SRU Policy Initiatives

Back in 1973 the SRU were the first home union to introduce a league system for their rugby clubs - up until then mathematicians had laboured for weeks to come up with a winner to the “Unofficial Championship”, for the record the last winner of the aforementioned Unofficial Championship were Boroughmuir RFC – so, like Scotland and the 5Ns they will forever be champions.

At the time this was heady stuff for an organisation that was once so famously hidebound to the amateur ethos that they expected players capped before WWII to wear the same socks in 1946.  But back then there must have been some forward thinking blazers, who took the time in between G&Ts to recognise that if Scotland were to continue to compete at the top table they needed to prepare their players better.

Now, younger readers might be bemused by the idea that Scotland competed at the top table of rugby – so remorseless has our decline been that we have been bouncing along around 10-12 in the IRB rankings for the last couple of years – but yes, Scotland were once a well-respected and strong team (we won’t talk about the 1950s).

Back in the 60s players with double-barrelled names and a nice ties were still getting the odd Autumn International run out, but after the 1971 appointment of the fearsome Bill Dickenson to the role of “Advisor to the Captain” - blazer speak for coach – Scotland were at least well coached, although the occasional selection anomaly still slipped through the net you got the feeling Scotland were finally putting out their strongest side.

Dickenson shaped a pretty fearsome side together at Murrayfield and had a record that few subsequent Scotland sides have matched – but to sustain this he needed a cadre of players who were playing hard matches every week – back in the pre-national league days players could play against Hawick one week and the Old Jakeystonians the next.  Risking life and limb at Mansfield one week and the skin burns the next as you tackled some old codger that had forgotten to remove his ciggies and matches from his pocket.  It was essential that players were being tested week in week out and a national league system was the solution.

So in the season 1973-74 the first national leagues in the home nations kicked off – it was an immediate success and in my opinion laid the foundation for a period of success from 1984-1991 that we old buggers still pine for.

With all of this in mind I was quite excited by the plans published at the start of the year, the creation of an 8 team Scottish Super League (SSL) makes enormous sense but probably the most welcome change is the SRU would be pumping money directly into the club game – the major benefit of which would be less money for Solomons to waste on journeymen South Africans.

For those who may have missed the plans here are the core proposals:

Core Proposals

• Increased focus on the domestic club game, and strengthening of SRU support for the league clubs.
• Development of a semi-professional club game that bridges gap between current Premiership clubs and their counterparts elsewhere in the UK (B & I Cup) and our pro teams.
• Objectives of:
• Restoring the competitiveness of Scottish clubs with those English, Welsh and Irish clubs which play at a level just below full-time, professional rugby.
• Making better use of the investment that has been put into the SRU's two professional clubs by spreading some of the benefits they get from the SRU in ways that can raise the standard of play elsewhere in the club game.
• SRU to fund an elite game group (EGG) of clubs that will use some contracted semi-professional players, who will also provide coaching services.
• League of eight clubs, to be called the Scottish Super League (SSL), to be governed by an advisory committee made up of members of the SRU Board and representatives of the clubs.
• EGG clubs would remain self-governing and autonomous but would enter into an extended participation agreement that recognised the close relationship with the SRU and its investment in them.
• 5 tiers in the club game:
• Professional – Edinburgh Rugby & Glasgow Warriors
• Semi Professional - Scottish Super League – 8 clubs
• Senior Amateur Club Game – National League 1 – 12 clubs
• National Amateur Club Game – National Leagues 2 & 3 – Linear, 2 x 12 clubs
• Regional Amateur Club Game – all clubs below National League tiers unchanged     

For the full document and details of promotion/relegation etc visit here. 

Before I go onto to argue in favour of the proposals, it’s worth pointing out that some clubs managed to block these changes for a year to 2016/17 – not the end of the world you may think but it’s an example of the cognitive dissonance that exists within large swathes of the Scottish club scene.  When Scotland were plumbing new depths in the test game this season, the same people who were mumping and moaning that something must be done, were also the same people who opposed the plans.  They see the correlation between the two but refuse to accept that the club game must change.  Why is that you may ask?  Well nobody does narrow minded parochialism like a club rugby man, whilst they might recognise that change needs to happen for the good of the game, they are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure it doesn’t impact their club.

Earlier on this year on this blog I argued that one of the biggest problems with our Youth Rugby structure is the lack of high intensity rugby, boys can drift through whole seasons playing less than a handful of games that really test them.  Now, I am not suggesting there is equivalence in the Scottish Premiership league, but drop below that and the disparity between clubs in the same league is stark.  

The Premiership league can be pretty ferocious at times and only last year saw about 6 clubs fighting it out on the last day of the season to avoid a relegation playoff, but the reality is there is generally 2 clubs every season who are weaker than the rest.  The SRU Initiative proposes to cut the Premiership to 8 teams and in my opinion right there improves the quality, without turning semi-pro, or throwing money at it the intensity levels of the league has been increased by removing two of the weaker clubs.

The intended consequence of creating the semi-professional layer in the game is to condense the quality players into fewer clubs - it's a harsh reality, but people are fooling themselves if they don't think it exists at the moment - it's always existed, even in the amateur game.  It would now be out in the open, players would now be moving for money as well as improving their career prospects.  Playing numbers in our sport are so low now, one of the most immediate ways of improving quality is to condense the superior players even further into fewer sides.

Because of the delay to the plans we have no idea who these 8 teams will be, there was so many rumours circulating and to a certain extent this added to clubs fears - would they be picked on the basis of geography?  Why should the North have 2 sides?  Should they focus on the cities? So many questions and no answers.

