The Scotsman reports
More questions than answers after shake-up

ALLAN MASSIE

IT WAS never clear, to outsiders anyway, just what the job of the SRU's director of rugby was, or what it entailed. This may not, for all I know, have been clear to people within the confines of Murrayfield either. But when Jim Telfer was in the post one thought of him as being organiser-in-chief of the game in Scotland, its guiding spirit, even its boss. Some of those who disliked the direction in which he seemed to be taking the game regarded him more sourly as a dictator (though I've no doubt he could list the occasions when he felt thwarted and didn't get his way). One thing we did know however: while Telfer was there, nobody would be allowed to forget that the only reason for the existence of the SRU is the game of rugby football.

The decision to abolish the post of director of rugby, which the new chief executive Gordon McKie announced this week, is a bit worrying. There's a general - and probably necessary - shake-up going on at Murrayfield but it seems now there will be nobody on the executive board who is solely concerned with the game and the players. This is rum. It is almost as if the thing for which the SRU exists - the game of rugby itself - is being squeezed out.

It is difficult to understand just why the post has been abolished. This is partly on account of the language employed by the chief executive. Having remarked, clearly enough, that "the director of rugby role as currently defined is huge and embraces every conceivable facet of the game" - which makes it sound to me a rather important job, every bit as important perhaps as the chief executive's own one - Mr McKie then unfortunately relapsed into the sort of jargon which businessmen and bureaucrats characteristically use to obscure their meaning, or perhaps absence of meaning.

"We are reviewing the structure of the 'rugby division'," he said, "and it seems clear that it would be more sensible to reorganise some of the constituent parts to enable sharing of best practice across all our rugby interests. This would also give greater responsibility to those managing specific areas and place greater emphasis on good communication." This last phrase is amusing, given that Mr McKie communicates in a manner which leaves one in doubt as to the meaning of his words. The phrase, "sharing of best practice", is especially irritating, and not only because it is beloved by local authority bureaucrats. "Best Practice" presumably means the most efficient way of doing something. How is this to be "shared across all our rugby interests"? It would be nice to be told.

Meanwhile, one would like answers to two questions.

First, who on the executive board is now going to have as his sole concern the very thing for which the SRU exists - that is, the game of rugby? Second, is the post of director of rugby being abolished principally to save money?

The SRU is not a business. I wrote that in this column a couple of weeks ago, and I make no apology for repeating it. If it was, it might have scrapped its 'rugby division' by now, on the grounds that it was costly and unprofitable. But of course it isn't a business; or rather, the business of the SRU is rugby. All its other activities are ancillary. I am sure the men now in charge at Murrayfield know this. But it would be reassuring to find them speaking and acting in such a way as to demonstrate to us all that they do so.

This article was posted on 10-Sep-2005, 07:29 by Hugh Barrow.