THE HERALD REPORTS

Inter-city rivalry can propel game to a new high
KEVIN FERRIE January 01 2008
Scottish rugby: reasons to be cheerful
Part 2: the pro game

Soon after his dexterous off-load produced the matchwinning try in last Friday's magnificent inter-city derby, Nick De Luca was among those celebrating not only a victory for the home team, but the atmosphere generated by a record crowd for the fixture.

The centre also mused upon having got off the team bus at their home ground of Murrayfield to be roundly booed by Glasgow Warriors supporters who went on to cheer the visiting team into the stadium raucously.

Although I did not witness it, I was delighted to hear of it, not least because, a few moments earlier, I had briefly argued over the subject with Andy Robinson, Edinburgh's new head coach. Though weaned on West Country rivalry - he took on Bristol and Gloucester with Bath - Robinson had just become the latest Scottish Rugby Union employee to offer the view that Scotland's two professional teams must support one another, reasoning that there are only two of them so they cannot afford to drag one another down.


Personally, I can think of few greater motivators to improve than seeing your biggest rival doing better than you but, so far, it is among the few things in the ultra-competitive former England head coach's outlook with which I would quibble.

His appointment did not generate as much excitement as news earlier in the year that Stephen Larkham was supposed to be joining the capital's professional team but, in retrospect, perhaps it should have. In many ways, their respective recruitments symbolised the first and second halves of 2007 in Scottish professional rugby.

January to June was horrible as we awaited the inevitable with the closure of the Border Reivers, while the business consortium which briefly owned Edinburgh engaged in a protracted battle with the SRU.

That group, which also fleetingly drove a misguided campaign to save the Reivers, was principally bank-rolled by Bob Carruthers, who made his money in the entertainment industry and is unquestionably a larger than life character. The video-link press conference with Larkham in Sydney was stylish. In retrospect, it now seems to have spoken volumes about a group that had some great ambition and ideas, but lacked either the wherewithal or the will to see its project through.

As one leading player after another was allowed to leave Edinburgh, it was all rather disturbing until the claims and counter-claims about legal suits were finally set aside when the SRU reclaimed ownership of the team.

Simon Cross, appointed Edinburgh's club captain for this season before all that was concluded, was part of a rump of senior players who were neither leaving nor World Cup-bound, so battled to keep things together. He has admitted that the one time he let his head drop was when Lynn Howells, the head coach who had made him captain, was released from his post. Now, though, his excitement over what is happening under Robinson, the former England head coach, is infectious.

I spoke to Cross during a Radio Scotland programme a fortnight ago and I teasingly asked what he thought Frank Hadden, the Scotland and former Edinburgh head coach, was making of the number of players who have been enthusing over what they have described as being properly coached for the first time as professionals.

I expected a fairly safe reply and his first instinct was along those lines as he said "I have to watch what I say," before quickly adding " . . . well, actually, no I don't".

He launched into a fascinating discourse on how Robinson's attention to detail, looking for any way of tweaking more and more from individual players' performances, has been extremely stimulating, before explaining that Hadden is more a big picture man, believing players who arrive in his camp should have the basic skills required to perform at that level. That attitude probably better suits the national set-up than the pro teams and Cross consequently concluded that Robinson and Hadden should compliment one another extremely well.

With Sean Lineen's Glasgow Warriors poised to complete a full year without losing at home if they beat Newport-Gwent Dragons on Friday, the signs are that Scotland's best young players are at last getting the opportunity to hone their abilities in the right environment.

Rather than look at what is happening now that the correct decision in terms of concentrating limited resources on the two city sides has been made, others have, when reviewing professional rugby in Scotland in 2007, apparently engaged in further agonised navel-gazing.

Personally, I have enormous sympathy for Steve Bates, the last Reivers head coach who did a fine job in trying to develop talent while handicapped by having too many players who were either not up to the rigours of professional rugby or were past it.

Similarly, I believe that had Alex, the younger of the Carruthers brothers, been the main financier of the consortium that bought into Edinburgh, the project might just have worked. Instead big Bob's inability to deliver the big concerts he claimed he could bring to Murrayfield and, perhaps more importantly, his ego made it impossible for them to work with the SRU. Blood is thicker than water so Alex - he was the club's managing director - can never publicly admit as much and, in many ways, that is also commendable.

What should have been a constructive relationship became a battle Murrayfield administrators could not afford to lose. They had to be strong in the way they dealt with that, but the way they conducted those negotiations - not least in a series of appalling public relations blunders - was poor and at times even disgraceful as empty threats were exchanged.

On which note, it was a particular shame that, back under state ownership, the most encouraging of endings to Edinburgh's year was spoiled by the latest PR gaffe when they failed to anticipate how many people would turn up for Friday's inter-city meeting with Glasgow Warriors. The result was long, unnecessary queues.

It was yet another example of failure to do homework and learn from past mistakes. The new communications director about to arrive at Murrayfield must do better in that regard than his hapless predecessor.

This article was posted on 1-Jan-2008, 10:50 by Hugh Barrow.