One thing is sure, the 8 teams need to be the best in the country - regardless of where they come from there should be no carve up based on some fanciful notions of potential.  Strangely the league as it finished this year has probably the top 8 sides, with a fair reflection on how important the sport is to each region.  One part of the plans I dont like is promotion/relegation is based on a playoff - as long as this is a one match playoff then yes, but not a home and away as this will benefit the semi-pro clubs too much.  We certainly dont want to get into the position of ring fencing the SSL - there are far too many big clubs outside the current 8 to leave in the amateur game.

To Be Contd.......

Edinburgh - Part 2

At the start of the month I penned a blog entry about Edinburgh Rugby and their decline, it seems appropriate that I get back to part two seeing as Edinburgh have just rolled over again and had their tummy rubbed at home.

When Bradley was sent packing last year there were still about 8 matches to play in the Pro 12 - but there seemed to be such an awful fug around the club that there was never any chance of even a dead cat bounce happening.  The club lacked leadership on and off the pitch and you just knew the season was going to fizzle out.

And right enough the season unfolded as I expected, they won 3 of those 8 matches - but two of them were against Zebre and the Dragons - the run in also included a defeat at home to Connacht.  It appears even the fear of a new coaching regime at the club was not enough to stir some of the players into action, of course it wasn't helped by the quality of some them who had been signed in the last 12 months.

So the search was on for a new head coach - considering the mess made in the previous appointment, I wasn't holding up much hope.  In the meantime however Edinburgh were still signing players, sadly they were about the same standard as the previous tranche of players.  Aleki Lutui, a 35yr old Tongan journeyman was bizarrely signed - I say bizarrely because not only was he old, NSQ and not especially good there were currently 4 other hookers at the club - it was as if Jack the Ripper was in charge of recruitment for both clubs as Glasgow had 5 hookers on their books, who all at least were qualified to play for Scotland.

The summer progressed and Edinburgh carried on signing players, none of which set the heather on fire and it was all turning into a bit of a mess - July was nearing its end and there was still no announcement.  Finally on the 30th of July Alan Solomons was appointed.

Before I start discussing his appointment and 7 months in the job I would like to take a moment to talk about club cultures - I am not talking about the coach imposed ones, but the unwritten ones that survive from coaching regime to coaching regime. Edinburgh used to have one of those, they used to use the wide open spaces of Murrayfield to throw the ball about and play fast open rugby - it didn't bring them any trophies but it sure beat playing dull unsuccessful rugby.  The fans enjoyed it and I am sure the players did too, it was certainly a reputation that Edinburgh had right up until 2011 and if you speak to fans of other teams that would be their impression of the side, that and a soft pack.  I raise this point as it's important that Edinburgh find this culture again, it needn't be losing rugby - the All Blacks play fast open rugby too, they don't lose many matches - but it had been gone for over two years by the time the SRU had to appoint a successor to the lamentable Bradley.  Now was their chance.

If anyone has read a Scottish newspaper sports section in the last 20yrs, they will be familiar with name Stewart Baxter - he was always the name mentioned when a vacancy appeared in the SPL or indeed the national job - he's had more clubs than Sandy Lyle but strangely only ever coached in the UK for a couple of years as the English u19 side.  He was Scottish, could stand upright and probably walk and chew gum at the same time and for the SuperSoarawaySun or Daily Ranger this was enough to have your name at least mentioned when the vacancy season arrived.  Thankfully rugby vacancies do not appear as often or indeed interest sports hacks much, but there was always one name mentioned when club vacancies appeared and that was Alan Solomons.  Solomons is a South African who has coached in the UK with Ulster and Northampton Saints for about 3 years in the early noughties - neither terms were particularly successful - apart from winning the Celtic Cup against guess who, his time at Ulster was probably more notable in their decline from European Champions in 1999.  His time at Saints was notable only because he was sacked after about 4 months in the job.

He then slipped off the UK rugby radar - apart from when the occasional vacancy appearing of course - he held one of those vague coaching posts the IRB like to give to coaches nearing the end - hello Frank Hadden and was then appointed Head Coach at South African franchise the Kings, he lasted two years and was then moved upstairs into the Director of Rugby post - his time there was most notable for their relegation from Super 15, quite a feat.

There is a exclamation much beloved by internet users - meh, it's a succinct way of expressing indifference and is used to dismiss something.  A look over Mr Solomons CV would have you thinking that - don't get me wrong, by the summer of 2013 there really wasn't much in the way of options out there and certainly not many who would want to coach such a shambles.

A forward thinking CEO might have seen this as a chance, an opportunity to appoint another young Scottish coach (Gregor Townsend had been appointed in 2012 to the Glasgow Head Coach role, with much success) to the role, it was a clean slate and we certainly need more Scottish coaches - like Scottish referees they are not seen often in the pro game.  Sadly our CEO is Mark Dodson, a man who's time as SRU CEO has seen us:

• Exit out of the RWC at the group stages for the first time ever.
• See us drop to as low as 12th in the IRB rankings.
• Appoint Scott Johnson.
• Watched the Murrayfield pitch wither and die.

He also appears to have an agenda for Scottish rugby, one that involves as few naturally born Scots as possible in all parts of it, whether it's coaching or playing.

With this agenda in place it was always going to be a foreign coach - which of course isn't a bad thing per se, but how about one who is either up and coming or one with some trophies in his coaching cabinet.  Alan Solomans appointment fitted neither - but I think by the time the end of July came along anyone with more than a passing interest wanted someone, anyone in place for the start of the season.

