Like Tam O' Shanter - I Escaped With My Life (Just)

SATURDAY'S double header at Millbrae: the National League 1 meeting of Ayr and Gala, followed by the FOSROC Super6 clash of Ayrshire Bulls and Stirling County certainly gave the massive crowd at Millbrae much to enjoy.

Two games, 122 points, 17 tries – that adds up to a great afternoon's entertainment in anyone's book.The scheduling also allowed discerning fans to see the difference between S6 and National League rugby.

It comes down to two things – physicality: you could hear and feel the power of the collisions in the S6 game, more than in the NL one; and sheer skill – the handling was far-slicker in the S6 game; yes, there were errors, but, far fewer than in the club game and more-often caused by the intense defensive pressure.

That's the thing. The S6 guys are better and more-intensely coached. They have higher technical skills, are fitter and there is less difference in ball skills between the “piano shifters” and the “piano players” than was shown in the NL game which opened proceedings.

Ayr v Gala was a more open game, but, particularly when the Ayrshire Bulls backline was buzzing, the off-loading and link play was at a much higher level in the second match.

Gala were a good team; however, Ayr had the most-influential player on the park in Kiwi player-coach Frazier Climo, who pulled all the strings, varying plays, kicking accurately and guiding the youngsters around him. He had excellent support from Danny McCluskey, who like Climo, stepped down from S6 this season. They are doing a great job in guiding the young Ayr team.

But, Gala weren't that far behind. For them stand off Craig Dodds is a real chip off the old block. Not (yet) as good as his father, former Scotland and Lions full back Peter, but, still a fine player who could probably operate at a higher level. They have a big, well-drilled pack, maybe not as fit as they might be and if they can cut down on the handling errors – they could well be in the mix for promotion come the season's end.

When it came to the S6 game, I felt a wee bit for County. They were put through the sausage machine in the tight exchanges and as a result, struggled to get front-foot ball. But, when they did, they encountered a near-suffocating Bulls defence. Time and again, County would go through the phases, before either giving the ball away, or conceding a daft penalty to hand Bulls back possession.

Bulls, on the other hand, always seemed to have support runners, while some of the off-loading was, well Warriors' standard.

Bulls last two games have seen them win by six tries to one, and seven to two – such dominance isn't supposed to happen in S6. No wonder Coach Pat McArthur was smiling broadly at the end.

There was one other difference in the two games – the quality of refereeing. I wasn't expecting too much when I learned the NL1 match would be refereed by Gordi Reid. Honestly, the other Gordy Reid – the one who wears the (allegedly) Blacks of Greenock-made 5XL Marr number 26 jersey – could have refereed better than Mr Reid did in the first half. To give the official credit, he came onto a better game after the break, whereas David Sutherland, in the S6 match, was on top of things from the off.

And what a start that game had. Bulls collected the kick-off and less than a minute and 11 phases later, Matt Davidson was touching down for the opening try. That is an NFL offensive drive level of precision playing.

Seven paragraphs above here, I mentioned the impact Frazier Climo and Danny McCluskey have had on this still young Ayr Club XV, bringing their experience down to this level. I appreciate some clubs, living close to an S6 franchise have had concerns about “player warehousing,” whereby the S6 franchise creams off all the local talent, keeping them in their Club XV, in case they be needed at the next level up.

But, looking ahead – three to five years down the line, I suspect we will see more S6 players doing what Climo and McCluskey have done and opting-out of the more intense S6 life for ordinary club play, but, in the process bringing at least some of the S6 intensity with them and showing the younger club guys, stepping up from youth rugby: “This is how you do it, these are the lessons to be learned.”

If the likes of Beauden Barrett and Finn Russell can benefit from having Climo beside them, why not this current Ayr crop? I know Fraser Thomson called time on his playing career to become Gala coach, but, watching his old sparring partner, Climo, enjoying himself on Saturday, I wonder if Fraser perhaps thought: “I could do that, pull the strings in the back division.” Such a move just might benefit Gala in the long run.

