with sports the longest, they admitted to feeling motivated by increasing their fitness and the enjoyment of training – 31% said the latter, which would never have included me.

The sports which retained people the longest are yoga, football and golf. Again, I don’t class yoga as a sport and in the end all of the people surveyed eventually quit their sport, but clearly rugby is by some way worse at keeping people playing than football.

I am promised that you will soon be able to read about the survey at https://golfsupport.com, and if you do so I am sure you will reach the same conclusion as me – rugby really does have a problem at the grassroots.

Most people who get into the higher echelons of rugby are spotted early, usually at school, and then pointed in the right direction in the hope they may reach the top. The vast majority of players in Scotland are content to play at amateur level, and right now that level has been devastated for many months because of the lack of competitive rugby.

SURE, many clubs have devised innovative ways of coaching and training, but young players just want to be playing against other clubs and that’s not going to happen any time soon.

There will come a time when rugby and all other sports will get going again at grassroots level and there must be an extra special effort to get players back into clubs and training again. If that involves the SRU spending some of its dwindling resources on special coaching sessions, then so be it.

Better still, why doesn’t the Scottish Government prepare and fund a national project which can be implemented once the experts say it is safe to do so?

That would mean ensuring that gyms and other facilities are up to scratch and would also involve money going to clubs and coaches with a national marketing exercise to drive home the message that sport is good for you – you might even lose the corona stone or two.

They could call it “re-start your sport” or something similar, and from speaking to a few pals involved in community clubs I think rugby’s grassroots would jump at the chance to get involved.”

Those of us involved in rugby for any length of time are well aware of the severe drop-out percentage at that age when players move from school or youth rugby to the club game.

For instance, the year XV in which I played at school had a particularly-high carry-over from school to adult rugby. No fewer than 10 of the First Year XV with whom I was introduced to rugby at Cumnock Academy in 1958 went on to play for Cumnock Rugby Club. But, in many ways, we were an outlier.

With the help of Cumnock History Group's archive of school magazines, I was able to have a look at the annual Cumnock Academy First XV picture in the school magazine. I checked every year in which someone I subsequently played alongside either at school or in club rugby over a ten year period, starting in 1958.

I came up with 94 players from these school photographs, of whom only 45 played on in club rugby – just under 48%. So, a 52% drop-out rate in the 1960s. I would wager that rate is higher today, and with less school rugby played.

The SRU really has to do something to address this drop-out rate, to me, even 52% is unacceptable. I would love to think the great brains at BT Murrayfield have used their current fallow spell to have a serious think about what they can do to plug the player leak.

Let's see, and hear-of, some initiatives, to keep the guys playing. As Ed Crozier points out above, the guys with more than average talent are usually spotted early and guided and nurtured; it's the other guys we should be nurturing.

OK, the next Finn Russell or Stuart Hogg will come through, but, what are we doing to nurture the next Ed Crozier – referee and club official, or the next Ron Evans, whom we lost last week.

Wee Ron was an average player, but, he hung around, enjoyed playing at a lower level, then morphed into the journalist and results curater he became. We have to come up with innovate ideas for keeping guys like that involved, or the game will die.

A game's survival is down to the strength of its volunteers – the SRU really need to be helping the clubs keep the less-talented players, from whom the bulk of their volunteers come.