SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS
Sun 22 Oct 2006

Practice does not make perfect - new players do
IAIN MORRISON
THREE years ago, Glasgow travelled down to Watford to play Saracens in the secondary European competition just as they do this afternoon. One week later the two teams held the return match at Hughenden and the net result of the two matches was a marginal three-point victory for the Londoners.

Professional sports teams have a high turnover and rugby more than most simply because serious injuries will always add to the natural wastage and movement that comes with any professional game. Teams generally reckon on changing approximately one third of their squads each and every summer. The Glasgow line-up is obviously different from when they last faced Saracens in Watford back in 2003 but the question remains - for all the changes, has the west-coast outfit actually improved over the years?

A surprising number of players who played three years ago remain on Glasgow's books and will start this afternoon's match, including the midfield duo of Andy Henderson and Graeme Morrison. The more experienced man has grown in confidence over the last three years but Morrison, in and out the Glasgow team, has been treading water since winning both his first and last caps back in 2004.

Halfbacks Graeme Beveridge and Dan Parks also played three years ago. The little Peebles scrum-half's form has dipped since those days, although it may not be terminal and his defenders will argue that he is ring-rusty after a lack of match practice. No matter how often we are told that his defence is improving, Parks looks much the same player that he was when he first arrived in the country, his strengths and weaknesses apparent for all to see.

The only changes from the 2003 back division are in the back three, where Rory Lamont is a decent replacement for Sean, boasting a better rugby brain but without the devastating broken-play running that his older brother offers.

On the opposite wing. Thom Evans replaces Gareth McLure, which undoubtedly strengthens the side and most experts would probably pick Argentine Francisco Leonelli over Scotland's former full-back Stuart Moffat, now playing at Castres.

If many of the backs have remained, most of the big men have moved on. Euan Murray is the sole survivor from the forward pack of 2003 and, while he looks stronger in the scrum, no-one can claim that the prop forward has kicked on as far or as fast as many hoped. He may have been overtaken by Alasdair Dickinson in the tighthead pecking order.

Gordon Bulloch's place in the No.2 shirt goes to Fergus Thomson and the uncapped youngster displays more hunger for his club than the veteran Scottish international ever did. The other front-row change sees Justin Va'a take over from Mathew Proudfoot. The former makes an impact in the loose but looks uncomfortable in the set scrum, the latter looked uncomfortable everywhere else.

Locks Andy Hall and Nathan Ross have been replaced by Andy Newman, from the same mould as Ross, and Alastair Kellock, unrecognisable as the - Edinburgh - player of three years ago.

In the back row, Donnie Macfadyen and Jon Petrie, in their prime and sharing 56 caps between them, should be team leaders, but neither man can claim a place in the starting XV and Petrie is not even on the bench.

Two youngsters - Johnny Beattie and John Barclay - have their shirts. Perhaps this augurs well for Glasgow's future as the two youngsters grow into a leadership role, but exactly the same things were said about Macfadyen and Petrie several years ago. Instead of growing into the role, perhaps Beattie and Barclay are destined to mirror the men they have replaced, improve, plateau and then see their form fall alarmingly.

Something is clearly amiss. Despite devoting their entire working lives to rugby, some players are obviously gaining absolutely nothing from goodness knows how many hours spent on the training field, which begs the question, why?

It may be that some players' form is cyclical or the game may have developed beyond the skill set that they possess and rugby is evolving at a frightening rate. It is possible that the players are poorly served by a coaching structure that focuses on the team at the expense of individual improvement or it may be nothing more than the player, having reached the top of the tree, finding his hunger to succeed is diminished. But this is speculation.

Adopting a more scientific approach, Dr Istvan Balyi is an expert on long-term athlete development. The Hungarian works with the RFU and SportEngland, among a host of others and he has a theory that, put in a simplified form, departmentalises an athlete's development. He suggests that the skills required in almost any sport are in place before the age of 20 and remain largely unchanged.

What a coach is doing thereafter is ensuring the proper application of those skills, persuading his players to adopt the correct mental approach and, of course, the minutiae of team organisation that is vital to success. Players practise their skills to keep them sharp and even improve them - witness Johnny Wilkinson in front of the posts - but actually adding a new skill is too time-consuming for most adult athletes.

Bayli may have a point, but he is only focusing on skills and, as above, there are plenty of other aspects of a player's performance where a coach can make a meaningful impact.

If the Glasgow team that takes the field against Saracens this afternoon is stronger than the 2003 vintage, and it most probably is, that owes more to importing better players than it does to improving the ones that have been with the club for the last three years. That fact is as interesting as it is worrying.

This article was posted on 22-Oct-2006, 07:57 by Hugh Barrow.