The great Hugh Dan was on commentary duty at Millbrae on Saturday, the Voice of Gaeldom's first visit to the ground. It was good to see him there and enjoying his day out to the coast. He wasn't the only media big name to be seen, former Daily Express (in the days when it was a respected newspaper) Formula 1 and Rugby Correspondent Bob Mackenzie – a first team winger with Ayr in his youth, was also on-hand. Bob enjoyed a good career in Journalism, but he has been out-shone by his immensely-talented daughter Lee. He was telling me he struggles to keep up with her globe-trotting life: last week – Tokyo for the Paralympics, this week – Monza for the Italian Grand Prix.

Lee has come a long way from the days when, as a Fifth Year pupil at Ayr Academy, she first dipped her toe in the journalism pool, reporting on Ayr games for the Ayrshire Post.

AFTER all the excitement of Saturday, Sunday's Boroughmuir Bears v Southern Knights match was – well, that rarity in S6, boring. Knights, however, eased clear in the second half to claim the bonus-point win which keeps them top of the table.

They deserved to win too; they were clinical and efficient when necessary and got the result they wanted.

BUT, it has to be said, the result of the day on Sunday had to be the Quade Cooper show, which saw the Australians defeat the South Africans on the gold Coast.

A great result for Dave Rennie, an even-better one for Cooper, but, I can already hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth in South Africa as the Bokke fans blame everyone and anyone for this defeat.

A Good Game Despite The Technical Difficulties

OK I ADMIT IT, to those of us not from Edinburgh, and I wager a good number of “Cnuts frae Edinburgh” as our capital citizens are known elsewhere in God's Country, Watsonians v Heriot's is one of those games you wish both sides could lose. But, that FOSROC Super6 game last night was a cracker. Well, what I saw of it.

Right from the start, it all went wrong. The live stream (which is always 30 seconds ahead of the TV broadcast, kicked-off three minutes late, and, even before the game kicked off, there were breaks in transmission. Eventually, both the BBC Scortland website feed, and the BBC iplayer feed went down, about ten minutes into the game. However, for some reason the SRU website live stream worked a treat and I was able to watch most of the first half.

Back with the iplayer, I enjoyed the second half, and Heriot's eventually successful fight-back to win 21-20. Maybe in sympathy with the technical problems, I have to say Finlay Brown the referee had an up and down game. He's a good young official, and I like the way he builds a rapport with the players and communicates well, with a light touch.

However, I felt he boobed with Fraser Hastie's yellow card. For me, it was a case of mistaken identity, he pinged the wrong Herioter in the black scrum cap – Jack McLean was, for me, the man who should have gone.

Then, in the second half, he yellow-carded Steven Longwell in similar circumstances. For me, big Steven was barged to the ground by Jack Hill, and was unlucky to get yellow-carded and see his side concede a penalty try. Mind you, maybe somebody had a word with Fin, otherwise Hastie could have gone off for good on a second yellow, for pulling down another maul. Maybe the ref's first mistake had been pointed out to him, allowing Hastie to stay on.

Finally, I think we unearthed a diamond during the troubled broadcast. I thought Heriot's Director of Women and Girls Rugby, Rhona Hume was a revelation as the colour commentator – she's the best I've heard yet on S6 commentary duty.

RUGBY 12s – or whatever they eventually call it, looks like being the hot topic of discussion over the next few weeks or months.

Just how will World Rugby and the big Unions react to the proposal? How will the major English and French clubs react. As ever, money will talk and whoever has the most money will talk the louder and win the day.

I don't blame the top players for being interested in any scheme which offers them more cash, and, if the new scheme is properly funded, the timing is good, since the club owners must be feeling the chill of the last 18 months.

For the English and French, it's the club owners who have to mainly deal with any perceived threat from the new outfit, for the rest of us, including Scotland, well, the Unions control the players – how much of that control will they be willing to relinquish.

