DAVID FERGUSON IN THE SCOTSMAN

McGeechan believes future of Scottish game can be bright

Published Date: 22 October 2009
By DAVID FERGUSON

IAN McGeechan told a Glasgow crowd last night that Scottish rugby does have the talent and potential to compete with the leading nations on the world stage, but only if it can start to bring together the entire rugby community and have clubs and the SRU singing from the same hymn-sheet.

The former Scotland and British and Irish Lions coach was speaking at the Scottish launch event of his autobiography, Lion Man, at Glasgow Hawks' Anniesland clubrooms. It was a strange venue for McGeechan's Scotland stop-off on a UK tour, but that was largely because the SRU had declined the possibility of hosting the event at Murrayfield, where McGeechan had first made his name as an international player and latterly helped secure only Scotland's second Grand Slam title. Apparently, the union were concerned about criticism in the autobiography.

That was before they read it. There is criticism, a tiny part of the book in which McGeechan questions the running of the SRU over the past five years – and reluctance to appoint a successor to him, as director of rugby – by "financiers who no doubt have done wonders in reducing the debt ... now making rugby decisions which they have no background or ability to make".

But McGeechan's passion is more for how it can be turned around, how Andy Robinson could be given more support as Scotland coach than he felt he received at the helm in his final period from 2000-2003 and then as director of rugby to 2005.

"The key in Scotland is not to miss any talent, because we have so few players," he said. "If there is talent in the system that player ultimately has to play for Scotland. That's the test of the system – that we don't lose any talented player and that he is passed on through the system until he is playing internationally.

"If it was purely a rugby argument you would say Scottish rugby has to have at least three professional teams, maybe four, but you can never divorce that necessity from the financial arguments, unfortunately. But, where Ireland and Wales are moving on, and moving ahead of us, is the ability of the whole country there to work with each other to ensure the kid who has talent as a schoolboy works through the system as an amateur to a club, to an academy or whatever and to the pro set-up, with everybody helping.

"I think the British and Irish Cup is a great development because one thing we have lost from the amateur game is the cross-border exchange of ideas. On international weekends in the past everyone played somebody from Wales when Wales were here, or went to Ireland when Scotland went there, and that's disappeared. But when you get something like that, it's not just players that benefit.

"Because clubs now need information and organisation, coaches can exchange ideas, players can exchange games and performances, but club officials can exchange ideas as well, so there is a way of exchanging what is working in Wales or Ireland."

"I could also be contentious and say there ought to be an eight-team Premiership to really make it work, because that would then challenge the clubs again to be the best they can to get in there. It's too easy with 12 clubs for them to stay where they are without much change or challenge."

McGeechan had held a coaching seminar earlier in the day, passing on his knowledge to Glasgow coaches, and duly entertained the audience last night with his unique insight into what makes a successful Lions tour. He was critical of the way Sir Clive Woodward ran the 2005 tour "the way he would run a World Cup campaign" and termed the recent 2009 tour the best three-Test series he had ever been involved for "drama, excitement, quality of rugby and two good teams going at each other for 80 minutes", but also the lowest point he had ever been in his career when they lost the second Test, and did not know what to say to his players.

There were many anecdotes in an hour's Q&A session from his playing and coaching career, from his memory of playing in front of over 100,000 at Murrayfield in 1975 to his disappointment with the Welsh contingent on the 1977 Lions tour, from using Scottish tricks to upset Wallabies, provoke a fight and secure success in Australia in 1989, to turning to rugby league for guidance ahead of 1997.

What it underlined was that he has not lost his enthusiasm for the sport, nor for Scotland, and it is something the SRU could still be tapping into rather than keeping at arm's length.

This article was originally posted on 22-Oct-2009, 07:01 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 22-Oct-2009, 09:45.