THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
Hope springs in west but the South can rise again
ALLAN MASSIE
GLASGOW'S failure to qualify for this season's Heineken Cup, disappointing for their supporters at the time, has turned out to be a blessing in disguise, the second-tier Challenge Cup allowing them to find their feet in European competition.

Having beaten Narbonne and GRAN Parma home and away, they now await Saracens tomorrow with a real chance of reaching the knock-out stages, either as outright winners of their pool or as one of the three best runners-up from the five pools.

Looking at the other probable quarter-finalists they will see teams to respect, but none to fear. They will be all the more confident of course if they beat Saracens, as with home advantage they probably should. All in all Sean Lineen and his assistants can look forward with some enthusiasm to the second half of the season. They have fashioned a formidable pack, which dominated Edinburgh's in their recent Magners League match, and have powerful and quite effective backs, even though Lineen was critical of some of their running - "too lateral" - in Parma last weekend. This may have been partly because Andrew Henderson, the most direct of their midfield backs, had been rested. Even so the wings, Rory Lamont and Thom Evans, scored three of Glasgow's six tries.

In contrast Edinburgh and the Borders have both had disappointing Heineken Cups, and victory in their last match this weekend won't really be any sort of consolation. Edinburgh have now lost twice to Gloucester and were taken apart by Leinster last Saturday. Admittedly Leinster played brilliantly, the Argentine fly-half Felipe Contepomi showing once again why good judges rate him only second to Dan Carter among today's No 10s. Admittedly too Edinburgh were missing Ally Hogg, Mike Blair, Rob Dewey and Simon Webster, while Marcus Di Rollo went off after about 20 minutes and Matt Dey soon afterwards.

Indeed Edinburgh's injury list is so long that, but for the requirement to field only those registered months ago for the Heineken, Di Rollo probably wouldn't have taken the field, and nor would Chris Paterson and Phil Godman, none of the three being fully fit. That said, it was disappointing to see the Edinburgh pack coming off very much second-best, as has been their experience too often this year. All the Scottish clubs suffer from a lack of reserve strength, and it is very difficult to see how this can be rectified till there is a proper programme of matches for reserve and apprentice players.

As it is, Edinburgh's front-rank players are having too many games and their reserves too few. The theoretical answer is to operate a rotation policy, but this can't be done unless you have adequate reserve strength.

Edinburgh started the Heineken campaign with hopes of progressing to the knock-out stage. Nobody expected the Borders to do that, given that Biarritz and Northampton were in their group. If they beat Overmach Parma away on Sunday, and finish with nine or even ten points, they may be said to have matched reasonable expectations. Indeed they came quite close to surpassing these, their best performance being away to Biarritz. They even had a chance of winning that game till Biarritz felt compelled to bring Dimitri Yachvili off the bench. Two flashes of brilliance from him, and that was that. Then last weekend their match against Northampton had to be switched from Netherdale to Murrayfield at the last minute. Few except the Irish referee thought this necessary, everyone else involved having thought Netherdale playable. Now we are being told that not enough work was done to the Netherdale pitch last summer, and many , rightly or wrongly, hold the SRU responsible for this. Be that as it may, it fuels the belief in the Borders that the SRU want rid of the team, or at least want it moved to Aberdeen or the Central Belt.

I doubt if this is true, but what is certain is that the Reivers haven't yet won the support of the majority of rugby followers in the Borders; and this is certainly putting the club's future at risk. Everyone concerned seeks for a remedy, and I have only a couple of suggestions. First , the Border League should be invited to nominate two or three members of the Reivers' board; this might encourage the co-operation between the pro club and the Border clubs which is so necessary. Second, bearing in mind that in the old days the South used to attract far bigger crowds than the Reivers now do, an attempt should be made to re-animate the spirit of the old South. There are two ways this might be done.

First, the Reivers should stop playing all their games at Netherdale and resume the practice of taking them round the Border grounds. Second the strip should be the old red-and-white hoops in which the South used to play. It would do no harm either to remind people of some of the South's history. In Llanelli they are never tired of reminding you "who beat the Wallabies?". In Limerick they never allow you to forget that Munster beat the 1978 All Blacks. But how many of us remember that the 1984 Grand Slam-winning Australians lost only one Saturday match on tour, and that their conquerors were the South of Scotland?

Actually, I'd go one step further: drop the Border Reivers name and play again as the South. Tap into tradition. They do that in Wales and Ireland and, indeed, in Leicester, Bath and Gloucester.

This article was posted on 18-Jan-2007, 08:29 by Hugh Barrow.