Solomons signings have made my blood pressure rise continually since the season started - mostly on account on the majority of them being crap - but he appears completely unabashed about the signing policy.  He's surrounded himself with South African journeymen - birds of a feather - and when given the chance to pick a Saffer ahead of a Scot, guess who gets the nod.

His treatment of Geoff Cross and Alasdair Dickinson has been scandalous - Cross and Dickenson are Scottish squad players and his bosses should have been reminding him of this - especially when the alternative are two saffer fatties that are no better and epitomise meh.  Clearly he has had a problem with Cross who has now left the club and yes sometimes these things happen, however Solomons needs to look at the bigger picture - much as he might not like it Edinburgh play a vital role on supplying players to the Scotland team and someone who couldn't spot a prop if one sat on his knee and nibbled his ear should not be messing this up.  

Normally when these sort of questions are raised the coach can point to results and smugly refute the accusations - not much chance of that Mr Solomons.

So, apart from playing like a drain most of the season, filling the squad with every fellow Saffer he could get his hands on and when one slips his grasp he grabs a Kiwi or Aussie and imposing another moronic kick and no chase tactical structure on the team - what has Mr Solomons ever done for us?

We are seven months into his reign and once again we have a coach who has failed to impose any coherent gameplan and filled the team with NSQ journeymen.  In the words of John Fogerty it's fricking Deja Vu All Over Again - I added the fricking, but I am sure John would approve if he had the misfortune to follow Edinburgh.

I am sure there are some happy clappy fans who in any other time would be following the Rev Moon who will argue that he must be given more time and things are getting better.  Just how fricking bad were they if Edinburgh's current position is viewed as an improvement?  

I am not suggesting Solomons should be sacked - he should never have been appointed - but something has to change - to be called Edinbokke might be all right if we were actually winning some matches and marching up the league, but it's the odd win surrounded by utter utter dross.

One of the justifications for signings all the NSQ players is they strengthen the squad during the Autumn internationals and Six Nations - would you like to know how many games we have won during these periods?  ONE - against fricking Zebre.  

None of this adds up, the club are going nowhere - adrift on a ship led by a saffer with the personality of stale piece of bread.  The squad has never had fewer Scottish qualified players and we no longer play like Edinburgh.  Four fricking years of kick and bloody chase - it's quite frankly rubbish and I have absolutely no idea why people buy season tickets.

Like Scotland, changes need to happen and the common denominator in all of this is Mark Dodson - if his jacket was on a shoogly nail last summer it's long been trampled on by a long line of mucky boots - he's such a poor CEO he makes me pine for the days of McKie's tenure.

Think about that for a second folks.

The End?

In Dante’s epic poem Divine Comedy he describes his journey through Hell – Hell in my opinion is not nine circles of suffering located within the Earth but in a staircase.  A staircase you are strapped to in an OAP stairlift, it's put into super slow mo in its descent and there are videos of fat bluffer’s dribblings on an endless loop all the way down.  Even with a chirpy Virgil sitting on your lap cracking jokes by the time you reached the end your only hope would be your brain shutdown around about halfway, if not you'd be a gibbering wreck - not dissimilar to the star of the video you've been forced to endure.

If you're still conscious by the end, then you're treated to the 2014 Six Nations – but only the Scottish matches, even the chirpy Virgil has buggered off by the end of the English match and there you are all alone, forced to relive the horror of Scotland trying to play rugby.  In the Divine Comedy this journey was supposed to represent your journey to finding god – clearly Cardiff represents the opposite, so it’s hello Satan – how you doing big man?

If we weren't so devoid of talented players I would like the SRU to ban Stuart Hogg from international rugby until the Autumn - his actions on the field not only resulted in his teammates having suffer the ignominy of 70k braying Welshmen laughing at them, but he shamed the very jersey with his actions.  If you had watched Hogg all through the 6Ns you will have seen this coming, he's been behaving like a spoilt brat for the last month and a half.  Little niggle shoves, late hits, spoilt brat face twisted into disbelief that things are not going his way.  Whilst his assault on Bigger was not a surprise, it's ridiculous it happened when Scotland were still in the game.  Whilst I wouldn't want to ever justify what he did, you could maybe understand the frustration bubbling up in what is clearly still a very immature stupid young man - but it wasn't, there was 60mins still to go and to compound all of this behaviour, he didn't look that bothered when the cards were changed from yellow to red. 

It seems incomprehensible that any Scottish side could lose by 48 pts to a fellow 6Ns side, even if we did play for an hour with 14 men, it's still bewildering to me.  Teams train with a man down all the time, their defensive patterns are practically second nature - why did we capitulate so badly?

There have been some pretty terrible humpings handed out to Scottish teams over the years, normally by good SH sides - but yesterday smacked of players just giving up, it's unacceptable at any level, but to do it with your country's strip on your back is beneath contempt.  I hope every one of those players can look at themselves in the mirror this morning.

If it turns out the capitulation was a reaction to the clown in charge from the players then nobody is really a winner.  The life of a professional rugby player is I suppose no different to the rest of us, if you get lumbered with a clueless boss you generally have a couple of choices, grin and bear it or move on.  But if you happen to be an internationalist your options are grin and bear it or retire.  Not a pleasant option when you're young and starting out.  So you grin and bear it and eventually the whole sorry mess grinds to an unholy mess and the big boss gets rid of the clown who has been your immediate boss.  But the gossip and rumours coming out from the Scottish camp do not make pleasant listening.

