THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
DAVID FERGUS0N
THE Scottish Rugby Union will today reveal the fate of the Borders team after calling its professional players into Murrayfield amidst wide concerns that the professional team is again to be axed.

The SRU will also meet the Glasgow squad an hour later and the wider SRU workforce before a media conference set for 12.30pm, at which the union stated it will "discuss the outcome of the review of professional rugby in Scotland".

It does not sound like the executive board is planning to congratulate anybody or keep everything as it is. Yesterday's statement threw little light on the issue, confirming only: "It was announced last month that a wide-ranging review of [the SRU's] pro team strategy was underway, covering levels of investment, pro team numbers and locations, training and playing facilities, squad sizes, relationships with and participation in the Heineken Cup and Magners League, third party investors and academies."

Fears spread quickly that the Borders, having failed to meet an SRU target to attract bigger crowds, was now facing extinction almost exactly nine years after it, and the Caledonia Reds, were first cut in a desperate effort to save the union money. The union's debt is now much higher, over £23m, and that move has been roundly criticised by players, coaches and administrators as the single biggest reason why Scotland has failed to keep pace with the successful development of pro rugby in virtually every other leading nation.

Gordon McKie, the union chief executive, inherited the debt pile and has sought to find ways to reduce it while giving Scottish rugby a decent base to build from. His failures to find solutions led to this latest review. However, Edinburgh issued a statement yesterday to make it clear that they had had no involvement in a process said to have involved all the game's "stakeholders" and Jim Hay, chairman of the Scottish Professional Rugby Players Association, revealed that he too had not been consulted.

The Glasgow and Borders coaches and administrators have also been kept at arms length, but the executives - McKie is joined by Andy Irvine (SRU President), Allan Munro (chairman), Eamon Hegarty (finance director), Brian Kennedy, Tom Inglis, George Clark, Archie Ferguson and Jim Fleming - are bound to have consulted widely within the game.

David Kilshaw, the chairman of the Borders board, set up by McKie earlier this season, gave a presentation to the SRU's executive board on Thursday, spelling out the need to keep the Borders at a time when the region's sporting bodies and other agencies were finally beginning to come together.

Scottish Borders Council will tonight launch its first all-encompassing sports strategy with the accent on a fully-integrated approach to sports development, facilities and health; a Borders Supporters Trust, aiming to bring sports clubs under one umbrella and uncover greater funding has garnered wide-ranging support; Heriot-Watt University are spearheading a £31m redevelopment at Netherdale expected to include new sports facilities.

However, while players and other staff associated with the Borders and Glasgow fear for their futures, there remain options on the table. Only last week the SRU welcomed the agreement of a new flood prevention plan for the Water of Leith which has ruled out land behind Murrayfield's West Stand as a flood plain. Irvine, who works for a leading property agent, has been involved in proposals for new flats to be built on spare ground close to the ice rink and it is believed that the new flood plan could leave the SRU free to rake in several millions from such a sale with more in the pipeline.

But, with planning permission still to be negotiated, that is unlikely to have had an effect on the current review. Speaking on BBC Scotland recently, Irvine said: "We have to be realistic about this, in the last few seasons quite simply it's not worked.

"We're having a complete review of what we're doing and what we're going to do with professional rugby, because we have to have success at professional rugby. We're having great difficulty retaining players and attracting players, and it's not just about money. Money is part of it, but there's other things to it.

"There's facilities, the ambience, the crowds, the atmosphere, and we're failing in all of them. We're going to have a complete new look at it and then come forward with ideas."

He added: "There have to be changes. Quite simply it's not working and with the structure that we have just now a lot of the top players don't want to remain in Scotland and that's wrong."

Ever since McKie, Irvine and Munro took over in 2005, warnings over the future of the pro teams have poured out of Murrayfield on a regular basis, increasing the uncertainty in the game. One of McKie's first acts was to ditch a three-year commitment to the three existing teams from Fred McLeod, his 'acting' predecessor, the chief executive believing he could not promise anything having inherited a financial shambles at Murrayfield.

The picture appeared to have improved last summer when Bob and Alex Carruthers stepped in to take over control of Edinburgh, leaving the cash-strapped SRU with just two teams to finance fully.

Playing budgets rose slightly with the Borders and Glasgow being given an equal split of around £3.4m, and academies were introduced which have already improved the quality, but the union have still struggled to cope with the extra costs of facility hire, travel costs, on top of the start-up of academies.

McKie demanded more interest from the rugby public, yet continued with infamously poor marketing of the pro game. Unsurprisingly, Glasgow remained almost 500 below the 2,500 demanded despite their most promising season for some time and the Borders more than a thousand under the target.

Yet, crowds are not the real problem because had both teams hit McKie's targets it would only have brought in an extra £200,000, the wages of two good players for a year. And were the SRU to cut the Borders they would still face paying the Netherdale Sports Club around £750,000 to buy out the 20-year lease, a legal agreement signed by the SRU when the Reivers returned in 2002. The union has still failed to comply with their commitment to install a high performance all-weather pitch in 2005 despite being offered a loan to pursue it.

It has to be hoped that whatever plans the executive board spring today they provide professional rugby in Scotland with some form of foundation and certainty for the coming years.

This article was posted on 27-Mar-2007, 07:14 by Hugh Barrow.