I am sure deals will be done, but, I would like to hear a bit more about what the proposed new game will look like, before deciding if I am for it or agin it.

TODAY is a big one for Edinburgh Rugby, with their meeting with Newcastle Falcons, the first match at Legoland, as I like to call their new ground at Murrayfield. A first outing too for Mike Blair as coach, and, with the Falcons already having beaten Glasgow Warriors this pre-season, a chance to get a wee bit of one-upmanship going.

Elsewhere, Ayrshire Bulls v Stirling County in Super6 should be a cracker. This is the second leg in a major Glen Tippet/Billy McHarg Production at Millbrae today. It all kicks off with perhaps the pick of the National League 1 fixtures – Ayr v Gala, and to add spice, this is Ladies Day at Millbrae.

Ladies Day has been described as the annual reunion of Miss Cutty Sark's Descendants. Basically, take 350 Bonnie Lassies, across the age range, lubricate with Prosecco, feed, then stand well back and watch developments.

Some of us, unfortunately, are there to work.

Match of the Day in the Premiership, is probably the Malleny Park meeting of Currie Chieftains, keen to atone for last week's loss at Hawick, and Marr. Hawick meanwhile, are in Glasgow to face GHA.

HE cannot say I didn't warn him he was entering a nest of vipers, so I am not at all surprised to see former SRU COO Dominic McKay getting himself out of Celtic Park after only a few months.

It takes a special kind of masochist to work for either half of The Bigot Brothers, and Celtic clearly hired the wrong man from The Junta - TCD is far-more suited to life in sectarian circles than Dom ever was. But, maybe his Consigliere warned our Great Leader of the perils of Parkhead.

FINALLY, I don't like the new Scotland kit. But, I don't think I've liked a single kit produced by Macron, so, nothing new there.

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The Club Game Is Back And So Are The Problems

WHAT have we learned from Week One of the Tennent's Leagues? Well the first thing I have learned is what a fabulous job the late Ron Evans did in collating all the Scottish club scores. I said when Ron was taken from us, he'd be very-difficult to replace and Week One bore that out.

The SRU has apparently taken scores collection in-house; and given the moger they have managed to make of getting just the three FOSROC Super6 scores in and posted in a workmanlike manner, I wasn't too confident of their ability to do the job on a normal club week.

As I type this, on Sunday, some results, which are up on other sites, are not up on the official SRU one – further confirming what I have long known, when, as with the SRU Media Department, the weakest link in the chain is the main one – you've got problems.

By my estimate somewhere between one-third and half of the matches scheduled for Saturday were either not played, or, 24 hours after they finished, the result was not up on the official SRU fixtures and results website – this is unacceptable. If the bulk of these missing results were down to club officials not bothering to send them in, it may be a temporary problem. If they are missing because the games weren't played, we have a bigger problem.

We also learned that some lads in Hawick grow-up quickly when put inside a green jersey. I was in the minority, but, pre-match I reckoned the Robbie Dyes could do a job on Currie and they did. Let's hope they can build on this great start, Scottish rugby needs a strong Hawick.

It was a case of picking-up where they left off, as Marr thumped Glasgow Hawks in the game I watched at Fullarton. The young Hawks team started well and were giving Marr a game, before Craig Redpath introduced 'Winston and Boaby', or Stephen Adair and Gordy Reid to the action. (Marr already has a Jack and Victor – hence the names for the two players).

Their experience immediately countered the control Gary Strain and Co had been enjoying up front and from 7-7 the score was advanced to 21-7 by half-time. One or two of Hawks' more-experienced hands looked to be over the hill, as the game continued, but, against this, they have some bright young talent at Balgray.

Reid, who scored his first try since scoring for Scotland in the 2017 Calcutta Cup match, was impressed by young Moby Ogunlaja, the teenaged Hawks tight-head who came off the bench to lock horns with him. “He's a big, solid lump who could go places,” said Gordy. I am sure, under Strain's tutelage, the young Dundonian Academy prospect will come on in leaps and bounds.

