Miller pulls on Scottish jersey but which one?

Ross Miller is included in a Scottish Sevens team for Singapore this weekend

The Herald reveals
A Scotland side is to take the field at the Singapore Sevens this weekend with blanked-out shirts because a conflict has been identified between RBS and Aberdeen Asset Management, two of the major sponsors of teams run by the sport's governing body, the Scottish Rugby Union.

Scotland 7s struggled badly at the Gold Coast tournament, the opening leg of the IRB's official HSBC World Cup Sevens circuit: they lost to Australia, Tonga and Fiji in the pool stages and were knocked out of the consolation Bowl in their first game by new head coach Phil Greening's native England.

Consequently, the opportunity to send a shadow Scotland team to Singapore under the banner of Rugby Ecosse, an invitation team that has played all over the world since the mid-1990s, was viewed as a valuable chance to provide the players with some much-needed match practice.

The trip is largely being paid for by Aberdeen Asset Management, whose name was consequently to appear on shirts specially prepared for the tournament.

However, the Scotland 7s team is sponsored by RBS and Herald Sport understands that was viewed as a problem when an SRU executive found out about the involvement of Aberdeen Asset Management – they also sponsor SRU-owned Edinburgh – less than two days before the team were due to fly out.

Rugby Ecosse officials distanced themselves from the issue, saying they had simply been keen to help the national team with their preparations for the forthcoming Dubai Sevens tournament by accepting an invitation.

An SRU official confirmed that the Aberdeen Asset branding would be removed from the strip. "Our obligations to our existing 7s commercial partners are important, so on this occasion the squad will play in non-branded kit this weekend," he said.

He went on to explain that, although the Rugby Ecosse squad are nominally an entirely different team with a different name, the problem arises because, on this occasion, they are made up entirely of players from the Scotland 7s set-up.

He said there would be no problem with any of those players representing Edinburgh at any stage in the season or playing for a club sevens side that had a financial institution other than RBS as its sponsor.

It would seem, though, that Aberdeen Asset is showing extraordinary generosity of spirit since the spokesman claimed that there would be no change to the funding of the trip, even though the fund management company is now being denied that branding opportunity.

This article was posted on 1-Nov-2012, 07:46 by Hugh Barrow.