Excitement builds at Scottish clubs after new British & Irish Cup draw

GALA have emerged with a plum draw in their first season in the British & Irish Cup after being handed a first match at home to London Scottish.The Richmond club has followed its survival in the English Championship this year by strengthening its squad with a number of internationalists, including Scotland fly-half Phil Godman. They defeated Melrose in last season’s competition, 28-12, on a great occasion at The Athletic Ground in December.

This season, the competition has undergone a professional revamp in a new 32-team format spread over nine weekends. The Scottish contingent swells from three to four clubs, Wales go from six to all 12 of their top club division, the Principality Premiership, and Connacht add their development team to the top Irish provinces for the first time. They join all 12 English Championship sides.

There will be eight pools of four teams, who all play each other home and away, and the fixture schedule has been aligned with the Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge weekends, which will make it a much easier tournament to follow.

Gala, Stirling County and Dundee HSFP make their debuts alongside cup veterans Melrose after claiming the top four spots in last season’s RBS Premier A. All of the Scottish clubs fancied drawing recently-relegated Newcastle, particularly Melrose who had hosted their relative neighbours in a Greenyards friendly in the past, with the potential for a capacity gate and extra revenues that that fixture would have generated. But ’Rose have instead drawn Nottingham, who they pipped 31-29 last season, as well as Doncaster Knights and Llandovery in Pool Six and have an eye on qualification.

Stirling and Dundee both have double Welsh opposition, with County in Pool Two with Bedford Blues and Welsh sides Bedwas and Neath, while Dundee meet Carmarthen Quins and Swansea as well as recent Championship finalists Cornish Pirates in Pool Three.

Gala have two English sides and one Welsh with Llanelli and Moseley joining London Scottish in Pool Six. The Richmond club have added well-known Scots Godman, James Thompson and Dave McCall to their squad this year, as well as a handful of players from England and further afield, in an effort to build on their first year back in England’s second tier with a concerted push on the league play-offs.

Gala coach George Graham welcomed a draw which brings the famous ‘Scottish’ club to the Borders on the opening October weekend, with the potential for a good crowd at the end of the local school break.

He said: “It’s great that we open against London Scottish at Netherdale. I guess every Scottish team involved in the competition would have wanted to be playing against them.

“They’ll be desperate to show the home public what they’re about and we’ll be looking for a huge crowd at Netherdale that day. It’s a bit of reward for all the hard work that the players put in last season and it will give them an idea where they stand.

“When you are in the highest echelons of Scottish club rugby you could think you’re very good but to play against professional or semi-professional sides will give our players a much better understanding of what they have to work on to get better.”

After two years of involvement in the cross-border competition, for Melrose head coach Craig Chalmers it is no longer about merely rewarding players for the previous season’s work but qualifying for the latter stages and bidding to win the title, alongside retaining the Scottish league crown for a second time.

“It’s a good group,” he said. “It’s maybe not as glamorous as the last few years when we’ve had the likes of Leinster, but it’s definitely a group we could possibly go and win. It does help to play the higher intensity games that you face in the British & Irish Cup, to focus the mind and pull up the standards of the players. The aim is to take these standards into our own league games.”

Stirling’s head coach Graeme Young is similarly hopeful that County’s players will improve as a result of the higher standards of the B&I Cup.

“We are hugely excited to be involved in the British & Irish Cup,” he said, “and to test ourselves against opposition which will be incredibly well-organised, very fit, well-conditioned and playing at a professional or semi-professional level. We are looking to use the competition as an opportunity to develop our players but we see this as a massive opportunity for the club and Scottish rugby as a whole.

“We’ll be setting specific targets around the games – very much player and skills focused – and looking to take that back to RBS Premier One to drive forward our performances.”