I was in good company at Marr on Saturday, after Marr President Stephen Allam invited me to the pre-match lunch, which, as always was a joy. Here I found myself in the always delightful company of Hawks' Sponsorship Manager Rona Gibson.

Rona, a true West End Girl, (that's an Uptown Girl with more class), confessed to a strange ambition – she wants to get into Hawick's Station Bar some Saturday night. Over to you 'Pundy.” The question is: is Rona ready for the Station, or is the Station ready for Rona?

Sadly, on Saturday one or two games fell victim to Covid cases, but, I suppose this is something we will have to get used to for a while yet. But, just to get rugby played was good enough for most of us.

One game which fell victim to Covid was the West Regional League 2 clash of Cumnock and Helensburgh at Broomfield. Pardon the cynicism, but, the match did clash with the meeting of Cumnock and Auchinleck Talbot. Just saying like.

AS SOMEONE who spends more time on Facebook than is perhaps good for him, I must admit I am growing weary of some of the absolute garbage which appears on there. I refer to some of the online 'rugby tabloids' which have proliferated of late.

It's almost a case of a constant battle between supporters of (mainly) England, South Africa or New Zealand attempting to prove which clan is the thickest. It's all getting a bit wearing.

This weekend, we even had the first (certainly that I've seen) forecast of who will be in the Lions squad for the next tour. I don't know who will be picked, but, I rather suspect at least one of the eventual party will, right now, be either in his last year of school or his first in a rugby academy. Picking Lions' squads now – it's a fool's errand and a waste of time and space.

MUCH discussion of Jordie Barrett's red card in the All Blacks v Australia game at the weekend,after his boot clearly caught the face of Wallaby Marika Koroibete. This is one incident which I think will always cause debate. For instance, I think back to Geoff Cross being sin-binned while flat out on a stretcher, after being caught in similar circumstances by Wales full-back Lee Byrne.

Last season, in a Gallagher Premiership match on BT Sport, there was a similar incident, in which the player catching the ball was red-carded, quite rightly in my view, since he definitely moved his front foot into the face of the would-be tackler. I remain convinced Byrne did this too.

I haven't seen a full run-through, but, it seems to me Barrett was using his front leg as a guard or repellant, which I think is quite fair – I was taught to jump like this as a young goalkeeper coming for crosses.

To me, if the front leg stays in one position and the opponent runs into it, it's his fault. However, if the front leg moves into the would-be tackler, it's a red card, but, it's always going to be a difficult one to call.

FINALLY a wee reminder, all below the line comments are still being pre-moderated, thanks to the action of either – one quarter-wit with multiple personalities, or a handful of individual quarter-wits.

If I cannot verify who is posting, or if I think their post is pish, it gets deleted. I am sorry it has to be this way, but, needs must. My blog – my rules.

The Calm Before The Storm

BACK when the Rank Organisation WAS the British film industry, a staple seen of every boys own mini-epic. As square-jawed, stoic, English yeomen, clad in khaki and pith helmets prepared to go forth and give the latest band of uppity “towel heads” or “fuzzy-wuzzies” a damned good thrashing, the night before it all kicked off, a young subaltern – usually Kenneth More or maybe Richard Todd, would be gazing out from the fort, he would be joined by an older British officer, C Aubrey Smith perhaps, who would tell him: “I don't like it Carruthers, it's too damned quiet.”

It's a wee bit like that around Scottish rugby this week, as we prepare to welcome back club rugby and the return of the Tennent's Leagues. Today, it's not upstart natives we are fighting, it's this damned pandemic and already, Covid is making inroads into the fixture list.

Two of the five Premiership games – the meetings between Aberdeen Grammar and Edinburgh Academical and Jed-forest and Selkirk have bitten the dust, I fear there could be more call-offs before the whistles blow to resume hostilities at 3pm.

But, that's the reality we are living through. I just hope we don't lose many more games today.

