THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
DAVID FERGUSON

THE president and chief executive of Scottish Rugby Union last night stepped into a debate on the future of club rugby in an effort to bring an end to years of disagreement.

Over 100 clubs from across the country voted for a new league structure at June's SRU agm, cutting existing leagues to ten teams at the end of this season. However, in keeping with the past decade of internal fighting, a number of clubs still believe that decision to be harmful and have entered discussions about cross-border games with English teams.

Since joining the SRU last summer, Gordon McKie, the chief executive, and Andy Irvine, the president, have insisted that agreement is needed if the sport is to move out of the troubles which plagued the first decade of professionalism.

As a result, they attended last night's meeting of the Premier One Forum, a body representing Scotland's leading clubs, with Frank Hadden, the national coach, and coaches of the Scotland Under-21 and Under-19 teams, Iain Paxton and Peter Wright.

In a lengthy meeting, McKie and Irvine argued the merits of providing the country's leading young players with more time to prepare for playing at the top level. But many clubs feel that this, and the current academy system, is already cutting across their ambitions by taking away some of their best players.

The club and union representatives were last night hopeful that a solution could be found, but any prospective changes are not expected to be made until the next agm in June

This article was posted on 2-Mar-2006, 08:05 by Hugh Barrow.