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Club rugby playing field not level because of imports'
So, John Beattie would like to play "the real Melrose" (Monday Sport, December 1) because the Greenyards team used "imports" in beating his team. When West of Scotland played Stirling County at Bridgehaugh in October and beat them handsomely, Mr Beattie's team had five "imports" in the form of professional and academy players while County had none. So County would like to play "the real West".

This current use of professionals, on a fairly random basis that is not under the control of the Premier clubs, is distorting results in the league. There is certainly anecdotal evidence that some clubs are getting professionals released to them regularly and that they are doing rather better in the league than others who are not. It is disruptive to continuity of team selection and is disadvantaging the development of young players. It really is a mystery to me why the clubs agreed to accept this SRU-proposed system which makes the playing field not level.

It would be interesting for someone at The Herald to analyse when and how often these professional and semi-professional imports have been used in the league alongside the teams' results.

Len Paterson, Stirling

This article was originally posted on 4-Dec-2008, 08:49 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 4-Dec-2008, 19:32.