THE HERALD REPORTS

Edinburgh take fight to new groundKEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer July 03 2007
Edinburgh's long-running dispute with the Scottish Rugby Union has reached critical status with their owners' decision to withdraw players from Scotland's World Cup training squad.

In a move reminiscent of the exiles-led strike in 1999, which caused significant disruption to planning for that year's tournament, the national squad's fitness work - planned in minute detail by Mark Bitcom, their conditioning expert - has been interrupted for the past two days by Edinburgh.

In what effectively amounts to a form of work to rule, a dozen players - Chris Paterson, Scott Murray, Mike Blair, Ally Hogg, Hugo Southwell, Simon Webster, Marcus Di Rollo, Allan Jacobsen, Craig Smith, Dave Callam, Al Strokosch and Ally Dickinson - were told on Monday by their full-time employers to report for duty on that side of Murrayfield, for pre-season training. "We are now working to the agreement we have in place with the SRU," said Alex Carruthers, Edinburgh's chairman, in reponse to the SRU's confirmation that the players had been withdrawn from the national camp.

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"Obviously, I don't want to go into the detail of that but prior to this we have been working way beyond it. We are looking for a resolution as soon as possible and have asked for a meeting tomorrow."

That may prove very difficult to facilitate. A major part of the problem has been the unwillingness of senior SRU executives to negotiate directly with Bob Carruthers, Alex's brother and the main financier of their consortium which took control of the club last summer.

Behind that lies a dispute that has been running for around 10 months. Full details of that disagreement, over the implications of the terms of their contract, have never been confirmed publicly by either side, but they centre on who has rights to the sponsorship and broadcast money brought into Scottish rugby from the Magners League and Heineken Cup competitions.

Bob Carruthers has repeatedly made public threats that the matter is bound for the courts. Alex, as club chairman, has been less confrontational in approach, but he, too, has made it clear that the matter must be resolved satisfactorily or will be tested in court.

It has seemed at times as if their respective lawyers are telling both parties what they want to hear, but Edinburgh have been more subdued in their recent public utterances, while Gordon McKie, the SRU's chief executive, told member clubs at last week's AGM that he was confident relations were improving.

However, withdrawing players is also something Edinburgh's management have repeatedly threatened and that they have now felt forced to take that action is a reminder of the dispute's seriousness.

With both sides having asserted that they have done more than required under the terms of their agreement, Edinburgh's capacity to take that action goes a long way towards giving them the moral high ground. By definition, they could not have done so had they not been giving the national team management more access to the players than they are entitled to.

Officials in both camps were deeply unhappy that The Herald had discovered the players' labour had been withdrawn and, after confirming that action had been taken, the SRU initially indicated that they would issue a statement explaining their position before subsequently refusing to do so on legal advice.

Yet this is, in rugby terms, a matter of grave public concern since Scotland supporters will inevitably see parallels with the events of eight years ago.

At that time Jim Telfer called upon Ian McGeechan, who was set, over the next four years, to replace him first as Scotland coach, then as national director of rugby, to try to help resolve matters. With Gary Armstrong, who had led the national side to Five Nations Championship glory that year, also playing an influential part, they managed to do so relatively quickly.

Armstrong retired after that tournament, however, and relationships had been soured between other leading exiles and the SRU hierarchy. The lingering effect became clear over the next few years with the early retirement of John Leslie soon after he had captained Scotland, followed by the even more unsatisfactory episode which saw Budge Pountney quit Test rugby ahead of the next World Cup. That happened just weeks after the team had been given what should have been a huge lift with a win over South Africa's Springboks.

While in this instance the players are blameless, little more than pawns being used by their respective employers, the potential for disharmony within the national camp is once again obvious.

nPierre Berbizier, the Italy coach, believes the World Cup tie with Scotland will be like a private final between the sides, writes David Kelso.

With the All Blacks overwhelming favourites to win Group C, the Italians and Scots are almost certain to go head to head in St Etienne for the other qualifying slot.

Berbizier said "It will be all or nothing against Scotland. It will be without question the most important match in the tournament for both countries, almost like a final in its own right. Our target is to be ready to be at our best for that tie."

This article was posted on 3-Jul-2007, 21:43 by Hugh Barrow.