VERILY it is written that to some degree, Scottish Rugby has never recovered from the Teachers' Strike of the mid-1980s. Maybes aye, maybes naw, as somebody once said. I get the impression, that industrial action was a wake-up call for a lot of teachers, who, freed from coaching and managing duties in football and rugby suddenly got their lives back and could play golf etc.

If it is still impacting the game nearly 40 years on, with all the teachers involved now retired, well, that's a black mark against the game and its rulers.

The private (Public) schools have, of course, made hay in those years, to all but take a stranglehold on youth rugby, while once thriving rugby programmes in big state schools are few and far between nowadays.

However, I intend here, to praise one programme which has shown how co-operation between a school and a club can work. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Marr Programme.

OK, Marr Rugby has given us: Peter (PC) Brown – a distinguished former Scotland captain. His younger brother, the late Gordon Brown – a British Lions legend. Bill Cuthbertson, a Scotland icon of the 1980s and present-day Scotland internationalist D'arcy Rae of Bath. But, rugby is only the second sport in Troon, behind golf.

Marr College has a long and proud tradition of producing good rugby players – over and above the four internationalists, and, in its 50 years at Fullarton, Marr RFC has maintained that tradition.

This week I was sent an interesting message, from a former Marr member, these many years in the Scottish Diaspora, living and working in England. He furnished me with a list of new players to Marr for this season.

The club has recruited 45 new faces for the new season, and a remarkable 32 of these players have come from Marr College. They join the considerable number of Marr College old boys – such as the Bickerstaff brothers who are established players with the club.

Marr will be running three XVs – with replacements, this season and their success demonstrates what is possible, if clubs work with schools and make an effort to keep young players engaged.

Well done Marr, Director of Rugby Kevin Quinn and the team, you are an example to us all.

I RECENTLY suggested that the clubs, both big and small, should be doing more to; “become the media,” to circumvent the old mainstream media's reluctance to treat Scottish rugby seriously.

I mentioned the good work being done by the likes of Ayr, with their Pink and Black Newsletter and Glasgow Hawks with their newsletter. Yesterday, quite by chance, I happened upon another excellent club publication – Melrose's The Rose.

Great stuff, including some terrific articles, such a pity I struggled to read it online, more-so because, the yellow background doesn't make for clarity. But, well done to the boys down at The Greenyards.

ANOTHER subject I commented on in a recent post was the University of South Wales' study into rugby collision industries. The Guardian has got its teeth into this one, and isn't letting go – as witness a recent piece by Andy Bull, in which he asks how come it has taken rugby so long to take seriously a condition which had been identified in boxing before World War II.

Bull's excellent piece concluded: “Which begs two questions. One is why has it taken so long for rugby to begin to establish what has been widely accepted for years in boxing, especially when a player such as Popham says he believes he was taking “10 times as many blows to the head as a boxer does during a year” during his professional career? And the other, more important one, is: are the measures the sport has taken in the last few years, which have focused on diagnosing, treating and preventing concussions, addressing the real problem?”

Good question – what is the answer? Shouldn't we be upsetting the Aye Beens, by doing something about the problem, before m'learned friends get in there and do it for us?

 

 

GLASGOW Warriors got back into action last night, losing at the death, 7-12 to Newcastle Falcons. A crowd of almost 3500 for a pre-season game is good, particularly since few of the big-name Glasgow players featured.

One or two young players got a run-out, Dunky Weir marked his return with a try and the conversion and it took a very late breakaway try to separate the teams. The suspected broken jaw sustained by Ratu Tagive was the only down side to the game for coach Danny Wilson.

Still, fans back inside Scotstoun is yet another welcome sign of a return to something like normality and is to be welcomed.

Here's A Means Of Getting More Kids Playing

YOU GET TO KNOW all sorts of diverse people when you get into rugby writing. A few years back I got to write the obituary on a former Scotland internationalist who had gone on to become an influential coach. In the course of writing the obit, I got in-touch with his son, and from that small start, an interesting online friendship developed.

