The Herald comments

Rugby club scene: Di Rollo joins call for move back to the grassroots
Published on 13 March 2012

Neil Drysdale

Marcus Di Rollo is an engaging fellow, with a beetle-browed determination to make an impression in his rugby coaching career, but the former Scotland centre's current travails embody why the sport is struggling here.

His team, Watsonians, have been accused of importing too many foreign players – an accusation which is vigorously denied by officials at Myreside – but, as things stand, the Edinburgh organisation which brought us the Hastings brothers and a string of other Test stars, is stuck between Scylla and Charybdis, determined to pursue a youth development initiative but suffering from losing some of that same promising talent to clubs who are faring better than Premier Two.

It isn't so long ago that Watsonians were meeting Melrose to decide the championship in front of a 5000-strong crowd at The Greenyards [in 1997], but life has grown more difficult in the intervening period and my conversation with Di Rollo explained why. On Saturday, for instance, they met and lost to Glasgow Hawks, on a Six Nations weekend, in a battle of the fallen giants, and the crowd was never going to cause traffic disruption in the surrounding environs. Yet, partly because of the current league structure and partly as a consequence of the SRU ploughing so much resource – and attention – into the professional game, the majority of Scotland's city clubs are toiling and Di Rollo isn't the only person to believe that the balance has to shift back towards the grassroots.

"This season has been a nightmare for us, to be honest. We have had a big turnover of players and we are trying to move away from relying on overseas players to encouraging our youngsters, but although we finished the first half of the campaign really strongly, we then had an eight-week break and all the earlier momentum disappeared," said Di Rollo, who is recovering from a hamstring injury, and turns 34 this week, but is still performing for the First XV occasionally, in the company of his younger brother, Ben.

"I know some people want to reduce the Premiership, but I believe we should be looking to increase it to 14 teams, then you would have a block of matches running all through the season, and not the present situation where we are playing one week and off the next.

"I don't think anybody likes the current structure. It is perhaps fine for the bigger clubs, who have the British & Irish Cup to go into, and I wouldn't want to hold back the likes of Melrose and Currie, Ayr and Dundee High, but that event only caters for three sides, and we have to find a way of getting all the clubs involved in competitive rugby throughout the season. Maybe there should be some sort of semi-pro tournament, but I am not sure that cutting the Premiership to 20 [from 30] does anybody any favours and I don't detect a lot of enthusiasm for the new format either."

In the past week, the problems faced by myriad clubs have been placed in stark focus by the decision of Whitecraigs to concede their RBS West Cup tie with Ayr, an absurd situation, which was the equivalent of East Fife beating Rangers in the Scottish Cup and subsequently withdrawing from a semi-final meeting with Celtic to concentrate on a relegation fixture. But Di Rollo is straightforward in his attitude to addressing the future. He will depend on Watsonians to nurture the new generation from the bottom up and, even if that process takes time, he regards it as the only policy which makes sense.

"In the past, we might have filled gaps by bringing in guys from overseas, but the days of looking for a quick fix are gone and, if some of our youngsters want to test themselves at a higher level, we won't stand in their way," said Di Rollo. "I look at Stirling County's example and how they persevered with their youth policy, which is now reaping dividends – Gala went down a similar route – and that has to be the way forward. It might not bring immediate success but if we are patient and we do enough work with the kids, I have no doubt that Watsonians can advance from where we are just now."

These are weighty issues of pressing concern to many Scottish clubs. In which light, they surely merit better than the sound of silence from Murrayfield.

This article was posted on 13-Mar-2012, 07:44 by Hugh Barrow.