After 25 years of work I have always been rather sceptical of the Peter Principle – this is a theory that people tend to be promoted until they reach their position of incompetence – I shall leave you for a minute to consider this within the context of the SRU.

Well?  Do you think it relevant?  The fat bluffers level of incompetence has long since gone – not only within the employ of the SRU, but in practically every job he has had in rugby.  Yet he’s moving upstairs to become the SRU’s Director of Rugby – I am still so angry about this I find it difficult to articulate just how hacked off it makes me feel.

Scottish Rugby is not going to magically get better with the appointment of Vern Cotter – who I hope has the personality to close the door in the face of the FB every time he wants to stick his nose in the national team affairs.  It’s only going to get better when two of its highest office bearers Dodson and Johnson are shown the door.

How can we make this happen?

Chokers

If you have ever had the misfortune to have a Kiwi work colleague then you will probably knowingly nod at what I am going to say, yes they have a fantastic rugby team, but to live your life (no matter how inadequate it may be) vicariously through them is annoying for every non Kiwi in their vicinity.  Until 2011 we used to have a quick and easy slap down – chokers.  As soon as the word was uttered, they shut up – sloped off muttering under their breath and you would get a bit of peace for a few hours.  Soon they would be telling you the Taranaki Girls u9s would win the Celtic League, but until that happened they were wonderfully mute.

As a Scotland rugby fan, choking was something you did when you saw the price of a steak baguette at Murrayfield – but our rugby team nah.  Then the RWC 2011 rolled around and we choked twice in a week and were out of the competition for the first time ever before the QF stage.

March the 8^th 2014 – Scotland versus the worse French side in years – even with the Fat Bluffer in charge – surely we should be winning this?  Many Scottish sporting fans will easily trot out the line about us snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and by gawd we did it today.

The mental fortitude of a year old Yorkshire Terrier with an abusive owner – I would rather have had 8 of them in our pack on the 76^th minute today.  We are in control, picking and going with the French looking clueless – Swinson supports Wilson as he goes and executes one of the most pathetic attempts at bridging the ball I have seen and bear in mind I coached mini rugby for 5 years.  Wilson is on his own – Swinson is flapping about gazing at the grass – a Frenchman nips in and Wilson is pinged.  The French kick for touch, somehow manage to win a lineout and we are on the back foot in our 22.

Gray puts in another tackle - enter Swinson – the second player into a tackle is entitled to go for the ball, but the awful ref (who probably gloats about his All Blacks at work breaktimes) has pinged this for the whole bloody match and nabs Swinson.  How much of a fricking moron do you have to be to commit this penalty – the fact he shouldn’t be on the bench is a given but he was fricking awful and lost us the game.

However, his moronic stupidity should not have put us in a position to worry about a muppet cocking up the game – the French were never in the game but we never had the mental fortitude to sort it out.  We were pathetic and didn’t have the balls to finish them off.

Around the 65^th min there was this utterly dull 5mins as the second half just confirmed how awful it was – scrum after shitty scrum, Geoff Cross who had been pinged twice in the scrum was ready to give another away as he struggled – meanwhile on our bench, we had Euan Murray.

Let’s leave him there was the FB’s plan – does anyone know of a way to deport this clown?

FB and the Missing Openside

There he was strutting down Roseburn St, his man boobs all puffed up as he revelled in the victory in Rome - never mind that he told the press he wasn't vindicated, everyone would would know that he was.  The victory in Rome was his and best of all, the French have a coach nearly as clueless as himself, no wonder he was whistling as he walked.

Just as he thought he might treat himself to a wee sugary bun a voice called out;

"Oi FB you clueless muppet"

Who said that thought the jowly one as he gazed around.

"Pick our best openside you muppet"

And there we have it folks - the voice assailing the FB knows more about the game than the man who is currently our head coach and soon to be director of rugby.

For the fourth game in a row he's ignored the two best opensides available to Scotland - Ross Rennie and John Barclay are in superb form - whilst a case could be made for not selecting Rennie who was bizarrely loaned out by another clueless foreign coach in the Scottish game - not selecting Barclay is just bewildering. He's been scoring 70m tries and strangling the life out teams and every Llanelli fan is utterly bemused as to why he isn't selected.  Now, if Rennie were in the squad then there might be a case for not selecting Barclay, but he isn't and for the third game in a row he's going to play a player who is not fit to lace the boots of Barclay and Rennie.

Why would the FB do this some of you might ask?  Well he's clueless - but he's also got an ego that's bigger than his arse and he's backed himself into a corner with the No 7 jersey.

When the FB took charge last year, he's consistently made a fool of himself with selection and tactics in the backrow - it's like watching an Amazonian tribesman with an iPad.  If he didn't have someone to stop him he'd probably use a flanker for stirring his tea or banging some nails into the wall - he just doesn't have a clue.

He's looked around and seen some clubs and countries picking these awful hybrid backrows full of 3 players of the same size and skillset and thought - ooh ooh that looks good.  Last year he had us not competing at the breakdown - the man is a buffoon.

Scotland always play their best rugby when they have the right blend in the backrow, they also play their best rugby when the play an up-tempo gameplan and for that you need the right backrow.  Last month I did a handy little table for the FB to use and I shall reproduce it here:

	1st Choice	2nd Choice	3rd Choice	4th Choice
Blindside	Brown	Strokosch	Harley	Low
Openside	Rennie	Barclay	Grant	Fusaro
No 8	Beattie	Denton	Hogg	Wilson

Notice where 66% of our starting backrow for the Italy game are?  He'll probably start with an unchanged backrow too.

