Rugby's top clubs deny breakaway rumours


By DAVID FERGUSON
SCOTLAND'S leading rugby clubs have dismissed claims in a newspaper that they are poised to break away from the Scottish Rugby Union and insisted they are committed to working with the SRU to create a more vibrant elite tier of the club game.

Since rugby turned professional in 1995-96, Scottish clubs have been actively trying to establish a blueprint to make the top of the Scottish game more attractive

Initially, their efforts centred on a controversial push driven by leading lights Melrose, Watsonians and Glasgow Hawks and former Scotland captains for full professional status for clubs. However, this was rejected by the SRU on the grounds that neither the clubs nor the SRU could compete financially with Irish, Welsh, English or French clubs.

Instead, the union opted to create a professional game based on the traditional Scottish districts, funded by the payments from competing in cross-border and European competitions.

The Union began with four teams, representing Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Borders and Caledonia (North and Midlands), but struggled to finance that, and twice, controversially, cut back to just two teams, where it currently stands with Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Clubs suffered as the country's top players were lured away from their sides, while crowds fell, interest waned and sponsorship revenue dropped.

However, the club game has remained the bedrock of Scottish rugby, more vibrant in some places than others. Feuding between the clubs and the SRU that broke out annually appears to have now subsided, with the union and leading sides now working more in harmony to revamp club rugby and bridge the gap between what is viewed as the amateur game and the professional tier.

Ian Barnes, the Edinburgh Accies coach and at times a fierce critic of the SRU, believes that headway is being made and dismissed the claim that clubs were on the verge of breaking away and forming their own independent league, along the lines of football's SPL.

The former championship-winning Hawick coach represents the Division 1 clubs on the Scottish Rugby Council, and he told The Scotsman: "This is a non-contentious issue – there's certainly no 'breakaway' that I know of. That wouldn't help anyone. I think the Premier One clubs are more united now than they have been at any time that I've been involved as a coach, and the union are sympathetic to what we're saying. We have aspirations and the union are listening to us."

"Developing the domestic structure is an ongoing process and it's being addressed by the working party set up to look at the structure of season. That has made enormous progress with representatives from Premier, National and Regional Leagues, and when it went to the Scottish Rugby Council last week there was a very positive feeling about it. The three Premier Leagues were very happy, but we can't say anymore about that right now because it has to go through all the right channels.

"The issue in the past has been where the SRU drew the line between performance and community rugby. They drew it above Division One, separating us from the pro game, where we think it should be below the top 24 or 36 clubs. Now, I think the SRU accept that Premier One and Two clubs at least are different animals to the national league clubs and have different issues."

Tensions do remain in the club game, much of it surrounding money and specifically where the cash from new domestic sponsors Scottish Hydro Electric (SHE) is spent. Some clubs remain unhappy that there is no prize-money, which they believe would provide incentives for clubs to improve and develop the game in their area, if not simply reward the top-performing players, whereas others believe the money would, as has happened in the past, be spent purely on imported players to the neglect of development of a club's own youth.



The SRU have instead taken a deliberate line of focusing the sponsorship money on developing clubs as a whole and, in particular, the numbers of people playing the game in Scotland. Scotland has struggled for years with a figure of less than 10,000 adult rugby players – less than six per cent of England's senior playing base – which has impacted on all levels of the game and made it difficult for Scotland to keep pace with the leading nations on the world stage.



A year ago, the SRU published a long-overdue strategic plan, at the core of which was a drive to improve playing numbers across the club game as well as re-cultivating the dwindling volunteer base underpinning the sport. Scottish clubs have already signed up to a "participation agreement," and the SRU duly shared out a six-figure sum between all 36 Premiership clubs, who each receive over £2,000, the 36 national League clubs and the 92 non-league (regional) clubs – 40 in the north and midlands, 31 in Glasgow and 21 in the east and south of Scotland.



The SRU adds to the pot with the Scottish Government's "Cashback for Communities" scheme – money from the proceeds of crime – which also funds schools coaching, "street rugby" and basic insurance for club players. As part of the wide-ranging changes, the SRU also scrapped its own Murrayfield-based development officer programme to now part-fund club and council-linked DOs – there are currently 58 – in a more locally-focused effort to develop the game through clubs.

Colin Thomson, the SRU's head of community rugby, commented yesterday: "Scottish Rugby is committed to ensuring that rugby thrives through well-run clubs growing the game in their communities and offering playing opportunities in well-structured club competitions at all levels. We will continue to work closely with all of the league forums for the future growth and improvement of the Scottish game."

Talks continue and changes to the structure, such as separating the league seasons between the premiership and national leagues, are among plans being drafted.

Prizemoney for league and cup titles remains a thorny issue, but there do not appear to be any changes forecast on that horizon. Whatever changes are planned to the structure for next season, to put the top clubs on a different footing to those in the lower leagues, clubs insisted yesterday that they would retain them within the current set-up as part of the foundations of Scottish rugby.

This article was originally posted on 9-Dec-2008, 09:29 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 9-Dec-2008, 09:30.