THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
DAVID FERGUSON ([email protected])

EDINBURGH\'S new Welsh coach Lynn Howells has pledged his support to the Border Reivers by insisting Scottish rugby would suffer were the SRU to axe the professional team.

Gordon McKie, the SRU chief executive, only agreed to continue with the Borders and Glasgow in July, after agreeing a deal to hand over control of Edinburgh to a new consortium. But last month he made it clear that this did not represent a long-term reprieve.
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Instead, he revealed that both Glasgow and the Borders had been told to improve their crowd sizes to at least 2,500 before he could become any more confident about their future. That was seen in some quarters as a further attempt to persuade supporters along to Netherdale, in particular, but was received in others as an indication that the chief executive is set on scrapping one team to save costs at the end of this season.

Howells has been here before, as the coach at Celtic Warriors in 2003 when the regional team, formed by merging Pontypridd and Bridgend, was scrapped after just a season in existence.

He insisted: \"It would be a bad move to cut Scotland\'s playing base down. The decision to cut the Celtic Warriors was purely financial, and I didn\'t agree with that. The decision has to be a rugby decision, not a financial one. Welsh rugby has suffered - the Welsh Heineken Cup involvement suffered - so there\'s no doubt getting rid of the Warriors influenced Welsh rugby in a bad way and it would be the same here. On a purely rugby decision I can\'t see any reason why Scotland has to lose a team.\"

Like the WRU, the SRU panicked and dropped Caledonia and the Borders within a season of launching four professional sides in 1998 to save money. But without any reference to finances, the union restored a third team in 2002, deciding to base it in the Borders where it was hoped the small population of just 105,000 would be overshadowed by the passion for rugby in the region where it is the main sport.

But crowds remain the central problem as not only do they show a lack of return on a £2m-plus investment from ticket sales they suggest a lack of support for pro rugby. The Celtic Warriors did at least generate a following and finished third in the cross-border league in its only season.

The Reivers outperformed Glasgow last season, which is why Sean Lineen\'s men dropped into the European Challenge Cup with the Reivers returning to the Heineken Cup this term, but Glasgow\'s move back to Hughenden has taken their crowd base back over the 2,000-mark, leaving the Borders lagging behind.

Though the Borders\' first two home games this season were an improvement on last term, last week\'s best figure of 1,661 remains short of McKie\'s 2,500-mark. That target was only achieved last season in the games with Edinburgh, Newcastle and a Jonah Lomu-inspired Cardiff, which has fuelled concern that the Borders could be axed next year.

But Howells insisted that the SRU must instead accept the loss of money on what is now just two owned teams as a necessary investment in professional rugby and retain both.

\"The Borders beat Leinster on Friday which proved they can compete at this level,\" he said. \"They have a quality squad and have just been a bit unfortunate, I think, with their start to the season, but they will grow from this point.

\"The argument that if you cut a team the remaining teams become stronger does not hold. Instead, what tends to happen is you get lots of players leaving the country which is not good for the country. There are only so many players you can get into two teams, so you cannot just push all the players from a cut team into the other sides. It\'s impossible.\"

In the event of no franchised deal being struck, the plans in the summer were indeed for players from the Borders or Glasgow, whichever team went to the wall, to be moved to the other two, at least until their contracts came to an end.

But there are players at both clubs, including leading internationalists, who are seriously considering their options for next year having grown fed up with the aura of uncertainty which has been left hovering around their futures.

Howells added: \"What has impressed me since coming up here is how Scotland have managed to get three sides where the majority of the players are Scottish, and that is great for all levels of rugby here. Okay, when you have virtually all-Scottish sides competing in the Magners League and Heineken Cup the results might not be wonderful every week, but the players will improve and it will develop Scottish rugby as a whole. You need to keep that.\"

This article was posted on 19-Oct-2006, 07:37 by Hugh Barrow.