My friend retired on Tuesday from the well-known English public school where he taught and coached rugby – indeed, one of his former pupils is in today's Scotland squad. He has always had interesting stuff to impart about the game and in his last missive to me, this week, he touched on an idea he had.

This was to initiate, at schools level (it could obviously transfer to youth rugby at club level) a hybrid ten-a-side game, with the emphasis on running and handling. His motivations were:

• With three-man scrums there would be no need for specialist props – which would answer the increasing difficulty being found in getting boys to play these positions

• There would be running and handling, but not so-extreme as in Sevens

• It would tend to be less-physical than 15-a-side.

My friend believes the bigger schools could still, if they wished, have the numbers to run a traditional rugby programme, but tens would suit smaller schools with fewer pupil numbers. With ten-a-side there would be a chance to pass safety assessments and reduce parental concerns as to the wellbeing of the kids.

I reckon this idea may have legs and is worth considering. Anything which has a chance of grabbing the youngsters' attention and getting them playing the game has to be worth looking at. As I have long said, we now need to adapt traditional rugby to grab the attention of today's youngsters.

I WAS prompted by reading The Guardian's take on a University of South Wales study, published in full last week in The Journal of Experimental Physiology. This suggests, following the study, conducted on one of the four Welsh sides competing in the United Rugby Championships, that in as little as a single season, the repeated contact impacts in the professional game cause a decline in brain and cognitive function.

In conducting the study, the researchers examined the same players pre, mid and at the end of a full season and assessed the results. They found a decrease in blood flow to the brain, and noted that repetitive contact events, rather than merely concussion, was a contributory factor.

The study, of course, was only concerned with professional players. However, Professor Damian Bailey said, in answer to a question from the BBC – that while it was difficult to say, he did not think results would be terribly different for ordinary club players. The Professor added, while professional players had less time in which to recover, bigger physics and potentially bigger impacts as a results of contact, amateur players could have arguably poorer technique and be at-risk as a result.

Research is ongoing, including looking at retired players, while World Rugby, in a statement responding to the findings, said it welcomed further research and pointed out it had committed to doubling investment in player welfare and new concussion research and initiatives.

This is definitely a worrying development, and one which the game has to address as a matter of priority.

ANOTHER plook on the face of (in particular Scottish) rugby which needs lancing is the thorny problem of players in the FOSROC Super6 “playing down” in the club game. The failure to properly establish protocols and guidelines here is one of the continuing issues stemming from the absolute Horlicks which the SRU made of setting-up S6 and their failure to follow through on the companion changes of Agenda 3.

For the moment, Agenda 3 appears to have been deposited in Room 101 at BT Murrayfield, where it will doubtless lie until the last person with personal memory of it passes-on. It might be given CPR by the ongoing Governance Review, but, Ah hae ma doots.

I remain convinced, on health and safety grounds alone, we are heading for a friendly schism in the game, between the full-fat version of Rugby Union: big hits, rucks, mauls, physicality, which will be an Open game, and a revised game: “Recreational Rugby,” which will be a community-based, strictly amateur game with the more physical and risky parts of today's game taken out of it.

You cannot entirely eliminate the dangerous part of the game, but, I think, as with Amateur and Professional Boxing, you will see a distinct difference between the two games. Youngsters will start at one, mainly for enjoyment and fitness; then, if good enough, and committed enough, transfer to the harder, more-demanding paid side of the sport. We will not get there in one leap, but, how we manage the gradual change will be important.

Which brings us back to the thorny issue of S6 players playing down.

Here are a couple of BTL posts on the last thread of the blog. The first is a straight-forward request from “David,” a reader, the second, a response from “Clubfan,” a club official with some knowledge of what is going on:

One: “Any idea what the latest thinking on 'playing down' from the Super 6 is? I understand why the general rule was made, that players don't play down, to stop the club XVs of the Super 6 teams becoming stacked with Super 6 players.

