SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS
IAIN MORRISON
THIS season's Heineken Cup semi-finals will be graced by one English team Bath, one French (or Basque) team in Biarritz and two from Ireland. Here is a nation in which rugby must compete not only with football but also with the Gaelic Games for the nation's sportsmen. Ireland's playing numbers are perhaps twice those that Scotland can boast and yet their success at provincial level is infinitely better than all their Celtic cousins because in addition to Munster and Leinster's Heineken success Ulster are best placed to top the Celtic League.

Back at the protracted and difficult birth of the professional game Ireland's clubs were much better supported than the provinces and regional rugby is only the obvious choice with the benefit of hindsight. At the time the clubs argued long and loud for the right to represent Ireland in cross border competitions but, and here's the crux, once the decision had been made the public's backing of the provinces made them the winners both on and off the pitch. The key question is whether Scotland can emulate Ireland's success?

The signs are not encouraging because it is not just Glasgow who are under-performing. In the European yardstick that the Heineken Cup has become Edinburgh managed just two wins from six matches before bowing out by leaking 53 points to Wasps at the Causeway Stadium. The team that boasted nine of the 15 players that started the successful Six Nations campaign against France have somehow contrived to lose seven times in the Celtic League including defeats to Glasgow and Border squads that are demonstrably weaker. Given the disparity in squad strength their eight wins this season are no more creditable than Glasgow's four.

It is almost as though there was something inherent in the system that prevents success and there is; the problem is one of identity, or rather a lack of it. The pro teams are ghost sides, their outline only faintly discernible, manufactured solely to advance the national squad.

Playing for Edinburgh is not seen as an end in itself by the young players in the capital who view "the Gunners" mainly as a handy stepping stone to higher honours. They can be forgiven for this since the SRU take exactly the same view.

Compare and contrast with the giants of European rugby, Munster, Leicester, Biarritz, Toulouse, Wasps, Llanelli etc; teams that know their rightful place in the rugby firmament. If they happen to prepare players for national honours, by their habit of winning as much as any coaching excellence, it is a chance by-product of their activities. The development of players will occur naturally within a successful club so the pro-team's sole raison d'etre is winning rugby matches and anything else is a smokescreen.

The only Scottish team to exceed expectations is the Borders and that is partly because those expectations were so low. They have won six of their 14 matches to date with a limited team that Steve Bates has playing somewhere close to their full potential; although not when they lost to bottom fishers Connacht a fortnight ago in front of 702 hardy souls. If you think that attendance figure must be wrong you'd be right since many at Netherdale that night swear there was less than 500. These numbers are barely sufficient to pay the ball boys never mind a full playing squad and all the peripheral staff that modern professional rugby requires.

Even if the Union were using their resources in the best possible way they lack the financial muscle to compete against foreign clubs with the possible exception of a few Italians. Never mind the giants of the game, there are teams in England's second league that boast bigger cheque books than the Scottish clubs. The gap between the rich and the poor is a gaping chasm and it is about to get bigger if Serge Blanco has his way.

The great French full-back is now head of the French League and he gave an interview recently to Midi Olympic in which he argued vociferously that the European Cup ought to be run by the people who contribute most (ie: the French and English clubs). He went on to demand that Celtic representation should fall from the current nine teams (eight plus one more that generally gets through via a play-off with an Italian team) to just six, pointing out that the winners to date have been five times English, four times French and only once Irish. Blanco then threatened a French boycott of the European Cup if his demands are not met.

Naturally his plan would not help develop the game across Europe but it is rather a selfish and grubby money grab. As head of the French professional teams Blanco is looking after his own agenda but he has point especially when it comes to Scottish teams. One quarter-finalist in ten years of European Cup competition is not the stuff of legends and under current qualification rules it is possible for the second bottom team in the Celtic League to qualify for the Heineken Cup.

Going by results the Celts, with the obvious and honourable exception of Ireland, are over-represented in Europe's premier club tournament and too few of them bring much to the table by way of supporters. The average weekend in the Guinness Premiership generates approximately £1million but because some Celtic and Italian clubs are poorly supported that average figure falls to just £350,000 for a Heineken Cup weekend.

For the time being, Blanco is unlikely to get his way. A spokesman for Premier Rugby Ltd, the group who represent England's top clubs, admitted that Celtic League qualification was not on the immediate agenda but greater control over the European Cup definitely is. The Paris Accord that stipulates all aspects of the European competition runs out after the 2006-07 season and the stormy debate about what replaces it will commence at the European Rugby Cup (ERC) meeting that starts tomorrow.

If the clubs, rather than the Union appointed ERC Board, are allowed to run their own competition, a rare cause that unites France and England, then Scottish teams might need a top six finish in the Celtic League to guarantee Heineken Cup action.

The very week that 702 people (or whatever the real figure was) paid to watch the Borders lose to Connacht almost 20,000 attended a match in the Guinness Premiership. This hotbed of English rugby was not to be found at Bath, Leicester or Gloucester but rather in Reading's Madejski Stadium, within spitting distance of the M4, where London Irish play. Twenty thousand people is more than one Premier League football club attracted that same weekend and the sooner the SRU make a formal request to Falkirk Council to use their excellent and easily accessible Community Stadium the better.

Despite their financial crisis the Union are still dragging their feet over proposals to share the burden, and any potential rewards, of running the three pro-teams and already rumours are circulating that three might become two. Rather than accept outside investment and risk losing control of the players Murrayfield's solution is piecemeal, a new coach and a bit more money, a local board of directors and an army of apprentices, in short anything that will help paper the cracks without doing too much damage to the bottom line. The cold hard reality of professional rugby hit Glasgow coach Hugh Campbell firmly in the face a fortnight ago but some truths seem to have by-passed the Murrayfield decision makers because without dramatic changes to the current set-up Scotland's pro-teams will never emulate Ireland's success.

The status quo is a recipe for failure, as ten years of tinkering will confirm, so that is what the pro-teams will continue to deliver

This article was posted on 9-Apr-2006, 07:33 by Hugh Barrow.