SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS;

IAIN MORRISON

THE appointment of Gordon McKie as chief executive of Scottish Rugby was received with a collective sigh of relief because continued uncertainty over who would lead the organisation out of their present gloom was further undermining an already precarious edifice.

One of the first things on McKie's agenda is player contracts, since the players' union have strong reservations about the new deal recently offered to all members - as well they might since one clause appears to give the SRU the right to change the deal at will.

But presuming he overcomes that hurdle, there are two urgent issues that will grab McKie's attention. The first is the finances and the second is the number of people actually playing the game on a Saturday afternoon.

That McKie, a businessman from toes to tie, professes no especial knowledge of rugby will inevitably be greeted by complaints about the suits taking over our game, but when you have a £23m hole in the books, filled for now by those nice people from HBOS, then the SRU obviously needed to appoint someone who can read a ledger the right way up.

His appointment might not find favour with the professional players because McKie politely but firmly declined to back Freddie MacLeod's three-teams-three-years guarantee. But for once the tears from the men on the Mound will be ones of gratitude since HBOS have already appointed the Heriot-Watt graduate to several of his previous posts. They know and trust McKie.

Rumours that HBOS actually engineered this appointment are not true, but unless McKie turns the finances around, his replacement almost certainly will be. At least the new boss now has time and, crucially, the full support of the board to pursue his agenda which will inevitably entail more cost-cutting. Some staff at Murrayfield may be asked to re-apply for their jobs as the SRU renounce once and for all charitable status.

McKie spoke to members of staff at Murrayfield for an hour before meeting the press last Tuesday, and impressed them with his integrity and his insistence on honesty and transparency - not virtues that generally follow Murrayfield in any word association.

According to insiders, McKie has already started his internal audit, and when he gets his brogues under MacLeod's old desk on Monday, the question of a new national coach will be high on his agenda. The new SRU supremo will inevitably lean heavily on the rugby brains around him to help to advise him in an area where he makes no claims of expertise, but at least McKie won't be overwhelmed by the choices available to him.

Scotland's fall from grace means that the very best coaches in world rugby won't apply for the post. The union can't afford the best anyway.

The appointment is likely to be internal, and Frank Hadden remains the favourite to replace Matt Williams. Hugh Campbell has probably had his chance, and may anyway prefer to concentrate his energies upon a promising Glasgow squad. Steve Bates has impressed with limited resources at the Borders but - and this was key to Williams' failure - he does not yet know Scottish rugby well enough.

Meanwhile Sean Lineen has many supporters, but the naturalised Kiwi might feel that he needs more professional experience before he is ready to tackle the national post.

Whoever takes over won't change Scotland's fortunes overnight, but it is important that some progress is made. What the summer proved beyond doubt is that the gulf between Northern and Southern Hemisphere rugby is back with a vengeance. Anyone who has witnessed the opening rounds of the Tri-Nations will confirm that.

In truth Wales won a very poor Six Nations. England and France are well below the standard they have set in recent years, and Ireland's ageing squad are clearly on the wane. Scotland must be looking for mid-table respectability because current European standards are not high.

Naturally McKie will have little immediate influence on Scotland's performance either in the Six Nations or the autumn internationals. The latter look especially daunting, but the matches against Argentina and New Zealand will give us a good idea of Scotland's proper place in world rugby.

Nor will McKie find a quick fix to the numbers problem. Scotland's estimated list of 7,000-odd adult males currently registered with clubs is considerably lower than the numbers available to either the USA or Canada. More surprisingly, the figure is 1,000 fewer players than Spain fields each week and just 1,000 above the 6000 Scottish cricketers estimated to take to the field regularly in the summer.

As has been said before, this is a joint problem for clubs and the union and it needs a joint solution, or rather solutions. There is no point clubs pointing the finger at Murrayfield and moaning because the best of them still boast healthy numbers. But it takes infinitely more effort to persuade one player from the Playstation generation to remain in the game to adulthood than it did 10 or 20 years ago when far fewer alternatives were available.

Summer rugby, regionalisation, better pitches, indoor training facilities, stricter refereeing of the breakdown to prevent illegal use of the boot and better utilisation of the development officers are just a few ideas to halt the decline in numbers that the CEO will consider in the coming months.

But McKie has been chosen primarily to sort out the financial mess. Finding ways to reinvigorate our domestic game will probably have to come from others.

This article was posted on 14-Aug-2005, 07:58 by Hugh Barrow.