EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS REPORTS
BILL LOTHIAN
WATSONIANS benefactor Martin Krajewski today slammed plans to turn back the clock with an integrated club/district rugby tournament to fill the second half of next season.

\"It\'s been tried before about five years ago - and it didn\'t work,\" said the Joslin Rowe Recruitment Agency boss in reacting to proposals attempting to justify stopping the bread-and-butter club leagues by early January, 2007.

According to some proponents, the tail-end of the club season has become stale while Scottish age-group teams need boosted by an infusion of club players.

Yet how does this square with Boroughmuir heading for Heriot\'s on Saturday for a must win match to preserve Division One status?

Or Scotland under-21s winning for the first time in Ireland this season and just 12 months after a first age-group Six Nations win over England?

Krajewski says: \"I believe there are many businessmen dying to get involved in the club rugby scene as soon as the SRU stop putting obstacles in our way.

\"What the game really needs is a league, either semi-pro or pro, of eight teams with the existing districts dissolved into these.

\"From that competition would come select sides playing in Europe along the lines of the old Edinburgh District XV.

\"That would work better than any new proposal which risks discouraging investors through having the club exposure virtually cut in half.\"

Speculation about the proposed new competition has stemmed from clubs meeting to respond to plans by the governing body to remove many of their young players and commit them totally to the national cause.

This article was posted on 13-Apr-2006, 11:27 by Hugh Barrow.