But it surely doesn't make sense to limit someone like young Duncan Munn, to half a dozen games for Boroughmuir Bears, and then be shelved for the rest of the season? Have the rules been reviewed?”

 

 

Two: “Yes the rules have been reviewed and I understand that there is some sort of agreement between the Premiership and S6 for this.

Unfortunately you are stating with the wrong premise here. Super 6 was concocted at the same time as Agenda 3. Agenda 3 is specifically about banning payment to players in the club game. This is fine through the signed commitment from a President, Treasurer and Secretary that no payment will be made. I understand that there is an accommodation that has been made for Prem clubs to continue to pay players.

Super 6 is the vehicle used to have a semi pro game. As we know it’s dangerous to have highly tuned athletes playing against amateurs hence the no playing down rules. Obviously those great strategists at Murrayfield didn’t recognise some fundamental holes in their master plan. You can only play 22 guys at a time.

What to do? I would also suggest that allowing S6 players into Nat 1 teams is unfair. Club sides are prohibited from playing higher level players in their matches at certain times of the season. But let’s just rip up all the protocols because the S6 guys f’ed up.”

Let's look at Clubfan's answer. If I can begin at the end, I would refute the suggestion that: “the S6 guys f’ed up.” Every single shortfall and failing around S6 is down to the great brains inside BT Murrayfield, they messed it up and the clubs are doing their best to mitigate the mess they were handed.

I keep coming back to one basic fact – since August, 1995, Rugby Union Football has been an OPEN game. Provided the legal requirements of the country in which any club is located are obeyed – correct observation of that country's rules re tax, insurance and so on – there is no way a national governing body such as the SRU can stop a club from paying a player.

The SRU can suggest that no player below a certain level of the game may be played; however, if a club wishes to pay a player, provided they obey the rules as regards wages, tax and insurance, there is no way the governing body can stop them.

In any case, human nature being what it is, if payments were banned, we would be back in the bad old days of brown envelopes stuffed into boots while the players are showering post-match.

I don't actually think S6 players playing down will be much of a problem, I see more bother getting players to play up, as the physicality of S6 takes its toll on bodies.

Agenda 3 also suggested three levels of clubs – Gold, Silver and Bronze. The criteria for each level was clearly laid-out plus the payments the clubs could trigger by reaching each level.

Again, I feel the SRU messed this up and hopefully it will be looked at again. However, if we accept my premise about there being two levels of rugby – Rugby Union – the full fat version of the game we have today, and Recreational Rugby – if you like, “Rugby Lite,”

then we could start to get somewhere.

While doing my homework on this blog, I looked at the hoops Scotland's 150-odd Junior Football clubs have had to go through, now they are playing in the SFA-controlled East and West of Scotland Leagues. The clubs have had to become SFA-accredited, with the hoops they have had to jump through laid out in a booklet, which can be downloaded form the SFA website.

If the same sort of system was to be implemented in Scottish Rugby – Oh Boy! Fun and games would ensue, because, immediately, one or two Premiership and a good few more National League clubs, would find themselves in trouble, because they quite simply could not meet the required levels of infrastructure and organisation their position in the pecking order might indicate.

I have long maintained, we have too-many “National League Clubs.” Adopt SFA-style accreditation protocols, reduce the number of NL clubs, allow the small number that remain to pay players and play Rugby Union; then allow the other clubs to play Recreational Rugby, and I am sure, once the initial griping had died down, everyone would be happy and would find a level they could operate at.

Use SCRUMS to have strictly-limited player pool numbers, make it easier to have dual registrations and the problems of players playing up and down would go away. And, if we could (and I don't know how this could be done) stop some clubs who are not as big as they think they are, moaning and spitting the dummy, it would all be a bit easier.

Common sense might indicate something like this:

• Each team is allowed a pre-determined number of players, and registers up to this number.

• Long-term injured players can be de-selected and can be replaced on short-term re-registration deals.

• With feeder or associated teams, players could move up or down as required, provided the upper limit on registered players is not breached.

It's not rocket science.