Tiered tournament is only way for schools

UNPALATABLE though it may be to those in school sport who believe in a clear dividing line between winter and summer activities, three of the six finals in the Brewin Dolphin Scottish Schools competitions at under-18 and under-15 levels were not played until the third week of April.

Admittedly there has always been a time lag between the finals of the Cup and the finals of the Plate and Bowl competitions, exacerbated this season by the severity of the winter weather. The Cup, too, has also sailed close to the winter wind, and, but for a temporary thaw that allowed the semi-finals to go ahead, the Murrayfield showcase might too have suffered a delay.

So it is time to look again at the Brewin Dolphin Scottish School Cup competitions and come up with a format that reflects the reality of the growing gap in standards between groups of schools.

For a start there must be a better mechanism than throwing every entrant school into the same pot. Yes, the 'better' teams are seeded, but they do not enter the competition until late October or early November. Why not arrange matters so that these stronger schools are playing Cup rugby from early September when conditions are optimum?

To do this would require a tiered competition – a mirror, in fact, of this season's format at senior level in the Scottish Hydro Cup – whereby the stronger schools were in the top layer, the middle ranking schools in the second layer and the emerging schools were in a more comfortable tier three.

In rugby, more so than in other sports, it is essential to avoid mis-matches (remember Dollar's 148-0 result against Shetland schools a few years back) and surely a tiered structure would achieve this. Moreover it would allow the competition to be finished before Christmas, relieving the quarter-finalists of what is an anxious post New Year period of exams, unplayable pitches and, often, an unfair time pressure to finish the penultimate round before the allotted Cup final date.

Clearly deciding who should be in which tier would be the tricky part of this operation, but if suitable criteria could be drawn up then the gains would be worth it even if it required some swallowing of historical pride. Hopefully for the sake of schools rugby the need for change will be recognised – otherwise it will be business as usual and the same old problems recurring.