THE HERALD REVEALS

Borders-style competition mooted for West clubs
KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer January 27 2009

LOOKING AHEAD: John Beattie, the West of Scotland coach, believes there is a pressing need for a local competition which would fill in the blanks in the season and help clubs' development.
Premiership clubs across the west of Scotland have agreed in principle to set up a new XV-a-side competition designed to increase their competitiveness and improve the profile of the game.

The brainchild of John Beattie, the BBC broadcaster, who is also head coach of Scottish Hydro Electric Premier One side West of Scotland, he admits that what is nominally being referred to as a Glasgow Cup was inspired by envy of the more competitive Borders environment.

"I've always thought the Borders had a real advantage coming into this time of year," he explained. "As an example, we had a really big game in the division two title race against Selkirk this time last year and they'd had really competitive games every week when the Premiership was off because they were playing in the Borders League, whereas we'd only had a couple of games.

"We should be looking at helping our teams in our area in the same sort of way that the other Borders clubs have helped Langholm when they've been dropping down the leagues.

"Other parts of Scotland should be looking at it, too. It would be great to have regular games against the likes of Garnock and Ardrossan, which would also help their development.

"You never know, we could be back in Premier Three again in a few years' time, but having seen the atmosphere at the games over the last couple of seasons I'd like to think that if we did we would still have regular competitive games with the Hawks."

One of those, the recent Premier One meeting between the sides at Old Anniesland, demonstrated a major potential side benefit.

"We moved that match forward to a Friday night so that we could broadcast it live on the radio and it was a popular decision because we also got a crowd of around 1500," the regular presenter of that Radio Scotland programme pointed out.

"The BBC now has that slot for rugby and when the pro teams are playing at home on Friday nights or there are representative games we can broadcast those, but there are quite a number of weekends when there are no Friday games. We would have the flexibility to play these matches at any time so it could be great for club rugby."

He noted that the sevens circuit, also commercially dominated by the Borders clubs, takes up a substantial chunk of the season, but questioned the benefits to those looking to build teams.

"The worst thing about sevens is that most of the blokes you want running around in the good weather, the likes of the props and the locks, are not involved."

According to Beattie, all Premiership clubs in the district, conveniently numbering 10 at the moment - West, Hawks, Ayr, GHA, Hamilton, Ardrossan Accies, Cartha QP, Hillhead/Jordanhill, Garnock and Irvine - have agreed that such a competition would be beneficial and should be set up. There are logistical issues to be taken into consideration, but he believes every effort should be made to get the new tournament under way as soon as possible.

"Ideally, what we want is a competition that gets under way in pre-season, to help us get ready for the national competition, with the rest of the matches played towards the middle and end of the season," he said.

"It would be great to have a final play-off day, too, in the best of the weather in May, when all the teams involved could play-off for places, ending in a final in the evening. If there was real flexibility with fixtures then if two teams were knocked out of the cup competitions and had no fixture they could play one another that weekend.

"Obviously, it won't be possible to get something like that fully up and running until next season and it is even a bit tight for that. However, I'd like to think we could have something under way in the closing stages of this season to get it off the ground."

This article was posted on 27-Jan-2009, 08:17 by Hugh Barrow.