He criminally dropped Kelly Brown and his ego will not admit he was wrong, he wont admit he was wrong over not selecting Rennie and Barclay in the squad and as a consequence we go into the French match with our 4th best openside - EVEN THOUGH ALL FOUR ARE BLOODY FIT.

Nobody in the press has ever called him to account for this - I refuse to use an Emperor's new clothes analogy as the thought of the FB in the nude is giving me the heebie-jeebies, but it's along those lines.  None of our esteemed hacks really concern themselves with interrogating him.  With the exception of Tom English an Irishman none of them were prepared to say a bad word about the FB until after the English game, then a couple managed the odd cross word - but he remains relatively untouched.

Not that it would bother him - giant egos tend not to notice these things.

Edinburgh - Part 1

I'm an Embra boy, born and bred and whilst I may have moved to the Borders 15yrs ago I am still first and foremost an Edinburgher.  I love coming home, even driving through the city at 6pm on a Friday night - it's a wonderful wonderful city full of so much history, culture and some of the best pubs in the world.  My first rugby memories are all wrapped around rugby in the city, going to watch Embra at Myerside against touring sides or the other district sides.  Watching some of my heroes like Andy Irvine - even though he was a nail - Bruce Hay - the Bear - I loved watching Embra.

They always played a brand of rugby that is to my core how I loved to play the game - open, loose and always willing to give it a go.  It might not have always been successful but it was fun to watch.  Part of the thrill of watching Embra is sometimes it was your muckers from your rugby club playing for them, or guys you mixed with after games and even though many of the side were Nails or Sonians you could at least come together to play the Weegies, South or North and Midlands.  This bond is important, it's one of the few things football sides get right in Scotland - they understand the link to the community, how important it is, how it helps and protects the team/club in times of strife and to share glory with the people that support you, well there is surely no better feeling. 

This bond was always there in the past, understandably so as the side were full of the same people who were watching them from the touchline - but it's gone now.   Some may argue that it's another victim of professionalism, but I disagree - all the Irish provinces cherish and nurture their links to the community, English and French clubs are very much the centre of many of their communities - but in Scotland it's gone.  Whilst a good rant about how crap we were in dealing with the transition to professionalism will no doubt appear on this blog in the months to come, my anger and frustration at the moment is Edinburgh and what is being done to the side I grew up watching.

For the sake of brevity I shall focus on the last 3 years as the issues surrounding my anger at what is happening has reached its zenith.  While it’s not exactly a “where were you when Kennedy was shot” moment (glinting in my old man’s eye is the answer) I still remember hearing the announcement of the new Edinburgh coach in May 2011.  I was astonished, bewildered but most of all very very angry –  I am a rugby nerd, perfect capable of boring a New Zealander to death with my thoughts on the game, one of the consequences of this nerdism is you tend to keep an eye on what is happening in rugby beyond the narrow focus of your club and country.  Since professionalism, Ireland has produced 2 coaches – Eddie O’Sullivan (EOS) whose main claim to fame was erroneously accusing Nathan Hines of choking Ronan O’Gara (who amongst us would not have had a sneaky wee grasp of his scrawny throat should the opportunity arise mind)  and Michael Bradley. 

Neither were up to much, but at least EOS won the odd Triple Crown – he was probably better known as coaching sides that choked and being such a conservative selector you would have needed to lose a leg to get dropped at times.  Michael Bradley’s claim to coaching fame was, erm mmm – OK, even with the benefit of Google I am struggling to think of something.  Quite why the SRU thought this man who had been sacked by Connacht was the right man for the job is something I have thought long and hard about and this is the best I can come up with; McKie the much disliked former CEO of the SRU last act in the job was appointing Bradley.  Told you I was struggling, it says something that the only rational reason for Bradley’s appointments was spite – but I wouldn't put it past McKie.

Since the appalling experiment with the Carruthers brothers, Andy Robinson really turned Edinburgh around.  Our second place finish in 2008/9 was our best ever finish in the league and Robinson seemed to blend the best of Edinburgh – loose open back play with a solid set piece.   Edinburgh played its best rugby in a style we were all happy with.

Rob Moffat is technically a superb coach, but his bizarre selection practices allied with increasingly poor results meant his time as head coach was limited.

And so we reach the Bradley era – I still shudder at the idea of it.  I mentioned earlier that I am a rugby nerd – I knew exactly how hopeless this man was, sadly the men in charge of the SRU then and now are not rugby nerds.  Bradley was lucky that his 3^rd proper match in charge was against the equally hapless Connacht, the side he used to coach with equal aplomb.  In his second match in charge he conspired to lose to Aironi – a result that told of dark days ahead.  By the time the Heineken Cup (HEC) started Edinburgh were 2 from 5 – but to be fair to Bradley, one of those victories was against Munster.

So, onto the HEC – when the group was announced in the summer of 2011, I couldn't believe our luck – a group of 4 very ordinary sides and because of the ranking system the ERC used Cardiff were still living off their SF of a few years previously.  Cardiff were in rapid decline that season and we were in luck.  We started the campaign well and beat London Irish away from home and then a bizarre match at home against Racing Metro saw us win by one point in a game that had 95 points scored.  The next two games tend to be where Embra fall away in past tournaments and right enough we rolled over in Cardiff and got our tummy rubbed – a pathetic 25-8 defeat to Cardiff said a great deal about this Edinburgh side – but they bounced back the following week and beat Cardiff, but foolishly allowing them a LBP.

