SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

Money no guarantee of status as clubs scrap to bitter end

IAIN MORRISON


IT IS supposed to be easier to win a title than it is to retain it, not that Glasgow Hawks noticed. With the top spot in Premiership One going to the club for the second successive year, attention turns to the opposite end of the table, where there is much to play for.

Gala’s fate is already sealed, but four other clubs are playing a nervous game of pass the parcel with one other relegation place waiting to be filled. Bizarrely, the five clubs are among the best funded in the league, and it is one of the peculiarities of the Scottish game that money and success have an odd-couple relationship: they don’t get along too well.

Hawks continue to win and to insist that they do not pay their players. While the odd member may receive some modest support, it is clear that the budget is substantially lower than many of their rivals.

Just below them, Heriot’s are in almost identical circumstances, though the Goldenacre club are believed to remunerate at least one player, who was tempted by a cross-town offer pre-season. Essentially, both teams rely on the goodwill of the players, who see them as useful stepping stones to the professional game, since the best two clubs in the land provide many of the men for the Glasgow and Edinburgh pro-team squads.

Gala were supposed to be one of the better-backed squads. Presumably they dangled something in front of Scott Nicol’s nose to entice him from Peebles last summer, though the veteran flyhalf might have wished that he had stayed put after a thoroughly miserable season at Netherdale. The Maroons have won just one match throughout the league campaign, and ahead of this afternoon’s fixture against Ayr they are suffering a points deficit of minus 515.

Their opponents this afternoon will secure top-flight status for another season if they make it 21 losses out of 22 starts for the Border club.

If he is not giving up on rugby altogether, there must be a chance that Gala’s player/coach Andrew Dall will move back to the capital next season, and his old stamping ground of Goldenacre would obviously afford him some much-needed rehabilitation after a thoroughly-trying season.

But if Gala are well backed, by common consent Watson-ians enjoy the support of sponsors with the deepest pockets. It is not something that Joslin Rowe’s boss Martin Kriesky denies, though Myreside sources suggest that Donald MacDonald is even more generous.

Currently lying third from bottom, financial backing delivered doubtful dividends as head coach Gary Callander resigned midway through the season after some disappointing results. Watsonians now need at least one win, and possibly two, from their final two matches against Heriot’s and Hawick to secure their position in the top division. Heriot’s, their traditional city rivals, will prove a tougher proposition in their postponed match, and Hawick will surely be stung into action after shipping a record 80-19 score to Hawks at Mansfield Park.

GHA also have money to spend, and some went on bringing in former professionals Allan Bulloch and Joe Naufahu. Glasgow’s other team are currently looking the least comfortable with their placing in the second-from-bottom slot, but with two matches in hand over Currie, who sit seven points above them, GHA at least hold their fate in their own hands. Wins against Hawks and Aberdeen GS FP look a tall order, though, and that is what they are likely to need.

If the Glasgow club are relegated, they will blame the recent match against Currie, in which indiscipline - a penalty deep inside enemy territory was reversed for foul play - could have cost them Premiership One rugby.

Depending on other results, GHA’s fate might not be decided until May 7, when they meet Aberdeen, whose minds might well be on the beach even if their bodies show up at Braidholm.

Watsonians’ fixture against Heriot’s was rescheduled from yesterday to Wednesday evening because the Myreside club have four players involved in the Scotland sevens squad in Singapore, but GHA coach David Wilson was quick to point out that his side were given no such dispensation when they lost four under-19 players earlier in the season.

Neutrals across the country will be firmly behind Wilson and his efforts to keep GHA in the division, otherwise Glasgow’s Premiership One representation would fall to just one club. Moreover, GHA would struggle to hold on to their best players, who might be tempted across town to continue to play top-flight rugby.

In contrast, with Stirling County and Stewart’s Melville promoted from Premiership Two, Edinburgh’s representation would increase to five, though Currie might not thank you for lumping them in with the capital clubs.

With Aberdeen flying the flag for the north-east, it would be left to Ayr to do something similar for the opposite end of the country, giving the top league the widest possible geographic spread.

Those clubs that suffer that sinking feeling will probably find it twice as difficult to bounce back, since rumours from the working party on restructuring the leagues are hinting at a ten-team Premiership One.

RELEGATION FIXTURES

Gala v Ayr
Sunday April 17

Heriot’s v Watsonians
Wednesday April 20

GHA v Hawks
Saturday April 23

Hawick v Watsonains
Saturday April 23

GHA v Aberdeen
Saturday May 14

This article was posted on 17-Apr-2005, 09:04 by Hugh Barrow.