January 03, 2006

Hugh laments poor facilities

Posted by Editor on January 3, 2006 12:19 AM | 14 comments | Print | E-mail author

Hugh Campbell thinks Glasgow could become the poor relations of Scottish pro-rugby
Glasgow Warriors believe they are in danger of becoming Scottish professional rugby's poor relations if plans to improve their facilities are not accelerated.

While offering no excuse for his side's poor Hogmanay showing when well beaten by the Border Reivers, Hugh Campbell, the Warriors' coach, admitted in The Herald that their pre-match preparations highlighted on-going problems.

"Our facilities are disastrous compared with everyone else," he said. "Reivers' training facilities are within walking distance. I don't want to make excuses for the way we lost but, looking to the longer term, if we are to drive professional rugby forward in Scotland, then there are good facilities in the Borders and Edinburgh and we need the same to compete.

"It is not ideal for a team from Glasgow to travel to Edinburgh for training the day before a match in the Borders."

That experience emphasised Warriors' difficulties as they visited both their Scottish rivals grounds on successive days. Last week's snowfall made all outdoor facilities normally available unusable, and while an SOS call to Murrayfield provided a solution on Friday, that trip reinforced how much better Edinburgh are looked after at the national stadium.

The Warriors weight train at the Palace of Arts near Ibrox, use various venues for practice, and play fixtures at Firhill, a step-up from their recent home at Hughenden.

Although Glasgow finished last season as the top Scottish side, their budget was slashed to the same level as the Gala-based team, which is well short of that available to the Gunners.

Hugh stressed that he was apportioning no blame to any individual or group for their predicament. "We've looked long and hard and there is no obvious solution to accommodating all our requirements," he said.

Comments
Posted by martink on January 3, 2006 04:37 PM | Reply to this comment


Why blame the ground you train on? Was it not YOU who moved them to the otherside of glasgow to train on a worse pitch than the ones they had left? Why not blame yourself and your players. YOU pick the team hugh YOU coach them. the buck stops with YOU.

You can't tell me with the money that was freed up when Bulloch Maher and logan left didn't enable you to sign at least 3 decent players?

I see another Glasgow clear out coming and i think it has to start with the coach.

Posted by S153 on January 3, 2006 07:50 PM | Reply to this comment

So poor facilities are the excuse for some players not giving 100% in the borders game, pathetic, we may as well give up! Why should us fans turn up week in and week out to watch that rubbish???

Posted by Gordon on January 3, 2006 08:09 PM | Reply to this comment

Where does the guy say poor facilities are an excuse for the players not giving 100%?

Posted by A Trure Warrior on January 3, 2006 09:01 PM | Reply to this comment

Looking at it from another perspective, if your employer didn't bother his arse for you, would you bother your arse for him! As an employer if you cant create a professional environment, you can't expect professionalism from your employees!

Posted by S153 on January 4, 2006 08:33 AM | Reply to this comment

To my eyes, we got beat cause not every player gave 100%, not because the Borders were outstanding. Hugh implies that the facilities are in some part to blame for the defeat. I maybe drew conclusions where there are none, if so, I apologise, it just seems to me to be one excuse after another.

Is having to travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh the day before travelling to the borders that detrimental?? I admit it is not ideal, but we are hardly talking about travelling from one end of the earth to the other?

Posted by garyipa on January 4, 2006 09:47 AM | Reply to this comment

would the alternative option been not to train??

Posted by Gordon on January 4, 2006 12:19 PM | Reply to this comment

Of course poor facilities shouldn't be used as an excuse for Saturday. We should still have been good enough to win the game at Netherdale. However, if the facilities have been generally poor for so long it may be one reason that contributes to a lack of real progress - winning games - on the park.

We were bullied on Saturday and some of our players were intimidated. We're too "nice" as a team. something that can't be said of Borders with guys like Sititi and Paul Thomson in their team. Our forwards may be more skillful and quicker, but in the type of game it was on Saturday we weren't aggressive or abrasive enough.

Tim Barker has had a great run of form. He's one of our main ball-carriers and puts his body on the line, but he's been doing it non-stop in every game since the start of the season and looked tired at Netherdale. We didn't really have anyone who could back him up n that area, other than a few drives by Kevin Tkachuk.

It was good to see JP back, but perhaps we should have kept our backrow together and brought JP on later in the game. Steve Swindall adds aggression to our backrow at blindside. Our use of replacements in general has caused some head scratching for some time now.

As for budgets, well it is generally accepted that Borders received a big increase this season, Edinburgh got a little bit more than last season, while Glasgow had no significant increase - despite being top Heineken seeds.

Before last season Phil Anderton said in The Scotsman ""Edinburgh did well last year so we have to reward that and build on that..."

I don't know the figure, but there has been mention of £250,000 more for the Gunners last season. Fair enough, they had reached the Heineken Quarters and were again Scotland's top seeds. But, the question still stands, why didn't that happen this season?

Posted by Number 9 on January 4, 2006 02:00 PM | Reply to this comment

I suspect that the long-term injury problems are undercutting our squad's ability. Since the first few games the squad has been reduced to around 26 available players to form any matchday 22. Any returning players have only replaced new casualties. Blokes like Barker, T-Bone, Lawson and Lamont have had to plough through a relentless schedule, and are performing selflessly. I fear they may burn out at this rate.

With this reduced squad (having already started with fewer resources) we cannot rest any players, adapt the team for different challenges, or build any competition for places. Key players also face a brutal workload, and no respite in sight.

Compare that to Borders where Steve Bates was able to choose and change players for the preceding Euro games, then launch his best (and refreshed) team to play the two derby matches.

Posted by garyipa on January 4, 2006 04:28 PM | Reply to this comment

With only 2 changes between the "derby" ganes , one of which being enforced, I would hardly say the Borders team were "refreshed".

Posted by Number 9 on January 5, 2006 08:14 AM | Reply to this comment

Was talking about the games leading up to the derby matches. Bates made nine changes for the first game against Brive , then ten changes for the second - including a complete swap of back row. He then rolled his best team out for the Edinburgh & Glasgow matches. Most of the players would have had one game off, and knew that there was someone else competing for their place.
Borders don't have particularly greater resources, but they have the good fortune of having a comparatively full squad to choose from at the moment.

Posted by vicki on January 3, 2006 09:54 PM | Reply to this comment

Why on earth is Edinburgh getting a larger budget than the other 2 teams? They got an increase two seasons ago for being top Scottish seed, but no such bonus was forthcoming for us last season. And on top of all that, the money Glasgow and the Borders pay in rent for grounds and training facilities can be spent on all sorts of other things by Edinburgh. It's disgraceful!

Posted by garyipa on January 4, 2006 09:46 AM | Reply to this comment

I'm not disagreeing that Edinburgh probably get more money and there has been lots of chat for a while about this but has anyone actually seen or knows where these amounts can be seen??

Posted by john on January 4, 2006 10:27 PM | Reply to this comment

In the secret SRU budget, that they wouldnt disclose to pleb's like us because it would be to embarassing for them.

Posted by Highlandbrave75 on January 4, 2006 11:05 PM | Reply to this comment

The top question has to be what the SRU are spending the pro budget on?

Some pro players in the three pro teams in Scotland saw individual contract money being slashed by up to 40%.

Recent test caps on relatively low salaries given derisory 10% pay hikes despite proving invaluable members of the Scotland’s national match day squad.

Some professional players yet to be spoken to by the SRU on restructuring LAST YEARS contracts never mind this years!

The budgets aint being used for signing players nor renewing contracts to current players.

So where exactly the cash being spent in the pro three?

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