EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS REPORTS--A FAMILIAR RING TO BILL LOTHIAN'S ARTICLE

Hogg up for task

BILL LOTHIAN


FORMER internationalist Graham Hogg today became first to stake a claim to a seat on the newly-created Scottish Rugby Council with a platform based on entering traditional clubs in European competitions.

The twice capped Boroughmuir utility back, who went on to achieve distinction as a Grand-Slam winning Scotland A coach, said: "I have discussed the possibility of standing for the council with friends so, yes, the idea of standing does have appeal."

Legislation paving the way for a new governance structure was introduced at a special meeting of the SRU this week and uppermost in his thoughts is repairing the damage done at club level since rugby introduced professionalism in 1995.

"It used to be that big crowds were attracted to watch (traditional) club games. Now they have all but disappeared and the question must be whether fans have become so hacked off they have gone forever or whether schemes can be introduced that will entice them back," said Hogg. "Clubs and the way they have been treated is the crux of the whole issue without a doubt.

"Unless the way clubs have been treated through a top-down approach to building the game is addressed then I see players continuing to walk away as well as fans leaving the Scottish game so somebody has to act.

"And it is the Scottish game that really concerns me when I see crowds building elsewhere. Here I cannot see why all associated with the clubs aren’t allowed under the current (SRU) approach to see their teams playing in Europe at some level.

"Specifically, I see Spanish and Portuguese entering so it is wrong our clubs don’t have that special challenge to create more interest."

The ex-three-quarter, capped twice in 1978, has a foot in both super-team and club camps; currently he assists in coaching duties at Currie while he led the Edinburgh district team into their pioneering Euro campaigns in the mid 1990s before piloting the national shadow squad to their clean sweep in 1998.

Hogg says: "What might also help redress the current problems is much closer ties between pro-teams and clubs because the existing ones are tenuous to say the least.

"I’d go further and say there actually isn’t a relationship at all.

"This comes out through club supporters’ reluctance to go along and watch the pro-teams and the whole approach needs to be examined primarily in the light of worries about the bread-and-butter outfits."

Hogg said that cross-border competitions could breath life into clubs just as when he was part of a Boroughmuir side who enjoyed success against the best of British, adding: "It wasn’t just Boroughmuir who were tackling sides from outwith these parts and often acquitting themselves well - it seemed everybody in Scottish rugby was getting good results and the game was on a high partly as a consequence.

"Instead it has come to the fact that my club, Currie, are staging a 24-hour, round-the-clock rugby marathon on Friday night to try to give funds a badly-needed boost so things need to happen quickly."

This article was originally posted on 13-Apr-2005, 11:50 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 13-Apr-2005, 11:51.