SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS
IAIN MORRISON
THE Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Less than two weeks after Gordon McKie and the executive board announced the demise of the Reivers to make savings of approximately £2m per annum, the French and English clubs boycott the Heineken Cup, wiping out around £2m of revenues from European Rugby Cup (ERC).

The repercussions of the French clubs' decision will be felt at Scotland's remaining two teams. Glasgow coach Sean Lineen was looking forward to a time of plenty, relatively speaking of course, but now he will have to revert to the original notch on his belt buckle unless Glasgow are sold before the beginning of next season, which remains a very real possibility. Even if that happens he will lose many of his best players at the end of this term, and if it doesn't a flat-lining budget won't help him retain many of the 18 players who are understood to be out of contract at the end of the season.

Edinburgh are in an even more worrying situation. The ERC money that accrues to them comes on top of the "seven-figure sum" that Gordon McKie talks about. This SRU subsidy is generally reckoned to be around £1.1m and the ERC revenues have been £750,000 for each of the two Scottish clubs in the Heineken Cup (a total of £1.5m) which has in turn been split evenly between the three pro-teams, so giving £500,000 per club.

In other words, approximately one quarter of Edinburgh's budget will be lost unless, as some have suggested, that ERC revenue is guaranteed by the SRU regardless of whether the contest takes place or not. In this case the Union will be taking the pain rather than Edinburgh.

It will be a tough blow for Murrayfield to bear and all but impossible for Edinburgh Rugby to endure. There is a body of opinion that thinks Bob Carruthers has picked innumerable fights with Gordon McKie in the hope that the Union will pay him to sell up and go away. In fairness this is not something that the Edinburgh boss has ever even hinted at, but must remain a very real possibility.

The timing of the Heineken boycott is not ideal but, a little like the Borders, the SRU cannot claim that they were not warned. Anyway, if the European competition is suspended for one year it won't be the end of civilisation as we know it despite the Union's doom-laden press release last week. With the Borders gone the Union will leave the other two teams on much the same budget and ride out the financial hardship for one year.

The real worry for Scottish rugby in the longer term is that the French/English clubs take this opportunity to reshape the contest in their favour. As recently as last week England veteran Lawrence Dallaglio was sounding off about the iniquities heaped upon the Guinness Premierleague clubs by having to qualify for a tournament that only half of them get to experience in any given year when the majority of the Celtic teams sail in almost unopposed. The three Irish provinces qualify automatically, the top three of four Welsh sides and, to date, the top two of three Scottish sides are all welcomed into the European Cup proper.

"If you look at Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Italy then all of their top players compete in the Heineken Cup. The Heineken Cup genuinely benefits them internationally," said the former England skipper.

"Jonny Wilkinson has played just once in the Heineken Cup during his career. There are a number of other players in England who either never will or never have played in this competition.

"It's something we need to address if we're to move forward internationally because it clearly doesn't allow England players to feature at the highest level."

A few years back England attempted to re-write the rules governing the distribution of Six Nations TV money to favour the bigger countries. They were stymied when the Celts presented a united front and the three smaller nations, along with the Italians, must do the same again or risk the balance of power in Europe being tipped irreversibly against them.

There is a danger that the French and English clubs might insist that the Celts qualify on the same criteria as they do. The top six of the Magners League would go into the Heineken Cup and the bottom five (or four) would enter the secondary Challenge Cup. With Scottish teams currently lying fifth, eighth and 11th this could have a devastating effect on Scottish rugby, although it would do wonders for the integrity of the Magners League.

An alternative French/English cross-border competition has already been mooted to fill the weekends next season that are no longer required for ERC action, but both sides have denied that may happen. In any case it would be pure stupidity to harm the Heineken competition any further. Admittedly the Scots have yet to set the tournament on fire, but the Welsh and Irish regions have regularly appeared in the last four and any cobbled together Anglo/French contest would look tawdry without Llanelli, Leinster and Munster flying the Celtic colours.

And mention of Munster brings us back to the Borders which, it was hoped, would emulate the feats of the Irish rugby heartland to whom they have so often been compared. Sadly it was not to be, although the Reivers did start with some positive signs.

On Friday October 4 2002, in the first year of their reincarnation, the new boys attracted 5,500 bodies into Netherdale to watch their side beat Glasgow 33-12. Between then and now the region has somehow misplaced 4,000 fans.

Despite these healthy figures it is probably worth noting that the second coming of the Reivers was not universally popular. The region's best player, Chris Paterson, declined to play in his home town and the area's most experienced player, Gregor Townsend, left the Reivers half-way through the 2003/04 season to go and play Super 12 rugby for the Sharks in Natal.

Something like 22 of the 27 Borders clubs voted against the pro-club being resurrected back in 2002 and even Jim Telfer admitted recently that, with the benefit of hindsight, he might have placed Scotland's third pro-team in Caledonia rather than on his own doorstep.

These are not reasons for closing the Reivers, the reasons are almost all financial, but they do suggest that the region has had an ambiguous relationship with its professional team. The admirable passion which has been harnessed to save the club in the past couple of weeks was not always evident during its five-year existence.

The most immediate impact of the Heineken Cup's demise is to undermine any plans to rescue the Reivers. According to Graham Garvie, who heads the project, his initial working paper included £800,000 of ERC subsidy and, even with the best will in the world - which is exactly what Garvie is reporting from the region - it is difficult to see that huge financial hole being filled from other sources.

Garvie remains confident that some sort of European competition will take place next season, whether a full-blooded Heineken Cup or a low-alcohol version of the event, but others are less sanguine.

But with or without their professional rugby arm, the Border clubs will continue to do what they have always done; produce good young players whose numbers are out of all proportion to the region's population.

If some of the savings from the Reivers' demise go towards helping those same clubs develop their best youngsters then so much the better - not that anyone in Scottish rugby can expect any handouts until the Heineken Cup is restored to its rightful place at the centre of European club rugby.

This article: http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/rugby.cfm?id=540702007

This article was posted on 8-Apr-2007, 07:37 by Hugh Barrow.