Whilst all this Euro tomfoolery was going on it was masking the fact that come the derby matches against Glasgow, we had only won 4 Pro 12 matches and bear in mind we had played Aironi twice.  Bradley then did something that in my opinion should have had his bosses chapping at his door – he basically threw the two matches against Glasgow by resting players – his focus was going to be the HEC, but this was a the Weegies.  I was furious, but sadly the sycophants in the Scottish press did their usual and barely a peep was heard from them.  Edinburgh duly lost the 1872 trophy again and by the time the 13^th week of the Pro 12 season ended in January, Edinburgh were 4 from 13, but never mind that – the bread and circuses of the HEC was keeping the press and more delusional fans happy.

Phil Godman (World Class Phil, WCP) dropped a goal in the last minute in Paris and bizarrely Edinburgh needed only 4pts in the next home match to reach the QFs for only the second time in their history – 5pts could see us with a home semi depending on how Cardiff do.  Edinburgh duly defeated a lamentable London Irish and Cardiff could only manage a 4pt win and so Edinburgh were going to be playing Toulouse in the QFs at Murrayfield.

Bugger!! I had loftily declared to my son that we would not be going to watch Edinburgh again with Bradley in charge – but this was an HEC QF, my son then took to asking me almost daily – never mind we had 2 months to go before I had to make a decision.

The Pro 12 then restarted and Edinburgh continued their appalling league form – we didn't win another Pro 12 match until the 30^th March 2012 – they went from the 2^nd December 2011 until the 30^th March before they won another match.  Never mind we the HEC QF coming up and the marketing bods were in full frenzy mode – 2 weeks to go before the big day I relented and bought tickets for myself, son and his friends.

It was a great day, even though Murrayfield was half full you didn't notice this in the East Stand – it was a fantastic day and even a grumpy old git like me was grinning from ear to ear with the victory.
  

The week after the win to Toulouse we shipped 54pts to Leinster – there we have it, our season in stark focus – another pathetic result a week later was ignored as we had an HEC SF to play – the whole season would hinge on the Semi Final against Ulster, or would it?  Bradley was being lauded, the purse strings were being opened and he was clearly here to stay.  Yet he had won more matches in the HEC than the Pro 12.

The semi-final unfolded as predicted – Bradley’s coaching weaknesses were to the fore and he had us playing a conservative gameplan that resulted in us only showing what we could do until the last 10mins.  We were out but my god Bradley was proud of what we had done – only the second ever HEC QF and the first ever SF remember – he made sure everyone knew it, this is a man whose meagre coaching talents had kept him in pretty much constant employment – he was good at manipulating the press and lets face it, it doesn't take much to butter up a Scottish rugby hack.

It’s worth taking stock of the whole HEC campaign as Bradley’s supporters hold it up as proof of his coaching excellence.  Edinburgh were merely the least rubbish of 4 rubbish teams and yes they were certainly better than Toulouse on the day, it was just another of the long line of one off Scottish victories.  The HEC run masked so many problems with Edinburgh – the players could raise themselves for individual matches but were utterly incapable of any sort of consistency – it wasn't helped by them playing with no discernable gameplan – there was no Bradley way of playing, every match seemed to be on a wing and a prayer.

Because the SRU CEO knows as much about rugby as Miley Cyrus he thought this would be the time to open the purse strings and suddenly Bradley was given more money than any Edinburgh coach had previously been given.  Think of a 13yr old in a sweetie shop – he’s still at the cusp of adulthood, but deep down he’s a kid and still loves sweets – well compound that by having the same 13yr old stumbling out the sweetie shop in a near diabetic coma only to stumble into a porn magazine shop.  I am sorry for the rather tortuous analogy but that is how Bradley behaved – as soon as the hapless Dodson told him to spend, he went mental.  He seemed to hoover up every available player, regardless of their Scottish qualification or talent – it was all about volume.

From May 2011 to July 2012 he signed ten non Scottish qualified players (NSQ) .

So what some might say, every good club needs marquee players to make them that bit better – but out of the 10 players signed, everyone was at best a journeyman.  Nothing wrong with a journeyman in a pro side you might say and I would agree – but 10 of them.   And it wasn't as if the squad wasn't in possession of quite a few journeymen to begin with.

But the narrative was, we were supposed to ignore all this – we got to a HEC SF goddamitt.  Everything is going to be grand in the new season, I knew it wasn't and I was no Nostradamus.

The Pro 12 started the same as the previous year and we went into the HEC 2 from 6 – including a defeat at home to Treviso – all was not well, but never mind, we got to a HEC SF goddamitt.

The way the HEC unfolded was a Telegraph hack’s dream – we didn't score a point until the 3^rd match of the competition and that included a truly pathetic gubbing of 0-45 at home to Saracens.  Suddenly Bradley’s bubble burst – at last the sycophants in the press started asking questions.  Edinburgh lost every game in that season’s HEC campaign and there was no Pro 12 to fall back on as they were just as bad as the previous year in that tournament.

By the second week of February 2013 Bradley was gone – the catalyst of this was one of his worst appointments, a defence coach called Billy McGinty – I say defence coach in the loosest of terms – McGinty resigned and before we knew it the SRU announced Bradley’s contract would not be renewed.  Gosh, that really told him eh – instead of spiriting him out of the city with a one way ticket to Cork, we politely told him he might like to look for a new job come May.  As it turned out both parties realised how daft this was and he was off.  To be replaced by two young Scottish coaches in a temporary capacity, who were nowhere near the list of young Scottish coaches we had all been screaming for years to get involved with pro team coaching.

