The Scottish Story

By Spender (on 13/08/02)
August 13 2002

There was a time not so long ago that Scotland’s international rugby players were household names. Sole, Armstrong, Calder, Irvine and the Hastings brothers, to name but a few. Scottish players, playing for Scottish teams, amateurs all. But not now, times have changed...

Back then there was no Sky TV, no Super 12 outcasts, just a strong domestic league and once a year in the autumn, the jewel in the crown, the Five Nations Championship. From a very small player pool Scotland produced world-class players, position for position the equal of any in the world.

Times change, as they must, and along came the professional era. The SRU through themselves in to the new age with great enthusiasm, at last players would get their share of the cash that was sloshing around the game, and Scottish rugby would go from strength to strength in the world game.

So what went wrong?

For years Scotland had operated a District Championship, a kind of state of origin competition, taking the best club players and having them play for whichever District they haled from. This was seen as a higher standard of rugby, closer to that of international games, it was also seen by many as the future of the game in Scotland. High profile backers such as Jim Telfer pushed through the decision to make these four Districts so called super teams, they would be the professional teams, financed and controlled by the SRU.
The Scottish clubs were cast adrift, left to find their own way while their best players were offered unbeatable contracts from the SRU. Clubs that had been at the forefront of the sport for over 100 years were now second-class citizens.

The powers that be at the SRU had decided that the only way forward was to adopt the New Zealand system of clubs feeding districts and these being the training ground for the international team. It was not long before the four districts became two super teams, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Pour performances in the Celtic league and the European Cup have been reflected in the decline of the International team. Apart from winning the Five Nations championship by default after England lost to Wales, then the following year beating England at a rain soaked Murryfield to prevent an English Grand Slam, Scotland have been on a downward spiral.

So what has happened? Where has it all gone wrong?

From the very beginning of professionalism the SRU made the mistake of trying to control everything. Top players were offered large and very attractive contracts, however two many of these were given to players past their sell by date, with little left to offer on the international scene. Dozens of young players with no proven track record were signed up and pushed in to the district sides where they played in a badly organised district championship made up of meaningless games. This was hardly the high intensity training ground that was hoped for.

The SRU even appointed a player’s agent whose job it was to organise the players off field sponsorship deals and bizarrely to negotiate the players' contracts with the SRU. As this agent was paid by the SRU he could hardly be seen as doing his best for the players. When some of the older and wiser players decided to seek their own independent representation, they soon found themselves sidelined and overlooked.

Young players have been brought in to the team, given one or two games then sent back to there districts to “mature”. Promising players have been given no opportunity to prove themselves, while others have maintained their places in the International side long after their best days where behind them. The old boy network in Scottish rugby is alive and well, if your face doesn’t fit you have had it. Not many years ago, due to a series of injuries running up to the beginning of the five nations, a young talented Scottish back was brought in to the team at the last moment. He played very well and was being hailed as the next big thing. However he was young and needed guidance and his work ethic at training was not all it could have been. His talent had been talked up and he had started to believe his own hype. Instead of taking him aside and explaining how he needed to get his act together, or having one of the senior players take him under their wing and bring him on, he was dropped from the international squad. Worse though the press were told that he was injured and this was why he was missing. A real homegrown world-class talent was discarded like a naughty schoolboy, and then made to play the part of the poor injured victim to protect the team management from criticism.

Of course there must be rules when it comes to training and players have to take responsibility for their actions but when management have a real talent they should nurture it. This player went on to great things, at club and international level but he never really achieved the heights he could have reached and Scotland missed an opportunity to build a team around a key player.

Next came the SRU’s obsession with the Southern hemisphere. Scouts were sent out to scour the world for anyone with any connection to Scotland. If you played rugby, came from the Southern Hemisphere and had a Scottish Granny, or in some cases didn’t have one, the SRU would give you a contract. Suddenly players, who were no more the good club players, were jetting in from Oz, NZ and SA and walking straight in to the international side. Worse still they were taking the places of home grown talent with in the Super teams. Young players on big contracts were not even getting a sniff of a competitive game, while others were not having contracts renewed.

One multi cap, a Scottish forward in potentially the prime of his career went from captaining a winning Scottish A side one week, to being told by his agent that he was no longer wanted by his super team the next. Instead he was replaced by an untested teenage Australian who struggled to meet the basic fitness level required when he arrived at the team. This player was seen as the future of Scottish rugby but could only reach level three in a bleep test…

While all this was going on, Scotland’s international squad was being picked almost exclusively from Zurich Premiership based players and those plying their trade in France. At one point most of the players in the team were either born and bred Englishmen (of Scottish decent) or in one case Channel Island decent, New Zealanders (of Scottish decent) and a couple of true Scots thrown in for good measure but playing in France. The super teams, with almost fifty highly paid players were providing only a handful of Scottish born players to the squad.

So where are we now? The once strong well-supported club scene in Scotland is just about ticking over and the great Border teams are about to be engulfed by their very own super team. What player will want to stay with Melrose when they could get a big contract from the SRU. Admittedly the new team is full of household names, or should that be old names. Armstrong, Weir etc are fine players but hardly Scotland’s future. Glasgow and Edinburgh are going in to the new season no stronger than last year. Only time will tell how the international team will perform but if Canada and the USA games are anything to go by, then not very well.

What about our exiles? The players who have embraced the professional spirit of the game. The likes of Campbell, Redpath, Mather and Hogg. Quality talented players, hard working and dedicated Scots all. They have been in some cases forced out of the Scottish game. In one case after playing all his first class rugby in Scotland (or on secondment to the south on the orders of the SRU), after turning down lucrative contracts abroad in a show of dedication to the Scottish set up, he finds himself cast adrift, let go with no explanation not even a phone call from his coach to say thanks and good luck. A talented dedicated, selfless professional treated like a piece of rubbish and thrown on the scrap heap.

Lets hope he can prove them wrong and give Leeds Tykes the performances he is capable of.