Iain Morrison writes in Scotland on Sunday


Some reports have suggested that everything was wrapped up at Thursday's emergency board meeting but, despite a vow of omerta from all attendees, that was not the case. The statement of support was supposed to buy the boss some breathing space but it had the opposite effect. No one was fooled and, over the course of the weekend, McKie bowed to the inevitable. I don't know if the erstwhile chief executive is a fan of the theatre but if so he should have recalled the old luvvies' motto: "Always leave the audience wanting more."

Had McKie, the company doctor, done what he normally does and exited the stage after three or four years at the helm he would have been fondly remembered as the man who brought the SRU back from the brink. Instead Scottish rugby breathed a collective sigh of relief when McKie finally closed the door behind him. 

He was an antidote to what had gone on before him, a man of the moment - only that moment was way back in 2005. He brought financial rigour and best practise where previously the Union's accounting was a shambles, even if some may carp that these duties belong more to a competent financial director rather than the "high heidyin". 

McKie invested money in Murrayfield's infrastructure and made the inspired signing of Andy Robinson as Scotland coach but he lacked what former US president George Bush used to call "the vision thing" and one senior Edinburgh businessman dismissed him as "a debt collector". McKie had little clue where Scottish rugby was heading and even less idea of how to get there. Much of that admirable energy and drive was dissipated on raging at the press or micro-managing SRU departments which he should have left well alone, including the rugby one.

Who was the direct line manager for the two pro-team coaches? Step forward Gordon McKie! This is bizarre at best, especially with a perfectly competent performance director, Graham Lowe, sitting just a few yards down the hall. You don't buy a dog and then bark at the moon yourself. 

McKie's judgment, or rather the lack of it, was highlighted with the mid-season sacking of Rob Moffat; the timing was horribly misguided and the ensuing explanation utterly unbelievable. The first excuse was "poor results" but, with Glasgow faring noticeably worse, this later morphed into something altogether more complicated.

The fact that Moffat spent numerous afternoons in McKie's office arguing with the SRU's boss was more pertinent than anything else on the table, including Edinburgh's patchy results.

Some have pinpointed that disastrous media briefing back on 31 March where McKie was hounded by the journalists as the point of no return, but the chief executive's fate was effectively sealed almost as soon as Ian "Mighty Mouse" McLauchlan was elected president one year ago.

A large part of the drama unfolding before us revolved around a personality clash between McKie and McLauchlan and, with Allan Munro stepping down as chairman at this Saturday's AGM, the balance of power had swung decisively behind "Mouse", especially since he led the team that appointed the new chairman of the board, Sir Moir Lockhead.

According to one insider, the executives at Murrayfield had treated McLauchlan's predecessor Jim Stevenson "like the village idiot". I phoned him once for a comment when he was president and Stevenson declined to speak. According to one source the executives had threatened to discipline him for talking out of turn. It's difficult to imagine McLauchlan being sent to Murrayfield's naughty step.

Sheriff Bill Dunlop's report on governance suggested that the president should be a "figurehead" but there wasn't a snowball's chance of former Scotland skipper McLauchlan sitting on his hands if he felt that the game was being driven down a cul-de-sac by the well-paid executives at Murrayfield.

The question remains why it fell to the SRU president to properly scrutinise the chief executive's performance when the board are put in place for that very reason? There will almost certainly be a rejig of the non-execs once Sir Moir takes his post, and not before time.

If the SRU is the clubs, then the constituent members were less than thrilled by what they saw in the mirror. The company doctor who was used to parachuting into businesses that were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy was unfamiliar with the niceties of adopting a consensual approach to policy and he couldn't change his ways. His arrogance was his undoing. There isn't an interested body in Scotland that doesn't believe the pro-teams need some sort of autonomy if they are ever to realise their potential but, in six years of governing, McKie would have none of it. He pinned his colours to the mast of central control and preferred to go down with the ship rather than admit that he might have been wrong. 

McKie tried to build from the top down, probably because he believed he had no choice. With a shortage of financial and player resources every effort was made to keep the Scotland national team competitive, including the withdrawal of key players from Edinburgh and Glasgow from the Magners League run-in. He reasoned, as an accountant would, that since the Scotland team generated something like 90 per cent of the SRU's income they should get priority over and above all others. He was wrong.



Scotland have won just one match in each of the last two Six Nations championships while the pro-teams are little better than a joke; unloved, under-resourced, poorly managed and expensive to run. Moreover we have just wasted the last six years while nothing has been done about it. It was Albert Einstein who defined madness as repeating the same action while expecting different results. The pro-teams need to try doing something different if they are to get different results and they almost certainly will when the new man arrives.

So what does it all mean for Scottish rugby? In the short term, nothing. While McKie brought Robinson into Scottish Rugby, the Englishman stressed last week that as far as he was concerned it was business as usual. "As a management group we are all focused on preparing for the upcoming World Cup," he said. "The squad gets together on Monday and that marks the start of our World Cup campaign. We can't afford to take our eye off the ball."

Meanwhile Jock Millican is a thoroughly competent interim replacement for McKie and the power-brokers within Murrayfield are said to want a new chief executive in place before September's World Cup. 

In the longer term, this next appointment promises to be a crucial one. Scotland already lags behind many of the other top rugby nations and that gap can only widen with Italy in the Six Nations, their clubs competing in the RaboDirect Pro 12 and Argentina making up a Four Nations in the southern hemisphere from 2012 onwards. 

Unless Murrayfield can identify the sort of character who can build bridges rather than burn them, generate excitement instead of P45s and grow the game as well as balancing the books, then rugby will slip one step further from the national consciousness, where it already barely registers on huge swathes of Scottish society.

winners

1. Ian McLauchlan 

There was a growing desire for change at the top and the SRU president was responsible for channelling it to best effect.

2. Sir Moir Lockhead

While it is less than ideal that Scottish rugby lost Gordon McKie just before a new chairman takes over, at least Lockhead can work with a candidate of his own choosing.

3. Murrayfield

McKie's departure put a smile on the faces of those loyal Murrayfield worker bees who work hard to keep Scottish rugby competitive. 

4. Scottish rugby?

We can only hope that the outpouring of optimism following the change at the top at Murrayfield continues and that there are better times ahead for the game in Scotland.

Losers

1. Eamon Hegarty

The Union's financial director is said to be even more abrasive than his former boss so he is not expected to hang around the place for long.

2. Dominic McKay

I don't know what the SRU's head of communications is like when dealing with sponsors but his attempts to get the press on side were laughable.

3.The non-execs

With three executives and four council members (club reps), the three non-executives held the balance of power on the board. . . so what were they doing all this time?

4. Allan Munro

Full marks for loyalty but the chairman backed his man long after the smart money had fled. Instead of buying some time his "peace in our time" press release ushered McKie out of the door.

This article was posted on 19-Jun-2011, 10:08 by Hugh Barrow.