Im glad Euan has been rested as it poses the potnetial inclusion against Italy. Although he better play as this is an important game for us and we needed him.

Yes and Glasgow Hawks need their players on a Saturday for their important games!

Well it all drips down dosen't it.

REPLY FROM IAIN MORRISON
SRU must go back to school to rebuild game

IAIN MORRISON

TEN years after the dawn of professionalism, Scottish rugby has failed utterly to move with the times and adapt to the new era, as a quick glance as to who is running the game will confirm. The pro-teams are unsuccessful, the national side even more so and the numbers playing the game are probably the lowest since a try was worth no more than a shot at goal.

The only certainty is that nothing stands still and rugby will continue to evolve. The only doubt is which direction it takes; whether the game stages a recovery of sorts or whether it spirals ever downwards in a vicious cycle of ineptitude, stagnation and recrimination.

Naturally, fingers will point at Matt Williams, but blaming Scotland’s coach for our current shortcomings misses the point completely. Every club official in the land who has sat on their hands at countless AGMs is more culpable than the recently arrived Australian because the problems have been ten years, rather than ten months, in the making. The national coach may not be the solution, but nor is he the problem in Scottish rugby.

The game has limited resources and so it is doubly important to ensure they are used wisely, especially on player development. The SRU needs to provide continuity of development from the youth game into the full national squad that is as seamless as possible because, at the moment, there is a yawning chasm between the clubs and pro-teams and a similar gap separating them from international rugby.

The Premier One clubs want to be at the heart of player development and they want a place in Europe, both of which they need to earn, and they will only do that when they vote in favour of an eight-team semi-pro league. Rather than give them money, the SRU should pay directly for both a rugby coach and a conditioning expert and ensure that the best players make use of them both.

This would help them narrow the gap with the pro-teams.

But Scottish rugby’s worst failing lies in youth development, or rather the lack of it. Ireland set up a national academy in 1992, fully three years before the game went professional. In Scotland, youth development was placed so low on the agenda that the SRU still does not have a national academy.

Instead, belatedly, Scotland now has four district academies but they are a pale imitation of the real thing that is found south of the Border, as a quick comparison with just one will prove.

EDINBURGH RUGBY ACADEMY: Budgeted for 15 players aged 17-23 who get skills coaching once a week in addition to three or four gym sessions. The East of Scotland Institute of Development offers support in various areas including: medical, conditioning, lifestyle and sport science. Academy members play with their clubs.

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS ACADEMY: Employs a full-time manager and a full-time coach. Comprising three different levels of involvement, including 60 odd 14-16-year-olds at the entry level who are seen just once a month and the best of whom will graduate to the next level

This "Silver" level consists of about 25 teenagers aged from 16-18 who are coached on a weekly basis and given individual conditioning programmes. The best of them are invited to train with the full Northampton squad on an occasional basis.

At the top of the development tree lies the 15-strong "Gold" group aged 18-plus who train full-time with the Northampton squad. They are identified by different kit and their own dressing room but are otherwise considered full-time professional rugby players.

Those living locally receive free accommodation as well as food and all receive payments ranging from four to eight thousand pounds.

The academy members are encouraged into tertiary education and the club has a partnership with Loughborough University to facilitate this.

The majority play for Northampton’s second team, the Wanderers, but some turn out for Loughborough and others, like Paul Diggin, already play for Saints. One prop, Robbie Morris, played for England while still at Northampton’s academy. He was earning £8,000 at the time.

All the above takes time and money, effort and organisation, which every club in the Zurich Premiership side is obliged to offer. Scotland has nothing even remotely comparable.

The lack of a properly structured and funded development process has meant that Scottish players are being giving pro contracts when they are patently not of pro standard and the results are evident every Friday or Saturday evening. Instead of developing players to international level, Scotland’s pro teams have had to nurse youngsters up to a basic competitive standard which some never reach. The same is true of the test team, all because the SRU ranked the top pro tier of rugby as more important than the development stage when the two should be part of the same seamless process.

Australia are currently having a similar debate because the authorities there are worried that they cannot find the quality of players to fill their fourth Super 12 franchise. Australia have 58,081 adult male players while Scotland, well nobody seems to know, but the best guess is somewhere 7,000-10,000. The SRU should bite the bullet, dissolve the Borders now and use the money saved to fund the semi-pro Premier One and the two city sides. That way Glasgow and Edinburgh will have properly funded full-time squads with full-time academies similar to Northampton’s.

Naturally the statement from Murrayfield last week that three pro-teams would be generously funded for three more years means that this won’t happen.

Asked where the money was coming from to fund the pro-teams, Freddie McLeod responded: "Scottish Rugby’s executive is now engaged in drawing up budgets for next season. Within that process we will obviously look at how new funding can be attracted and how savings can be made." If everyone bakes a cake, perhaps we can organise a bring-and-buy sale after the Welsh test

That the executive committee should start making promises for three years in the future when not one of them can book their place beyond June’s AGM is lunacy. The Union has promised more money for the pro-teams, the same budget for the club game, no redundancies anywhere, a packet of Smarties with every ticket and a free Ferrari if you invest in a debenture.

OK, I made up the last two but, with the clubs about to decide who runs Scottish rugby, it is only a matter of time, as those currently squatting in Murrayfield attempt to buy favour with just about every group going ... except the HBOS who even now are re-reading the last Union communiqué for the umpteenth time, slack-jawed in disbelief.

What Ian Morrison fails to adress in his article is that many Scottish clubs must be applauded for bringing on youngsters through youth setups within their clubs. Most of the clubs do this with volunteers putting in hard work with no pay, no money and no help from the SRU whatsoever.

What he is right with however is that youth development within Scottish Rugby has been placed so low on the agenda that the SRU still does not have a national academy in place and that is a complete disgrace.

It's too bad he doesn't go on to say a little more about the national academy scenario in that the money which has been earmarked for it throughout the past few years has been constantly cherrypicked and diverted over the years to help fund the pro game in Scotland.