SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS
Writing is on wall for clubs
IAIN MORRISON
THIS season has seen occasional signs of life in a Scottish club game hooked to a life support system for the last decade. Stewart's Melville have attracted crowds of 1,000 plus, Aberdeen Grammar's matches are watched by around 500 and some Border clubs attract numbers that are not far below the 702 at the Borders' Celtic League tie against Connacht.

These may be the green shoots of recovery for grass roots rugby in Scotland but any hopes that our clubs may harbour of improving their lot and narrowing the gap to the professional game will be endangered if the latest SRU plan gets the go ahead.

Frank Hadden, along with Scotland's youth team coaches and the union chief executive, Gordon McKie, fronted a presentation to the Premier One clubs two weeks ago and did the same to clubs from Premiers Two and Three last Wednesday. The meetings were ostensibly to talk about the number of teams playing in Premier One, an odd topic of conversation since that decision was made months ago, but they slipped in a worrying addendum at the end of the presentation which deserved top billing.

Their new plan would see the best of Scotland's young players signing central contracts with Murrayfield as apprentices - a move that would potentially see them removed from the club game. They would play Monday night matches in back-up teams and spend long hours in the gym before joining their age group squads post Christmas. McKie was keen to reassure clubs that they would still have access to their best youngsters but once they have signed a contract with the union there would be no guarantees.

"We would envisage that the younger apprentices would play the majority of their rugby for their clubs," said the SRU CEO last week. "However, it is horses for courses and we can't say for sure that every boy will play all their matches for the club team. The younger ones should play the majority of their rugby in Premier One, Two and Three."

McKie went on to concede that some clubs at the bottom of Premier One are using this initiative as an excuse to expand top-flight rugby back to 12 or even 14 teams but, ignoring that sideline, he still hopes to win round some of the more sceptical Premier One clubs.

"We would like the clubs to work with us and put aside some of the historic divisions and mistrust that have permeated Scottish rugby," he said before adding: "We think that this plan improves the pro teams without spending a lot of money and it is not necessarily to the detriment of the club game".

Then he corrected himself: "It is not to the detriment of the club game." The truth of that has yet to be proven either way.

There is some argument over the actual numbers involved but according to McKie the union are looking to cut the pro-teams' rosters from about 31 to approximately 27 full-time pros backed up by around 14 apprentices. If each pro-team used those numbers, the total apprentices, some on part-time contracts, would number 42. An additional 20-odd club players would have to be signed, the majority coming from the ranks of Scotland's age-group teams, to add to the 20-25 apprentices already in the system.

This plan has laudable goals: to better prepare youngsters for the rigours of age-grade internationals and the professional game. The best of Scotland's youngsters would be given elite strength and conditioning programmes since that is the main difference between the amateurs and professionals and no-one argues about the need to identify and help our best players at a younger age.

Still, any plan that potentially removes so many players from Scotland's best leagues is fraught with danger and may just be the final nail in the coffin of the club game. Hadden has little experience of, or respect for, the club game, admitting while Edinburgh coach that he would rather his unused squad players remain inactive at the weekend rather than turn out for their clubs.

Moreover, his remit is success at national level and his time-scale is between two and six years, the coming World Cup and possibly the one after that, too. This apprentice plan may help him in his short-term goal of creating a successful Scotland team in his time as coach but it could have long-term repercussions for the game in Scotland that scarcely bear thinking about.

The danger remains, and this is fully understood by most clubs, that once they have a youngster's signature on a contract, the union can instruct the player as they see fit. After a series of back-up matches between squads supplemented by games against the Premier One teams, age-group internationals after Christmas and the need for heavy gym work, there is a very real danger that the clubs would see precious little of their best young players for the league season despite McKie's best assurances to the contrary. Instead of placing clubs at the centre of the development process, and Premier One agreed to limit themselves to just ten teams in an effort to drive standards higher up, the new plan threatens to exclude them from the process altogether. The clubs would be adrift with the elite athletes moving straight from school to pro-teams apprentice without passing through Hawks, Heriot's, Melrose or the rest.

Not unnaturally, most clubs are at best uneasy about the plan but the Premier One Forum has yet to speak with one voice because the argument has caused bitter divisions within Scotland's top clubs. Strongly-worded e-mails have been bouncing back and forth within Scotland's top league as self-interest - clubs using the issue to fight for league restructuring - prevents the Premier One clubs from presenting a united front.

The young players offered these contracts will be signing away a lot in return for very little. The majority of them won't ever play regular professional rugby simply because the odds are stacked against them.

Instead they would be paid (a pittance) to bulk up and play a series of meaningless friendlies against other back-up teams when they could be raising the standard of the club game while learning about real rugby, relegation battles, cup runs and all the rest.

That something has to be done about giving young Scots a push or a pull up rugby's ladder is not in question but whether removing another ream of players from the BT leagues is the way to do it remains highly contentious.

Scotland's clubs have suffered so many kicks in the teeth over the years that one more may just cause them to bite back. If, that is, they have any teeth left.

Not surprisingly, the proposals did not find universal favour among a cross-section canvassed by Scotland on Sunday last week.

Kenny Hamilton of Glasgow Hawks said: "We have serious concerns about that volume of players being removed from the club game. The Premier One clubs have done all that has been asked of them in attempting to 'professionalise the process' and yet this move would potentially exclude the clubs altogether from player development."

Hawick coach Jim Hay insisted that "we play with a lot of youngsters at Hawick and I would like to see the club game become stronger not weaker. We see our role at Hawick as preparing players for the professional game and they have to learn their trade somewhere", while his Melrose counterpart, Craig Chalmers, added: "I am all for young players getting the right conditioning programmes and training with the pro players but if they are not actually playing for their pro-teams they should be released to the clubs. The clubs need to keep breathing and taking players away is like taking away the oxygen mask."

Ian Rankin, who has seen both sides of the divide as a pro coach and who is now busy guiding Dundee HSFP into Premier One, said: "It's a very difficult thing to get right but we have to feed the club scene somehow. The clubs have to have some sort of worthwhile competition, some semblance of excellence and some of these young guys get more from club rugby than they do from endless Murrayfield sessions."

But Gordon Rigby of Stewart's Melville countered: "If I was a young player again, I'd want the chance to play for Scotland and that isn't going to happen unless the players are attached to the pro-teams."

This article was posted on 2-Apr-2006, 08:12 by Hugh Barrow.