THE HERALD REPORTS

Pressure is certain to build on administrators to address the disproportionate looking number of Magners League teams in the Heineken Cup if the Celtic teams do not improve on what has been an abysmal start.

At the time of writing, with Leinster still to play at Toulouse last night, it's not just the ratio of five wins and a draw from 17 matches that is offering deep cause for concern, it's the scale of some of the defeats.

Following the axing of the Border Reivers, nine of the 10 Magners League teams qualified for the main European tournament this season, with only Connacht missing out.

That can be rationalised on the basis of the importance to the tournament of being seen as a genuine cross-border contest. But there is a real danger if the contest aspect of that no longer applies and English and French clubs have long been unhappy about how much easier it is for the Celts to qualify.

In overall terms there has been a real sense of steady decline in the competitiveness of the Celtic teams since Munster finally ended their long wait to win the tournament two seasons ago.

Lowlights of the past two weekends have been the 32-14 thrashing Ulster suffered when Gloucester visited a once feared Ravenhill in the opening match, leading to Mark McCall's departure as head coach; Llanelli's back-to-back hammerings at the hands of Clermont Auvergne (48-21) and Wasps (33-17); and, particularly sadly from a Scottish perspective, Edinburgh's 39-0 whipping at Leicester Tigers.

Worryingly, this seems to back up the evidence from other tournaments, with Welsh teams appearing to be doing rather worse in the Anglo-Welsh Cup this season than last. Much more telling was the recent World Cup, where the early exits suffered by Ireland and Wales ahead of the pool stages reinforced the growing impression that the Magners League is not providing players with sufficiently intense matches to be ready for crunch games. While every match matters in the English and French leagues, the piece-meal attitude of Celtic coaches to their domestic competition means many games are used for development purposes with leading players rested.

That is partly down to the teams being union-owned, something that will continue to be very important in terms of stabilising the global game until such time as the International Rugby Board is confident that it has the mechanisms in place to protect the Test rugby from predatory English and French club owners.

The problem is that such a set-up is wide open to abuse from international head coaches who want to control leading players' schedules. They cheat the public and the sponsors every time they do so and the evidence seems to be that it is not even helping the national teams.

For its own credibility and in terms of preparing players for cross-border tournaments and Test rugby, the Magners League must become much more competitive with end-of-season play-offs, open competition for European places and perhaps even a reduction in the number of those, all on the table. As I have stated in these columns before, that may be dangerous for Scotland. But something must get the teams out of their comfort zone if they are to progress.

Glasgow Warriors may have secured one of those five Celtic wins and a bonus point along with it against Viadana last Friday, but Sean Lineen, their head coach, laced into his players for what he reckoned was, collectively, their worst effort under his charge.

Their defeat at Saracens the previous week, where a scoreline of 33-31 flattered them, was their 25th away successive away defeat and extended a record that will surely never be surpassed.

Meanwhile, Andy Robinson, the Edinburgh coach, who has said he believes the Magners League needs a shake-up, claimed to be shocked to discover how few members of the press would be making the trip south with his side last week.

Perhaps he now realises a little more about why sportsdesks, with their own tight budgets to handle, are taking an increasingly tough line. Like spectators, newspaper executives seem to have sensed that there is a cry wolf element to the annual claims that the Scottish teams will "be more competitive this season".

Ahead of the trip to Leicester, Robinson spoke with great relish about how much his players should look forward to it and he has repeatedly said his team is capable of winning every match it plays.

Either that is so, making Saturday's result quite dreadful, or he was bluffing, in which case it was well and truly called.

Either way, the 39-0 margin suggests that he should perhaps now be relieved that relatively few Scots witnessed it first hand.

12:40am today



By KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer

This article was posted on 19-Nov-2007, 08:18 by Hugh Barrow.