Gavin Hastings calls for more pros in Scotland’s sevens squad

AS the SRU and Glasgow City Council digest the off-field success of the first HSBC World Sevens Series tournament to be held at Scotstoun, former Scotland captain Gavin Hastings believes they have to think again about the quality on the field.

Hastings has travelled around the world following the sevens circuit as an HSBC ambassador, and he admitted to feeling a bit underwhelmed at the end of the Glasgow event with the performance of the Scotland side. Graham Shiel’s team just missed out on the cup quarter-finals with narrow losses to Wales and South on Saturday, but were knocked out of the Bowl event they were favourites to win by Spain on Sunday.

Hastings believes that the SRU should move some mountains when it comes to the Scottish leg of the series to field more Edinburgh and Glasgow players in an effort to inspire Scottish crowds ahead of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the city.

He said: “I can understand why they moved to Glasgow and I think it was a terrific weekend. The stadium is excellent and everyone involved in it did a great job.

“But I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt disappointed that Scotland didn’t do better and I feel strongly that we have to make every effort to be as successful as we can possibly be when the world series is here in Scotland.

“If that means bringing in some professional players, or more professional players, to achieve that then we have to do that. We have to do everything in our power to create a stronger squad.

“We have the Commonwealth Games here in two years’ time and for Scotland not to do as well as the expectation of rugby people in Scotland will be a massive missed opportunity. I don’t think we can afford, as hosts of the Commonwealth Games, not to put out our strongest side.

“With the pressures we have on players and such a small pro game that’s not going to happen in every HSBC tournament, but we have seen the benefits in London and Edinburgh of putting out a stronger side in the past, and the team has reached quarter-finals and semi-finals.

“I’m not criticising the players at the weekend at all, because the boys played very well on Saturday and lost to Wales and South Africa only by a score late on, which was really tough, and they played very well to beat Kenya as well on Sunday morning. When they achieve that you tend to think that’s the Bowl wrapped up, so there is frustration when they lose to Spain, but that’s also the strength of the world series now. I feel it’s incumbent upon the hosts to be as strong as possible, and if that was our strongest possible team, then fine. But I think we need to look seriously at supplementing the core of proven sevens players like Colin Gregor with more professional players to give the home fans something to really get behind and cheer.”

Scotland could field a stronger side if Shiel had more access to the leading Edinburgh and Glasgow players, but with Edinburgh only finishing their season on Saturday evening against Treviso and Glasgow now preparing for a play-off match away to Leinster this weekend, there were around 50 top names neither Michael Bradley nor Sean Lineen could countenance releasing.

Jim Thompson, whose contract with Edinburgh is coming to an end, and John Houston both made their presence felt with some clever sevens play in Glasgow, but there is also the fact that not every player can slip effortlessly from XV-a-side rugby into sevens. It takes time to learn the game for those not brought up with it, and requires different types of fitness levels to ordinary XVs games.

However, there is also merit in what Hastings is saying. He feels that, as well as continuing with the programme of using sevens to develop young talent not yet ready for pro rugby, the SRU could enhance the skills of other more established players with appearances on the circuit, with more chances of success and of attracting bigger crowds.

“Everyone has worked hard to bring the sevens to Scotstoun and it looked great, so I don’t want to be negative,” he added. “The question I’m asking is ‘can Scotland be more successful on the field?’ and benefit more? I would love to see more established pros playing sevens because it’s a wonderful game and some of the skills that you learn from playing sevens, and being exposed in this world series environment, you won’t learn anywhere else.

“You look at guys like Ross Rennie, Max Evans and others who speak about their time playing sevens and how much better they became as players because of it, and Borders boys like Greig Laidlaw, Lee Jones and Stuart Hogg who are clever players in part due to their sevens background, and you realise that more of our players could improve with the opportunity to play on this stage.”