Hierarchy are finally taking the game to Scotland’s youngsters

KEVIN FERRIE December 31 2007
Even before the SRU's announcement this month of its five-year strategic plan for Scottish rugby's future, there were encouraging signs that the organisation had, in 2007, finally knuckled down to its true development role of bringing the sport to the entire country.

Nothing has handicapped that more than the insularity which has brought too much focus on to a handful of clubs that portray themselves as protectors of rugby's heartlands when, like all clubs, their principal interest is in securing their own status.

The vast majority of Scottish rugby's money is generated by the national side. The current international squad includes players from Aberdeen, Berwick, Biggar, Bishopbriggs, Blairgowrie, Crieff, Cupar, Dollar, Dingwall, Galashiels, Hawick, Lenzie, Melrose, Prestonpans, St Andrews and Stirling as well as Edinburgh and Glasgow, working under a coaching trio from Dundee, Kelso and Stirling.


The notion that a few leading clubs play the key role in developing international players is horribly out of date, yet until recently there have still been far too few youngsters exposed to rugby.

What has been profoundly misunderstood is that money spent on developing the sport should not be directed towards reinforcing established areas of strength, but put into helping bring it to new areas.

Growing up attending state primary school in Dundee in the 60s and 70s, we were hardly aware of any form of football other than the round- ball variety. Scotland rugby teams of that time were selected almost exclusively from a handful of FP and Border clubs. Some wish it was still that way. Thankfully, more progressive voices are now being heard and one of this season's most uplifting messages came from one of those, just a few days ahead of the SRU briefing on that aforementioned strategic plan.

Ian Rankin, a Fifer who played for North & Midlands before going into a coaching and management career with Caledonia Reds, Edinburgh Reivers, Edinburgh and, now, Scotland's Club side which claimed victory over Ireland in 2007 after comprehensively losing the previous year's inaugural fixture, is another who has found the past decade frustrating.

Also Dundee HSFP's head coach, his team seems doomed to relegation from Premier One, yet rather than bemoan their troubles, he was seeking to pay tribute to work being done under the guidance of Colin Whittaker, the local rugby development officer. In support of the newly created Dundee Eagles youth set-up, a co-ordinated programme has apparently brought rugby to some 1250 primary and secondary school pupils in curriculum-based, after-school and taster rugby sessions in the past year, many of them gaining their first experience of the game.

Rankin listed more than 40 schools in all, noting that: "As a direct result of the club's efforts to promote rugby and in particular the Eagles in and around Dundee, we now have 39 primary and secondary schools represented within Dundee Eagles Rugby Club."

Dundee is a city of 100,000 people, roughly the same as the Borders but it has produced a fraction of the number of international players the Borders has.

If the rugby community in every region of this nation of five million people was as effective as the Borders the sport would be vibrant. The challenge facing the SRU is to invest the sport's money accordingly.

The greatest tribute SRU administrators can pay the Borders is to recognise what an exceptional template it has created while working hard to ensure every community of 100,000 or so becomes as effective in producing players.

In charge of these programmes at the SRU is Colin Thomson who, as a rightly proud Borderer, ought to be well placed to try to take the lessons from what has worked there. He acknowledges that the way forward is not to support clubs on the basis of status, but on the basis of what they are doing, verifiably, to develop the sport.

He has doubtless discovered that those used to working hard just to keep the sport alive in their areas are grateful for any help received, while most complaining is done by those who have become lazy in believing all they need do is keep poaching players nurtured elsewhere to maintain their status and so continue to receive disproportionate amounts of funding, thereby maintaining a vicious cycle. Personal experience of how little rugby was traditionally played there - allied to Rankin's message - lets me cite Dundee as a near- perfect demonstration of what is being done, but it is far from an isolated case.

Malcolm Gillies, an Edinburgh man, but a national league representative on the SRU Council, also expressed excitement recently after travelling to Caithness to watch this month's "local derby" with Highland (a mere 125 miles separate them).

"Eighty boys are playing at after-schools clubs in both Wick and Thurso every Sunday and Highland report similar numbers, expanding rapidly," he said. Gillies added that he expects more of the same when he attends Dumfries v Stewartry at the opposite end of the country next weekend.

Such stories now abound and the signs are also that, as well as getting on with the hard work, the majority are learning to be less silent than in the past. If rugby's aim, as it should be, is to be available to every youngster in the country, that is as it should be and the SRU's five-year plan promises to underpin their efforts.

This article was posted on 31-Dec-2007, 09:10 by Hugh Barrow.