Stop handing out cheap caps and force imports to earn the honour

Published on Saturday 2 April 2005 02:40

THE dust has been settling at Murrayfield, though I suppose it would take no more than a puff of wind to stir it up again.

Yet here is one area where that distinction might be made very clearly and it’s an important area because it is one that has provoked a good deal of ill-feeling in the past few years. The subject is the recruitment of players from abroad who are nevertheless qualified, according to the rules of the International Rugby Board, to represent Scotland.

Such recruitment has been controversial in two respects. First, players have been given contracts by the Scottish Rugby Union and assigned to one of our professional teams, without the management and coaches of that team being consulted. Then, these players have been hurried into the Scotland XV, or at least into the squad, without having been required to show over a reasonable period of time that they are worthy of inclusion.

These statements are deliberately made in general terms, without immediate reference to individual players. This is because arguments about the merits of individuals obscure the point at issue and are irrelevant to it. That point is that this matter should come under the heading of "strategic decisions" and such decisions ought to be made by the body responsible for overseeing the actions of the executive board and the SRU’s salaried officials.

It is just the sort of issue on which such a body - whether it is called the general committee or the Scottish rugby council - should lay down the law and state clearly the principles which determine action.

So they might say, for example: any player holding a foreign passport (which probably means any Australian, New Zealander or South African) will not be considered for selection for the national team until he has lived in Scotland for at least one year and played 20 matches for one of our professional teams. This ruling, they might add, will hold good irrespective of the player’s qualifications according to IRB regulations.

The point of such a ruling is that it would require the incoming player to justify any eventual selection by his performances in the Celtic League and European competitions. He would not have been chosen on the strength of a reputation acquired in his home country. In effect, he would be placed on the same footing as a home-reared player: being judged according to his standard of play here.

This is an example of a strategic decision, clearly distinct from the sort of day-to-day decision which the director of rugby and the chief executive and executive board may have to make. Others might follow. For instance, the principle might be established that no such recruitment should take place without the approval of the management and coaches of the professional team to which the player in question might be assigned.

Likewise, clarification of the relations between the national coaching team and the coaches of the three professional sides is desirable; and this too must be a strategic decision. It is certainly one that will have to be made if the pro teams are to be franchised, but it ought to be made in any case. To my mind, it should be established that the coaches of the pro teams are responsible for selecting that team and that, while the national coach may reasonably make requests, he should not be empowered to give orders.

Again, if the SRU gets to the point of franchising the teams, the terms of such franchises must also be considered to come under the heading of strategy. One of the most important questions to be settled is whether the franchise-holder should be permitted to remove the team from its present base. There has been talk this week of a prospective bidder for the Glasgow franchise who wants to transfer the team from Glasgow to Falkirk.

Is that desirable? It seems to me misguided, if only because I am very doubtful how great a part of the Glasgow support would be happy to follow the team from the West End of the city (where many will be in walking distance of Hughenden) to Falkirk or Stirling, or wherever.

But this is not really the point, which is that matters of this sort must be regarded as strategy; and strategy ought to be set by a body (general committee or Scottish rugby council, call it what you will) distinct from the executive boards and salaried officials charged with the implementation of policy.

In other words, strategy ought to be determined by the elected body which represents the clubs and the other interested parties that make up the SRU and the Scottish rugby community. Strategic decisions are too important to be left to the union’s employees.