Scotland have withdrawn from their attempt to play a role in the World Cup in either 2015 or 2019. They claim that despite an offer from the Scottish Government to underwrite part of the cost, there was not enough interest from the RFU in England to justify taking their proposal forward.
Scotland wanted to be part of a joint bid from the four home unions, and according to Gordon McKie, the Scottish Rugby Union's chief executive, it was only in the last few days that they stopped getting “mixed messages” out of England and it became clear that the rugby authorities south of the Border were intent on going alone. A solo bid and a Celtic bid had both been ruled out months ago.
In a wide-ranging briefing, McKie also revealed that following the poor RBS Six Nations Championship campaign, the decision to get rid of Frank Hadden as the national head coach and the embarrassment of getting only two players, neither of them home-based, into the Lions touring party, there will be a detailed review of the way elite rugby is run in Scotland.
The conclusion may involve restoring something similar to the director of rugby role to supervise the elite end of the game, from age-grade teams through to the professional clubs and national side. McKie did not believe there was scope for reviving the title.
Far from it, in a thinly veiled attack on Ian McGeechan, the last person to hold the director of rugby position and now the Lions coach, McKie could not have been more scathing. “We had a director [of rugby] before and look where it got us, Scottish rugby was in freefall and the pro teams were losing regularly,” he said. “We had three teams and now we have two. They did not have the same win-ratio as we have now. We maybe did not have as many internationalists, we were signing players without medicals, signing players on the strength of videos.”
He also accused the Lions selectors - led by McGeechan - of not having looked properly at the individual talents available in Scotland, relying too much on the team performance in the Six Nations and on the Heineken Cup quarter-finals where Scotland was not represented. “It was disappointing, I feel that better homework might have been done on players from Edinburgh and Glasgow,” he added.
Scotland also suffered, from not having a voice on the Lions selection panel and, after Hadden went, not having a national coach in place to lobby on the players' behalf. He revealed that Andy Robinson, the Edinburgh coach and the favourite to succeed Hadden, had been close to winning a Lions appointment but had missed out.
Despite the long list of recent failings, McKie said he was generally highly optimistic about the state of Scottish rugby, citing the performances of the professional clubs in the Magners League and increased attendances to support his view. He said budgets for the two teams would be maintained at the same level for next season but the clubs would be able to keep any extra revenue they brought in themselves.
“I am not an optimistic man by nature, more of a realist, but there are strong grounds for saying Scottish rugby is in good health,” he said. “But you have to be constantly striving for improvement, you cannot rest on your laurels. Every two or three years you need a review to look at what you could be doing better.”
The review has already been started by the union's board but the panel assembled to appoint the new Scotland head coach and the man they appoint will also be asked for their input. McKie said that the coach appointment might be made in time for the new man to take the A team to Romania in June, but that they were not prepared to rush the process just to make that possible.
In another development unveiled yesterday, McKie announced that the SRU was pulling out of the academy at London Scottish and would use the money to help to pay for Scottish involvement in a British and Irish Cup, a competition for development sides that the four home unions have been discussing for the last couple of months.
Talks are still at an early stage, so details are sketchy, but McKie envisaged a Scottish development side, based around the national academy, taking part along with two representatives from the Scottish Hydro Electric Premiership. It will be up to the Premiership clubs to decide exactly which clubs should take part or whether they would create two representative sides. Games would be played during the international windows.
(Source: Timesonline.co.uk)
