Rugby focus: Exiles back on main st

While the pro-teams plod towards an uncertain future, at least one (semi) professional Scottish club is displaying the dynamism, energy and innovation needed to thrive in the modern era.

London Scottish beat Blackheath yesterday so next Saturday looms large as the biggest day in the club's calendar for well over a decade. Their final game is against unbeaten Barking in East London with a place in England's Championship, one rung in the ladder below the Aviva Premiership, at stake. There are various permutations but, if London Scottish win and deny Barking a bonus point, the Exiles will go up.

It's quite a turnaround for the venerable club (and here I should remind readers that I played there for ten years) that fell on hard times when their financial backer Tony Tiarks pulled the rug from under their feet in the early days of the professional era. From being an integral part of the top class rugby landscape, the London Jocks suddenly found themselves playing strictly amateur stuff against the Old Kleptonians and sundry other pub sides in the nether reaches of the English divisions. Eleven years after the club almost folded, they stand on the brink of a welcome return to professional rugby.

The club's latest push is being orchestrated by two Englishmen of contrasting size and shape. Standing 5ft 5in short, Simon Amor is a one-time giant of the England Sevens squad who now coaches the team. After losing his first three matches, the scrum-half hasn't lost another since and, by his reckoning, the club has picked up 15 consecutive bonus points.

The club's chief executive Tony Copsey is tall enough to have played lock for Wales while famously sporting a "Made in England" tattoo where the sun don't shine. Interestingly, both Englishmen make quite a song and dance about the club's Scottish heritage.

"We see London Scottish as an integral part of Scottish rugby," says Copsey in an accent that owes more to Peckham than Pembrokeshire. "Being Scottish is a big part of what we are about and we don't want to go the same route as a London Welsh or London Irish (who have diluted their cultural identity]. The Scottish element is key in all we do, including producing Scottish international players as we used to do in the past. It also appeals to sponsors, many of whom have an emotional attachment to the Scottish element that we have."

Of course nothing is simple in life and the RFU muddied the waters considerably by tying the funding they give Championship clubs (300,000-plus next season) to the number of English-qualified players in the match-day squad. Presuming they gain promotion, in order to qualify for the Twickenham hand-out London Scottish will need to field 14 players in next season's match-day 22 who are qualified to play for England, 15 the following year and 16 in 2013/14.

Several of the club's Scottish players are London-born and others already qualify for England after serving the three-year residency requirement, thereby making them dual-qualified. Provided Martin Johnson doesn't hand them an "A" or sevens cap out of sheer spite, the problem should be manageable. Still, some diehard London Scots like Lewis Calder, son of Jim and nephew of Finlay, may sleep a little uneasily knowing that they are "English" in the eyes of the RFU.

"I don't think it applies to me," says Calder, who has been down south for almost three years but with the exiles for just a season. "I played for the Scotland Sevens squad earlier in the season so that ties me to Scotland."

After doing the rounds with the likes of Exeter Chiefs and Redruth, Calder has blossomed at London Scottish. There is a poll on the club's website that invites fans to vote for the most valuable player of the season and the little flanker is so far ahead he could probably collect a red card against Barking and win the award.

"I have no regrets about coming down south," he says. "I could have stayed in Scotland and waited to see if any opportunities opened up for me but here I am playing full-time rugby, which is what I always wanted to do. I took a little time to find my feet but I am really enjoying myself. London Scottish is an ambitious club."

After that appalling start to the season, the Scots have gone on a winning run that has nudged them above Barking thanks to bonus points.

Everything would seem to rest on next Saturday's showdown and this one promises to go down to the wire. If the two teams finish level on points when it's time to count, Barking will go up having won more matches.

Calder is one of 15 full-time rugby professionals at Scottish and Amor explains that the club attempts to mix young Scottish hopefuls like the flanker with older, more experienced former professionals like himself (the little scrum-half still dons his boots from time to time), and former Scotland international centre Ben MacDougall, who has fetched up at the club. According to his coach, the Aussie is doing a fantastic job bringing on a clutch of highly-promising younger players.

Amor is especially full of praise for his flanker. "Lewis has been on great form this season," he says.

"He is quite small but a very intelligent player and a very talented one too. He is developing all the time and aiming to get bigger and better and there are four or five other young Scottish players in the same position."

With the right result against Barking and a season to consolidate in the Championship, London Scottish could soon be in a position to export young talent back to the two pro-teams.

In stark contrast to their Scottish counterparts, the exile club now boasts between 80-90 financial supporters who between them have raised about 1.3 million.

Two years ago the club thought it had an agreement with SRU boss Gordon McKie regarding the loan of Scotland's best young guns who could not yet command regular game time with Edinburgh or Glasgow. That deal collapsed at the last minute with recriminations flying. The question remains: If the RFU plans on gifting a promoted London Scottish around 300,000, what, if anything, are the SRU going to offer by way of support?

"We are watching London Scottish progress this season and wish them every success in their push for championship status," said Murrayfield's performance director Graham Lowe, while pointing out that the SRU's strategic review is due out in June. "We have been in regular contact with London Scottish and we remain happy to discuss with London Scottish the nature that any possible support might take."

So far London Scottish have made a spectacular recovery thanks entirely to their own blood and blisters.

It looks like they will rely on more of the same if they clinch promotion to England's second tier.