THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS

Players pay price as sport sacrifices the seasons for increased revenue
ALLAN MASSIE
MORE and more the seasons overlap. Here is a Test match being played at Lord's before the rugby or football seasons are over. Indeed it's arguable that we scarcely have either summer or winter games now. After all England's cricketers were still playing in India a few weeks ago, while football and rugby players will scarcely have time to draw breath before they are called up for pre-season training and "friendlies".

Easy to say it doesn't make sense. Easy to agree with John Beattie when he argued here a few days ago that summer tours for our rugby players are a relic of the amateur past, and should be discontinued. It won't happen of course, for two reasons, good or bad as you think fit.

The first is simple. If the SRU was to decide to scrap summer tours and overseas internationals, then - tit for tat - why should the Southern Hemisphere countries come here in November for the autumn internationals that are now as regular events as the Six Nations tournament itself? This would have two unwelcome consequences. If other northern nations followed suit, then it's probable that rugby would develop in different ways, north and south, with differing interpretations of the laws of the game. That seemed quite likely 20 years ago, before the first World Cup, more frequent tours, and the regular exchange of referees between the two hemispheres.

The second reason is financial. Even though in the last couple of seasons, crowds at the autumn internationals have been disappointing, and Murrayfield never filled, yet the SRU simply couldn't afford to do without the revenue from three more home international matches, which comes from sponsorship and television fees as well as from the sale of tickets. The other unions are in the same position, even if their finances are not in as poor a state as the SRU's.

Financial necessity indeed dictates that the number of international matches proliferates. In cricket there are now to be seven five-day Tests in an English summer; it's not so long since there were only five. In addition the number of one-day internationals rises inexorably. These are essentially money-making ventures. Sometimes of course they are entertaining. More often they are utterly forgettable. But the sport could scarcely survive without them.

The fact is that professional sport is now so expensive to run, principally, though not wholly, on account of the salaries commanded by the top players, that there is no chance at all of reducing the number of international fixtures. In cricket it is now common for a batsman to have scored more Test centuries than centuries in his domestic competition, and more than 60 per cent of the first-class wickets Shane Warne has taken have come in Test matches. There was a nice illustration of how things have changed a few months ago when Ricky Ponting passed Don Bradman's Australian record of 29 Test hundreds. He observed, wryly, that he had played twice as many Tests as the great Don.

It's the same in rugby. GPS Macpherson was reckoned the finest Scotland centre between the wars. He represented the country from 1922 to 1932. Admittedly missing a fair number of matches on account of injury, he won only 26 caps. Andy Henderson, first capped in the autumn of 2001, has now acquired 36. Assuming he plays twice against South Africa next month, and throughout next season, he will surpass Jim Renwick's total of 52 at some point in the World Cup in France in October 2007. Yet Renwick was an almost automatic choice for Scotland from 1972 to 1983.

Everyone now talks of the dangers of "player burn-out" - and with good reason, even if cynics may suggest that the thought of large salary cheques will keep them playing at least as long as their counterparts in the amateur days. This doesn't alter the fact that the demands on those at the top are now very great, and may be excessive. What with European competitions added to domestic leagues and cups, the best football clubs may be playing nearer 60 than 50 times a year - and that is without friendlies and the players' international commitments.

In rugby we have eight international matches in the home season; the Celtic League consists of 22 games, and there is a minimum of six in the Heineken Cup, more if you get beyond the group stage. It's essential to have a big enough squad to enable you to rest key players, but here in Scotland this is difficult.

I daresay Frank Hadden would like to see his Scotland men play no more than, say, 15 times a season for their club, and even that he might wish he could leave some of his stars at home this summer. But it's impossible. We simply don't have the necessary strength in depth. Todd Blackadder might have been happy to have given Mike Blair a day off when Edinburgh played Connacht last weekend, but, if he hadn't brought him off the bench Edinburgh would, by all accounts, have lost the match. Wales have enough strength in depth to be able to leave some of their stars at home instead of taking them to Argentina in June, but we are scarcely in that position. In short, as far as we are concerned, the problems of too many big games and player burn-out are close to insoluble.

This article was posted on 13-May-2006, 07:26 by Hugh Barrow.