The Scotsman reports
ALLAN MASSIE
MANY years ago television offered us, week after week, "the continuing saga of Peyton Place". This was a soap recounting the lurid (for those days) goings-on in a small American town. Now we have our own "continuing saga" here, located at Murrayfield, and pretty dispiriting it is too.

One would prefer to write about the game itself, but off-field dramas command attention. We have what is described as an exodus of players to England, France and even Ireland, and we are promised - threatened with - yet another review of the professional game here. That the two are connected is indisputable, uncertainty about the future persuading some players to be more receptive of overtures from elsewhere than might otherwise be the case. As soap opera, the Murrayfield story may not yet be as compelling or bizarre as the one being played across the tracks at Tynecastle, but it's running it close.

Of course players are leaving for a variety of reasons. Simon Taylor, for instance, who is off to join Stade Français, is, I would guess, attracted by a new challenge after eight seasons with Edinburgh. He has given that club great service and it is foolish to criticise him for going, though the club and its supporters will miss him. In any case since we have been repeatedly told by the SRU's last two chief executives that professional rugby is a business, there can be no real complaint when players behave like employees in other businesses.

As for another notable departure, Rob Dewey, who is off to Ulster, it's not hard to see that the prospect of playing home matches before 10,000 spectators at Ravenhill is more attractive than doing so before some 3,000 in the yawning spaces of Murrayfield.

Reaction from the SRU has been restrained, which is sensible: "Scottish Rugby accepts that it finds it hard and sometimes impossible to compete against larger, more financially secure clubs who are better placed to meet players' expectations".

No doubt this is true, though the admission that English clubs are "more financially secure" than the SRU should surely be a cause for shame.

Nevertheless, though the SRU has made many mistakes since the game went professional, the chief cause of the dire state of professional rugby in Scotland is the apathy of so-called rugby supporters here. There are perhaps 30,000 people who buy tickets for Six Nations matches at Murrayfield and yet never attend a pro-team game. These very occasional fans will however be the first to moan, cry "rubbish" and disparage the players when Scotland lose.

Whatever the results of the SRU's next review of professional rugby here - and few expect it to be encouraging - the prospect now looms of the Scotland XV being made up largely of players from English, French, Irish and Welsh clubs. Some don't find this worrying. They look, for instance, at Argentina, where the domestic game is still amateur, and the national side is drawn from players plying their trade abroad. Yet Argentina beat England at Twickenham last autumn, something Scotland haven't managed since 1983. They note also that when Italy beat us last week, only half a dozen of their starting XV play their club rugby in Italy, the remainder in France or England.

In the old amateur days it was quite common for the Scotland side to include a good many Anglo-Scots; indeed London Scottish can boast of more capped players - more than a hundred of them - than any home-based club. Moreover when, in the fourth season of professional rugby, Scotland won the last Five Nations title, ten of the XV that started against France in that glorious match were then playing their club rugby in England or France, while two of the five home-based players were the Leslie brothers, recently arrived from New Zealand. On that evidence you might even argue that our national team has deteriorated since we repatriated players, and that we should even encourage players to move away from Scotland.

Some would welcome the demise of our pro teams. The SRU's financial position would be immediately improved. More money would be available for the amateur (or, as it is now called, community) game. They may suppose that this would revive accordingly and crowds return to club matches. They would, I fear, be disappointed. The amateur (or semi-pro) game would still be without the international players such as those who helped attract big crowds in what one can now see as the modern Golden Age of club rugby (1973/4, when official leagues were introduced, to 1995). No doubt the standard might at first rise, as fringe pro-team players unable to win contracts elsewhere returned to the amateur ranks. But the most ambitious young players, from age-group national sides, would all be looking to attract the attention of clubs in England and beyond. They would leave Scotland at 18, 19, 20 because, if they didn't, they wouldmiss out on a professional career.

In any case the evidence of 1999 is a bit misleading. Most of the members of that great team who were by then playing for English or French clubs had first made their name in Scotland when our club rugby was still strong: Alan Tait with Kelso, Kenny Logan (Stirling County), Gregor Townsend (Gala), Gary Armstrong (Jed-Forest), Scott Murray (Edinburgh Accies) Stuart Grimes (Watsonians), Stuart Reid (Boroughmuir), and Tom Smith (Dundee High).

So while we needn't get too upset about the present exodus - which, after all, gives opportunities to young players next season - we shouldn't conclude that our rugby wouldn't suffer if we scrapped the three pro teams - or even one of them. The immediate consequences might not be harmful; the long-term ones would almost certainly do great damage. You might well for instance arrive at a point where there was only one Scottish fly-half playing professional rugby anywhere. Indeed there might not even be a single one.

This article was posted on 3-Mar-2007, 08:23 by Hugh Barrow.