THE HERALD REPORTS

The SRU's admission yesterday that it had frittered away almost £30m of investment in the professional game since its inception must have struck an evocative chord at Melrose RFC, a club that displayed the kind of enterprise so lacking among a cabal of business figures, led by Duncan Paterson, Bill Hogg and Charlie Bisset, in the mid-1990s.

These men effectively hi-jacked the future of Scottish rugby and steered it down a calamitous path whilst spreading depression among the country's clubs - the bulwark of the game in Scotland - as the last decade drew to a close.

What shouldn't be forgotten, in the aftermath of yesterday's announcement of the Reivers imminent closure, was the part enacted by Jim Telfer in an inglorious chapter of his nation's rugby history.

Quite correctly, the redoubtable Borderer is acknowledged as a pioneer in the coaching stakes, a devotee of the they-shall-not-pass philosophy and an adherent of the mantra that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. These qualities served him admirably while he was guiding Scotland to a memorable Grand Slam in 1990.

But, as an administrator, he was a slave to New Zealand, a myopic zealot, who guided Scotland down a ruinous path and it is unquestionably the case that yesterday's decision owed a considerable amount to Telfer's insistence that his way was the only way.

One shouldn't utter these sentiments lightly. After all, a significant amount of people have lost their jobs with the collapse of the Reivers and it strikes this observer as unfeasible that the team will manage a third resurrection.

Yet what has to be borne in mind is the reality that the dismantling of the Borders isn't the fault of Allan Munro, Gordon McKie or Andy Irvine. Instead, those truly responsible are the misguided souls who conspired to seize control of the sport as soon as professionalism had been sanctioned.

Initially, at least, Paterson - a Borders man to his bootstraps - was instrumental in this process. So, as the years elapsed, and Telfer moved upstairs, he continued the spending policy, oblivious to paltry crowds and admonitions from cash-strapped clubs and those at grassroots.

No wonder few people were lamenting last night, outwith those individuals who helped perpetrate the original fiasco.

Certainly, Keith Robertson, a sharp business figure in the south of Scotland, was never conned by the concept of the Reivers, especially when so much of their publicity, projection and propagandists seemed to dwell inside Roseburn.

"The people down here have never associated with them, because they are widely perceived as being a Murrayfield-run entity and when you have a situation where an organisation comes into existence, then vanishes, then reappears, it is hardly surprising folk are lukewarm about them," he said. "The Borders public love their rugby and there is anger at the drip-drip tales of how the Reivers' fate was sealed, but the SRU's failure to grant genuine autonomy explained why they have never gained a big support and we have been hearing reports of their demise for the last 18 months."

As Irvine pointed out yesterday, the door hasn't slammed completely, but we probably shouldn't hold our breath for the emergence of a Jedburgh-based J K Rowling with limitless largesse at her disposal. On the contrary, this saga began with Paterson as principal protagonist and continued with Telfer.

Let nobody forget that as the revisionists cast blame everywhere else in the days ahead.

10:32pm Tuesday 27th March 2007



By NEIL DRYSDALE

This article was posted on 28-Mar-2007, 07:51 by Hugh Barrow.