The Scotsman Rugby Show: Premiership highlights, plus the views of Rob Moffat and Alan Lawson

WE TURN up the pressure in the sixth edition of the show with Rob Moffat urging schools and youth clubs to step out of their comfort zone and SRU President Alan Lawson taking on the challenges facing club rugby.

As usual, we start with with a action from the Premiership, this week dropping in on Stirling County and their 42-42 thriller with Aberdeen, and National League leaders Glasgow Hawks’ win away to Selkirk.

We also have footage from the first South Schools U18s match in the 21st century, against Dollar Academy, ahead of their game at Rugby School on Friday 28 September.

Moffat, the former Edinburgh coach, is now teaching PE at Dollar Academy and he gives us his views on what schools and youth clubs are doing to improve the game, and why he would like to see more clubs, including those in the Borders, leave their traditional areas and play more big games against independent schools.

“You look at the under-18 league in the Borders and it’s very insular because they play each other,” he says. “Why not play the best of the other teams in Scotland more often and get out of that ‘syndrome’? Play the better teams wherever they are.”

We also feature the second part of our exclusive interview with Lawson, focusing on how the game has changed and the challenges facing the sport, and former Scotland back row Iain Paxton looks back on his favourite matches and players in our Scottish Greats spotlight.

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PREVIOUS EPISODES

• September 19: Episode 5

• September 12: Episode 4

• September 5: Episode 3

• August 29: Episode 2

• August 22: Episode 1