THE SCOTSMAN ARGUES
Flawed British and Irish Cup may do Scottish rugby more harm than good



Published Date: 14 May 2009
By David Ferguson
THERE was an obvious joy to Heriot's securing a place in the new British and Irish Cup even in defeat to Edinburgh Accies on Tuesday night, but it failed to hide the fact that the new competition does not stand up to scrutiny.
The four home unions managed to bring myriad personal agendas to the table and somehow leave it shaking hands and looking forward to a strangely concocted hybrid event, and one that could do more damage to the Scottish game than good.

For those not au fait with how this cup, to be launched in November, came about, here is a brief summary. The English RFU wanted a cross-border competition to enthuse their 12 second tier clubs, those being encouraged to turn fully professional and compete in a new championship, but without an avenue to play in Europe.

The Welsh union has been striving to appease its leading clubs – the great Llanellis, Cardiffs (the club, not the pro region), Neaths and Newports of this world – who, like Scotland, had their ambitions stunted by the WRU's switch to regional sides in the pro game.

Ireland needed games for the 60-plus professionals involved with Munster, Leinster and Ulster, but who, on the fringes of the first XVs, are largely full-time trainers. There was a similar issue in Scotland, only the SRU felt that it could not guarantee enough players to fill reserve sides for Glasgow and Edinburgh, or even a Glasgow/Edinburgh combined side (for just five fixtures?) so it spied the opportunity to follow Wales' lead and hand the clubs an olive branch.

So, Scotland will have a combined professional/academy team to give fringe pros five more games a season and will also enter the top two league clubs – Ayr and now Heriot's – into the inaugural British and Irish Cup. The SRU hierarchy believe they are making progress where previous administrations failed, that is they are giving the leading clubs in Scotland new ambition.

In fact, the SRU is showing itself to be wholly ignorant of the growing gulf between amateur and professional rugby. Rugby League took the best part of 100 years to find their way to differentiate, and some would say they are not there yet, and even football took decades to reach a point where there is common acceptance of two, if not three tiers (amateur, semi-professional/junior and professional).

Rugby union will get there, but not until more are prepared to accept there is a difference between the amateur (players can be paid, but most are not) and professional games. There are two key concerns with entering Ayr and Heriot's into this cup. The first surrounds player welfare whereby players training twice or thrice a week will face up to English players training every day.

It is akin to Motherwell playing against Spartans or Gala Fairydean, only in football the difference is confined largely to the pace of game and fitness levels. In rugby the gulf includes those areas, but has the added dimensions of strength and physicality. There are some very fit, strong club players who train almost daily, but there are more professional players who can put on around three stones of finely-tuned weight their bodies would never see were they to have remained amateur players. The step-up to pro rugby and the Test arena is huge.

The second issue for Scottish rugby to consider is what this cup does to the club game. Ayr and Heriot's have already spoken of keeping leading players, and they are in the throes of trying to attract top talent from other clubs – Hawick stand-off Rory Hutton is tipped to join Heriot's this summer – through the lure of playing in the cup. That will, almost inevitably, come with offers of financial help.

That, in turn, ensures those clubs are more competitive for the domestic league and so would make them favourites to remain at the top of the game in 2009-10, so qualifying again for the British and Irish Cup. If that did materialise then who else but these clubs would benefit?

In arguing this point in recent weeks, it has been debated that the cup at least gives club rugby something to aim for; increases ambition; simply, that it is better than nothing. That in itself is debatable, and something that might only be answered after the first cup is played out, however, support has been growing for an alternative approach – the return of the inter-district championship.

Next season, the SRU could appoint coaches for Edinburgh and Glasgow and create select sides for those cities to enter the British and Irish Cup, but also look to bring the South and North and Midlands/Caledonia back as club select entities in a championship, the top two in which could qualify for the next British and Irish Cup.

It would serve as a trial ground for the Scotland club international side and also improve relations with two areas – the South and Caledonia – that feel disenfranchised from the current SRU.

This would not solve the issue of clubs playing beyond Scottish boundaries, but even a great campaigner for cross-border competition, former Melrose player and coach Keith Robertson, insisted the British and Irish Cup was not the answer.

He said: "It's great the SRU are thinking of clubs playing in semi-professional/professional rugby, but they are going about it entirely the wrong way.

"We have had little or no input into the decision-making process and for it to be made almost in the close season, for the next season, shows it has not been thought through. This is a major step-up and clubs would need to get organised for what will be a professional competition for everyone else next season.

"It's not putting a like-for-like situation together here – it's typical of Scottish rugby to do something piecemeal like this. This is asking for poor performances, unless these clubs can attract significant investment in the short-term, and I don't see that happening.



"Clubs do have the ability to compete in this kind of semi-pro or pro league/cup because they are essentially independent of the SRU and so could attract the serious inward investment that Scottish rugby needs to compete at pro level. But, the way things are set up right now within the SRU, that won't happen, and so the likelihood of this kind of competition being successful from a Scottish point of view is very, very slim."

Ambition is crucial to sporting development, but so is common sense. The SRU are making good ground in many areas, but this is one that needs a swift rethink.

This article was posted on 14-May-2009, 07:10 by Hugh Barrow.