The whole Bradley era was bewildering – why had he been appointed, what was his coaching philosophy, did he ever watch any of the videos of the players he signed, so many questions so few answers.  At least he was gone – of course the person that oversaw most of this, rubber stamped the signings was still there – whilst Bradley was the most visible sign of the decline of Edinburgh,  Dodson was the man who was clearly out of his depth.

Scott Johnson - Fat Bluffer

It's a gift I have and one that I like to think has helped me tiptoe through the vagaries of life, alas this gift is not much good as a rugby supporter.  You see, my gift is spotting charlatans and chancers – whilst it has stopped me purchasing snake oil and timeshares – it has also stopped me enjoying much of Scottish professional rugby  as a succession of woeful coaches have arrived, appointed by the equally hapless SRU CEOs.

When Matt Williams was appointed, Scotland were at a pretty low ebb – Geech should probably not have taken on the reigns in the early noughties as he did a great deal of damage to his and Scotland’s legacy in this time.  In walks possibly the most pompous self-satisfied person since Clive Woodward, his smarmy smile self-congratulations for a time coaching Leinster backs (during the era where they didn’t win anything) – immediately my BS alarm went off the scale.  Rugby is a complex game and even at its most fundamental it’s not a simple game as some TV pundits like utter from slack-jaws – but as soon as coaches start trotting out meaningless buzzwords and trite nonsense about up-skilling they need to be taken out back and either given a good slap or a P45.  Matt Williams carried on like this for 2 whole terrible years, parroting nonsense about how Scotland players had no skill – whilst relegating our most skilful 10 to the wing and parachuting in a kicking robot with a heart the size of dust mite.  As his tenure got worse he basically just blamed the players and as the fans started to make themselves heard, idiots in the Scottish media accused us of racism – like we only wanted shot of him because he was an Aussie .

For the next few years my gift was never really used as Hadden and Robinson bumbled along – both their appointments made a certain sense and whilst I wouldn’t want to spend a night on the beers with either, you were left with the impression they were more likely to more damage to themselves than Scotland. 

It wasn’t until Bradley was appointed at Edinburgh the alarm bells started ringing - this was a man with an appalling coaching record, who was basically run out of Ireland, an Ireland with barely an Irish coach earning a living from the game.  I looked on in horror as he took charge and vowed I would not pay to watch Edinburgh play until he was gone – a record I managed until he bumbled into an HEC QF and my son pleaded with me to take him.  I am sure the HEC run will be used by his supporters (himself and his granny) as an indicator of his true talents – I prefer to take a more sober view and point out the pool was 4 poor teams and Edinburgh were the least poor. 

Anyway, I digress as this is a rant about Scottish national team coaches and thankfully even the SRU CEO was not foolish enough to appoint Bradley to this role.

I mentioned alarm bells ringing for previous appointments, well the ringing didn’t happen in June 2012 – oh no it was far worse than that.  Back in the 1970s the government still used to do air-raid siren tests – they sounded horrific, scary and not at all pleasant – which was probably their purpose.  Imagine one of those going off in your head as the SRU issue a press statement informing the world they have appointed Scott Johnson as Assistant Coach to Andy Robinson.  I was utterly stunned – I could not believe the appointment.

Scott Johnson is the charlatan’s charlatan – there isn’t enough snake oil in the world for this man to do his job – but even more strangely is he earns a living from rugby coaching.

I immediately named him the Fat Bluffer and became even more grumpy when discussing rugby – my friends got more and more hacked off with my constant rants about this man and how he will do as he done in every previous job – destroy the dressing room, blame the players and then disappear with a severance cheque in his back pocket.  Only the last part of this is missing and I am sure it will play itself out eventually.

I never fail to be astonished by sports coaches – specifically Football and Rugby – having a CV filled with failure does not appear to be an impediment to getting a well-paid role in either sport.  Even a cursory glance at Scott Johnson’s CV should have had even the most reckless of individuals pausing and thinking, mmmmm maybe not.  Before we knew it Robinson had resigned after one too many lamentable performances and Johnson was in charge.  Everyone at the SRU was at pains to say he was interim boss and a replacement for Robinson was being actively sought – seeing as Johnson is barely a backs coach it was prudent to get a forwards coach on-board.  Dean Ryan was employed until the end of the 2013 6Ns – after seeing what the pair of them conspired to have our forwards doing I would happily have chipped in to get Ryan’s plane ticket purchased earlier.  Let me give you an insight into Scottish rugby – from an early age, every boy wants to play the in the backrow, if you have a modicum of creativity then it’s centre for you (who are just frustrated flankers).  Backrowers fit the Scottish psyche perfectly – aggressive, destructive and more than a bit mental.  The consequence of this is, we produce very good backrowers, who are 9 times out of 10 the best players in a Scotland side – with this in mind the genius tactical plan for our forwards in the 2013 6Ns was don’t compete at the breakdown.  It’s the equivalent of having Pele in your football side and telling him not to score.

So, Scotland played out the 2013 6Ns with their forwards standing politely by and surrendering the breakdown to the opposition – unbelievably this resulted in 2 wins.  


