SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY STATES



Apathy towards the club game in Scotland has contributed to the national Iain Morrison
HOW did it come to this? What was seen by many in the press and the public alike as the strongest Scotland squad in a decade has just two opportunities left to avoid the humiliation of a wooden spoon.
Ahead of this season, it wasn't just the scribblers who were optimistic. Even Frank Hadden conceded that he now had more options in selection, "not as many as England but as many as Ireland or Wales". He was only half right. While the coach has an embarrassment of riches in some positions, the midfield cupboard still resembles Old Mother Hubbard's.

As things stand, the Six Nations is really a Four-plus-Two Nations contest, with Italy and Scotland lagging behind. Since Italy have 10 professional teams to Scotland's two, Sergio Parisse's men are in a much better position to play catch-up than Scotland are.

They may not have set the heather on fire but the Scots were at least quietly efficient during their World Cup campaign, especially in comparison to the other underperforming Celts, so how did things unravel with quite such speed? The very effectiveness of the World Cup campaign was probably one reason. Having seen his dull, kick-and-chase tactics work in St Etienne, and almost do for the Argentineans one week later, Hadden presumed that more of the same would be enough to see off France. He was wrong about tactics as he has been wrong about selection with an unhealthy obsession with size at the expense of skill and athleticism.

Fifteen minutes into the French match, the Scots caught a lineout and attempted to drive it. Despite enjoying a hefty weight advantage the home pack moved not one inch forward and Dan Parks was forced to kick the ball away – again. It was a crucial moment for the Scots who, two years ago, had mauled the French pack 25 metres backwards to score a try. The World Cup showed the importance of momentum and the Scots lost theirs in that critical moment, literally and figuratively.

Laughably, the coach also bewailed the shape of a rugby ball. But France didn't score because of a lucky bounce. They scored because Parks attempted to fly-hack the ball clear instead of falling on it. Simple stuff, but Scotland's fall from grace has been hastened by the hopeless performances of the man who was voted Players' Player in the recent World Cup.

Hadden can not say he was not warned. For several weeks, if not months, Parks had been playing poorly for Glasgow, mixing occasional flashes of excellence with a regular procession of schoolboy errors. Park's very first action of the Six Nations championship was to kick the ball out on the full. It didn't augur well.

Hadden might now wish that he had persevered with Chris Paterson at flyhalf in his Edinburgh days all those years ago. He was not the complete playmaker back then, but players can be improved. That's why coaches are called coaches.

If Parks has been the worst offender, many of his team mates have not been appreciably better. There were individual performances here and there – Mike Blair, John Barclay, Simon Webster, Chris Cusiter and Allan Jacobsen all had their moments – but the overall performance of the team was miles short of their true potential.

For this, Hadden needs to shoulder at least some of the blame. It is the hardest aspect of coaching, the constant exhortations to the troops to raise themselves to the mental and physical heights required. Goodness only knows how Sir Alex Ferguson has maintained his team's high standards over the course of 21 years because Hadden has failed in three.

Now rumours emanating from the Scotland squad suggest that the introspective coach only talks to those players he knows best from his days with Edinburgh. If it's true it is a damaging accusation, but to blame all of Scotland's woes on one man is hopelessly misguided, especially one as committed to the Scotland cause as Hadden.

There are any number of problems at the root of Scotland's current lowly standing and they range from minis through to the professional game, but the current apathy surrounding the club game is perhaps the most damaging. Instead of raising Premier One's standing and helping to establish a semi-professional club game that is connected to the pro-game, Scotland's best clubs have been cut off and set adrift. This is partly their own fault for voting in a 12-team league but it also reflects the high-handedness of the SRU's rugby division in believing that Scotland's top clubs offer next to nothing in the development of young players for the professional ranks.

John Houston might have something to say about that, so might numerous others, including Scott MacLeod, Graeme Morrison, Rory Lawson, Blair and Cusiter, none of whom suffered irreparable damage by playing a few years of Scottish club rugby.

The clubs offer the chance for a young player to learn the tools of his trade at the coalface, live matches instead of interminable training sessions, and all that in an environment where winning really matters. This sort of experience is priceless and it is blinkered arrogance on behalf of the SRU to cut the clubs out of the equation.

Scotland's base of players is hopelessly small, the game still loses countless youngsters who fail to make the transition from schools to club rugby and it can only be built from the bottom up. The Union needs to be far more innovative when it comes to keeping its best juniors involved, so:

• Ask every club in the premier leagues to establish an Under-20 team to help facilitate the move from schools to club rugby.

• Offer a modest bursary (£1-2,000) for the best 50 schoolboys in any one year when they sign on with a club upon leaving school.

• Release as many unwanted professionals, including academy members, into the club game as often as possible to get much-needed game time.

Only when we have a vibrant club scene again will the pro teams have a better and broader choice of players.

Even then, our paid players are performing in the most flawed league in existence as a glance at the table will confirm. The Ospreys are seventh, but this club side is essentially the Wales team that has swept all before them this year. The reason the Ospreys are in a lowly position this year is the same reason that Munster finished sixth last season. They don't give a hoot. The Ospreys are concentrating all their energies on the Heineken Cup where the payback – hard cash and prestige - far outweighs winning the Magners League.

Until it becomes a meaningful league, it is difficult to see how the Magners matches will ever equal the intensity found in the Guinness Premiership.

But if that is a Celtic issue, there is a deeper problem specific to the Scottish game, and this is one area where Hadden has long been a prophet without honour. We bemoan our national team's inability to catch and pass properly under pressure while we are content to see schoolchildren kick the leather off the ball. The Scottish psyche is averse to risk. Rather than have a go with the ball in hand we take the route of least resistance. While other teams were off-loading in the tackle, the Scots were still setting up endless rucks, giving the opposition time to realign their defence.

There needs to be a sea-change in attitudes towards the game. Our juniors need encouragement to play with the ball in hand, to have fun, to make sure the wingers get to see the ball and not just when it drops out of the sky. And please let the wee ones play summer rugby.

Our national team forwards will be competitive again, once they have rediscovered the spirit and passion without which the famous blue jersey is nothing more than a table-top duster. However, our back play will continue to be one-paced, one-dimensional and glaringly wooden until we produce instinctive ball players. For that to happen, Scotland needs a root-and-branch revolution in style, the active connivance of several thousand Sunday afternoon volunteers and, of course, the children they coach.

This article was posted on 2-Mar-2008, 14:40 by Hugh Barrow.