Men against boys cannot go on, says McKie

Published on Monday 28 June 2010 15:33

GORDON McKie has insisted he takes personally the failure of Scottish rugby to improve the environment for Scotland's young players after the side returned from another Junior World Championships on the wrong end of a hammering.

However, he acknowledged that it was not a "quick fix" and that the SRU have to expose more players to professional rugby earlier and younger teenagers to more intensive physical fitness and conditioning.

Just a year after he took over as chief executive, McKie condemned the previous SRU regime after ill-prepared youngsters suffered a humiliating 78-3 loss to Australia in the 2006 Junior World Championships. Supported by then president Andy Irvine, he insisted they would change the structure to ensure that was not experienced again.

Two years later, another Scotland under-20 side woefully out of its depth conceded 72 points in defeat to South Africa and in Argentina this year the luckless young Scots of 2010 lost 73-0 to the baby Boks, 58-3 to Australia and 53-23 to Ireland, finishing 10th and just avoiding a drop into the second-tier tournament. This underlined how little has changed in four years.

McKie is not prepared to apologise for so lambasting his predecessors, but he acknowledged that his hopes for a quick turnaround were perhaps misplaced.

He said: "I don't regret what I said four years ago; it's clearly unfinished business. I am concerned about what happened again and there is much work to be done, notably around physicality but also skills and where people play rugby at that age. The intensity of the competition at that age is clearly not good enough. Not enough of them (under-20s] are full-time compared to Australia and New Zealand.

"I do feel responsible for it and I welcome Graham Lowe's arrival to help us sort this issue because it has to get better. It's not an overnight fix. Graham (director of performance rugby] is now in the midst of restructuring the pathways to allow kids to get access to skills and fitness earlier, from 14 or 15. We had brought it forward to 17 and 18, but that's just not early enough.

"In New Zealand and Australia you tend to find that all the academy players are full-time and exposed to professional rugby, whereas we have some academy players who are part-time and many not playing pro rugby yet.

"Also, where do they play? If our national coaches want John Smith to play at stand-off and club X say they don't want him to play there because we've got an experienced Frenchman there so want to play him at 11, then that doesn't suit the player's development needs or us."

That was a problem last season when Edinburgh Accies, for instance, fielded Alex Blair on the wing, at full-back and centre before relenting to SRU pressure and playing him at stand-off where Murrayfield coaches believed he was best suited.

It is no accident that Edinburgh and Glasgow have signed more young Scottish players this season. The head coaches respectively, are keen to nurture native talent, but McKie and Lowe have also put forward their desire to see more exposure given to players at an earlier age. We can expect Ruaridh Jackson, Duncan Weir and Blair, therefore, to feature prominently for the pro teams this season, but with that has to come the acceptance that these players will need time to develop and iron out raw aspects to their game; a risk in the high-tempo pro game.

"The pressure for them to take more younger players is coming more from Graham Lowe. He is looking at a pathway of five or six players in every position, i.e. who is behind Dan Parks and Phil Godman at stand-off. In that respect, without in any way being negative, Dan going to Cardiff is not necessarily a bad thing. We've got to move on and maybe this is the year for Ruaridh Jackson to grasp it.

"There is no substitute for experience, but sometimes you have to take a step sideways to come forward again.

"No team should be about one player, and Sean Lineen and Rob Moffat understand and accept Scotland will be more successful if we have five players vying for every position than just two. That's also Andy Robinson's philosophy."

Next season more academy players will play for their Premier One clubs, the sevens and under-20s, but there will be no Gael Force team in the British and Irish Cup, as clubs will fill all the Scottish berths next season.

Another professional team is needed, but McKie ruled that out on two grounds: lack of finance and lack of players.

"We don't have enough Scottish players to justify a third pro team and there would be no point in having a team with 23 foreigners in it," said McKie. "I've not saying never, but at this moment in time we couldn't cope with it. We're trying to put together the makings of a sevens squad and that's a struggle, so how can you find a pro team as well? You can't. Maybe in two or three years who knows?"