Proof if ever it were needed that Scott Johnson was a genius – is a line uttered into his shaving mirror every morning I suspect – but not one that would stand up to closer inspection.  Unbelievably the supine Scottish rugby press were lapping this up, they declared the 6Ns were a success and it was onwards to the South Africa tour.  A win against Italy in the quadrangle tournament was always going to be a struggle with Lions callups and injuries.  During this time a forwards coach was appointed – now, the biggest difficulty with this appointments would be who would be daft enough to work under Johnson – the answer was another woeful coach lucky to be earning a living in the sport – Jonathon Humphreys.
Under Hadden and Robinson Scotland developed a pack that could go toe to toe with any other in world rugby, they won their lineouts, scrums and generated a great deal of ball – sadly this coincided with a time when Dan Parks, Andy Henderson and Graeme Morrison were stinking up the midfield and we never had any backs to capitalise.  In 12 months the Scotland pack have become as weak as I ever remember it and I have been watching Scotland since 1973.  Their lineout would be taken apart by an u10s mini side and bear in mind they only start playing lineouts at u10s – the scrum creaks like an arthritic man and the last time the generated anything resembling fast ball Laidlaw probably kicked it.  Now Humphreys is not solely to blame for this, but the technical decline using largely the same players is telling.  I reckon I could get 7 fellow 40 something’s together and we could score from an attacking lineout against this Scottish pack.

	1st Choice	2nd Choice	3rd Choice	4th Choice
Blindside	Brown	Strokosch	Harley	Low
Openside	Rennie	Barclay	Grant	Fusaro
No 8	Beattie	Denton	Hogg	Wilson

I wont go on about the England match as it still upsets me too much – but it appears the players have given up under him, much like the end of William’s reign in 2005 they have no idea what his game plan is, don’t much like his public utterances and look lost on the field.

The appointment made many of us scratch our heads not least because the SRU had managed to stumble into a decent bit of business and announced they had appointed Vern Cotter as the new coach – brilliant we thought, but with classic SRU ineptitude they said he was seeing out his contract at ASM and would not in fact be joining Scotland until June 2014.  Now I mentioned head scratching as Cotter is a forwards coach himself and not someone who would want a coach like Humphreys working under him and Humphreys was given a 2yr contract.

The Autumn Internationals are traditionally a time for the home unions to fill up their coffers and for coaches to introduce new players – fans will forgive an element of experimentation and the ticket prices and odd empty seat reflects this – this forgiveness will not be extended to the 6Ns however.  Scotland in the autumn were pretty woeful.  Scoring 47 points against Japan hid the fact the Japanese ran in 3 tries, two of which were down the debutant winger’s wing.  The next two games told us where we are in the great scheme of things – slapped aside and nilled by South Africa and cuffed by a very average Australia – but but but we only lost by 6pts was the line most heard in the sycophantic Scottish press, yes – but we could still be playing and not come close to scoring a try.  We never looked like winning.

So onwards we limped to the 6Ns and the scene of Johnson’s greatest crimes – the squad selected in January had few surprises but the most notable was the exclusion of two opensides who had just won successive HEC man of the matches in January – John Barclay and Roddy Grant were in fantastic form, both having an impact on games far beyond the influence a single player should have.  Neither were selected and the Fat Bluffer went into full in your face BS mode – apparently Kelly Brown was only to be considered an openside now and an honest Glasgow pro Fusaro was also in the squad.  Before I point out the madness of Johnson’s selection I shall provide a handy little table with available Scottish backrowers in their correct positions:

Now, I will concede that Rennie is still not ready after 14 months out – but can anyone explain to me why Johnson selected a backrow of:

Wilson, Brown and Denton for the Irish match and then Wilson, Fusaro and Denton for the English match.

Can someone please explain it to me?  Maybe I need to consume peyote and sit in the desert for a night to get an insight – but it’s not a risk I am willing to take.  The only explanation I can think of and it’s not that outlandish, is Johnson is a clueless fool.  He’s a fool with a nasty streak however, after that lamentable second half performance against the Irish he dropped Brown and then hinted that Brown’s test career could be over.  I have long since stopped listening or reading anything from Johnson but a colleague brought it to my attention, I was appalled.  Quite apart from the fact Brown is twice the man Johnson will ever be, it’s surely his decision and not some spoofer from Australia to decide on his test career - to even suggest this in the press shows a spiteful side that will hopefully come back to bite him.

The Irish game had Scotland playing dull but competitive rugby for 35mins – we competed at the breakdown and as long as we were not throwing the ball into the lineout suggested we would stay competitive until the end.  Within 10mins of the break the game was over, the forward effort fell apart and Johnson substituted Brown who up until this time was single-handedly competing with the Irish at the breakdown.  To compound this stupidity, he substituted our openside for a number 8 – unbelievably we had 3 No 8s in all backrow positions – the only surprise is we kept the score under 30.

Everyone expected changes for the English match, Ford couldn’t hit a rap dancer’s derriere from 2ft, Hamilton spent the match annoying the ref and achieving very little, Swinson was out-muscled in the lineout and loose and gives under pressure props little relief in the scrum, Wilson put in a shift that should have had him handing back his pay packet for February and Laidlaw is slower than a wet weekend in Arbroath when you’re bound to a chair staring at a fish.

What does Johnson do, he drops Brown, MacArthur and R Gray from the 23 – bewildering isn’t it.  He’s been dribbling nonsense for the last 4 months that his role is to give as many Scottish players test experience before the RWC15 – it appears all it takes is catching his eye during his selection with darts and dartboard and you too could be making your debut for Scotland.

Scotland don’t have many pro players, even less test class players and the most important job a Scotland coach is to pick form players in the correct position.  It doesn’t sound like rocket science does it, but the last Scotland coach to do so was Jim Telfer.

Johnson is not going to be Scotland coach after the 6Ns – however he’s blagged another role – Director of Rugby.  Take a moment to ponder that folks.  The person who should be considering resignation is Mark Dodson, sadly I suspect he will still be at his desk alongside his appointment Johnson – both having a wee laugh at an organisation that rewards incompetence with 6 figure salaries.