Scotland to review sevens policy after poor season on IRB circuit

Published Date: 29 April 2010
By DAVID FERGUSON
SCOTLAND are to review their approach to sevens rugby after it emerged that the national team have been told it must prove in the final two IRB World Sevens Series tournaments that it is worthy of a place in Scotland's Commonwealth Games team for Delhi.

The Scotland sevens team was accepted into the 2010 Games last year, but with the proviso that it remained competitive and could be seen as top eight material in keeping with demands placed on all of Scotland's athletes by their own Games Council. After finishing last season with semi-final appearances in the last two events, at Twickenham and Murrayfield, Scotland have slumped significantly and are now preparing for the final tournaments of 2009-10 against a backdrop of failure.

This season, Scotland have not reached the knockout stages in any of the six world tournaments. Head coach Stephen Gemmell is in talks with Edinburgh and Glasgow, and Scotland coach Andy Robinson, about which professionals might be released for the UK legs, at the end of this month, but he insisted that a wider review needed cross-Scotland support if the nation that invented sevens is to avoid the embarrassment of being left out of Commonwealth and Olympic Games.

Gemmell told The Scotsman: "We are coming towards the final year of a five-year agreement with the IRB on the world sevens series so there is a review going on at IRB level on how best to take sevens forward after next year, but it's important that we look at how we best take it forward in Scotland too.

"I will not make excuses for our team this season because the players and myself have to accept we are representing Scotland and the target we set, for all national teams, is to get Scotland into the latter stages of tournaments and compete at the highest level. We haven't done that this season so far and we need a big improvement in the last two tournaments, which I believe we will get.

"At the same time you have to acknowledge that we are a small country with not an awful lot of players, so when the pro teams have had injuries this season and come calling to bring sevens players back to them, which has happened quite a bit, we've just had to get on with that and introduce new guys to this arena. You can't take that personally or get upset because that's the reality in Scotland.

"Then you look at how the game is growing and you see how the likes of the USA, Russia, Kenya, Fiji and Samoa have responded to the decision by the Olympic Games to allow rugby sevens in from 2016 and the change has been amazing. Suddenly, Fiji and Samoa and other smaller nations are talking about winning Olympic gold medals, while Russia and the USA are looking at a major new direction of funding simply because rugby sevens is now an Olympic sport. That's great for sevens and rugby as a whole around the world, but it means we have to work harder just to compete.

"It means that getting into the world's top eight is harder now, and while the USA and Argentina won't be involved in the Commonwealth Games most of the other nations we face at sevens will be so we've got our work cut out.

"It would help having some more of our experienced pros available, but Glasgow are in the Magners League play-offs, and we are celebrating that, while Edinburgh have had a long season too and might even squeeze in there yet. So, we couldn't say yet whether other players will be available."

Leading countries such as England, France and the southern hemisphere nations also struggle for the release of top players, but they have vastly more players than Scotland to draw on. Ireland pay it only passing attention, Italy none and Wales pick their tournaments to release a handful of top sevens exponents for.

There is, however, the argument that many of Scotland's professionals need sevens rugby to improve their skills, the basics of handling, passing, running and to a lesser degree kicking, and that is one that Gemmell buys into wholeheartedly.

"It goes hand-in-hand," he added. "We have been struggling a bit because we don't have the number of very strong and physical players the likes of Samoa produce, who can also run as quick as outside backs.

"But, how do you produce them? Sevens can certainly help. Ally (Hogg] is a great example of a player with those skills, and you look at the likes of Richie Vernon, who came through after a good season of sevens, Jim Thompson at Edinburgh and John Houston, and Thom and Max Evans, guys who all used sevens as part of their development. The wider picture is that sevens is a fantastic development tool for Scottish rugby and the pro coaches, Andy Robinson and Gordon McKie (the SRU chief executive] agree with that.

"But we have to find a way to make it fit around what we have, the players, the teams and the demands, not just at pro level but with clubs too."

Gemmell added: "I am confident we will prove ourselves good enough to represent Scotland in Delhi, but we also need to work on how we develop better players for the next Games, in Glasgow in 2014, which will be a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase rugby in Scotland, and so that when the Olympics comes around in 2016 the GB team does not go to Rio without Scottish involvement.

"That would not be good for the country that invented sevens rugby."

This article was posted on 29-Apr-2010, 14:16 by Hugh Barrow.