Whilst the dispute over the player’s11 week rest continue with the RFU’s report expected shortly. Both supporters and the authorities are divided on the solutions to the challenges facing both the national and club games. What is clear is there is no easy solution and if we wanted a glimpse of the potential opportunities and horrors ahead, we could look to north of the border for the horrors that could befall our beloved game.


It’s not often one finds in a match programme a club vice president’s review of the challenges of the season ahead which is so illuminating. Ray Mountford, Vice President of Rugby for Stirling County did just that in his article in August. What it reveals is club rugby is now much lower in the player pecking order in the Scottish game. How could this be so for some of the game’s historic clubs?

Stirling County is celebrating its centenary – its Bridgehaugh ground has to be in one of the most stunning locations in the UK. The club has a proud heritage of winning trophies and producing fine international players – a certain Kenny Logan being a recent export. This year is Stirling’s first back in the Premiership and the competition is such that it will be a big test to stay up. This test is tougher still since three clubs will be relegated from the Premiership. It’s a great club which is well organised and has a full programme of social as well as playing activities.

In Scotland, rugby is divided into three tiers – the national side, the regional clubs who play in the Celtic league and the clubs that play in the Scottish leagues. The new Pro player protocol assigns players from the regional clubs to the Premier 1 clubs so the players from Glasgow are assigned to Stirling, Glasgow Hawks, Aberdeen and Ayr. The Edinburgh players go to the five Edinburgh clubs and the remaining players go to the Borders clubs.

This is where Mr Mountford’s article gets really interesting:

“a club may field up to four pro players but there must not be more than a differential of two between the named clubs on any match day. In return the pro teams can call up to two club players if they have problems.”

And…

“Whilst it is highly unlikely we will see any Pro players on match days…”

So the regional clubs have the best players and can draw on the club players. The club teams can never be certain which players they will have available whilst the regional teams are playing. It’s not clear why the clubs have players assigned to them – maybe it is so the clubs can bear the burden of training the players who may be returning from injury? It’s certainly an opaque arrangement. The clubs are also not guaranteed to be assigned players who have strong affinities with them – at time of writing Stirling were challenging the allocation of two players who had been assigned to Edinburgh despite coming from Stirling. As a supporter, how do you build affinity with a group of players that you are never quite certain will take their place in your team? As a coach, how do you plan your own team and understand the team you will be facing?

This is not the end of the complication as the regional clubs are also allocating apprentices to the clubs. Apprentices are actually meant to play for the clubs and train with the regional clubs – the only times these players should play for the regional clubs is when really needed or for development matches. The allocation of apprentices is as confused as for the main squad. Mr Mountford describes that experience to date has shown that these players are used to back fill the full time regional players to give them a rest. The chance for these apprentices to build a relationship with the club squad has been severely limited.

And of course, this is where the national side come in – Matt Williams had priority over the full international players so the trickle down affect to the regions and then the clubs leads to yet more uncertainty for the clubs in the Scottish Premiership.

The season structure for the club sides is to change again with the league season running from August to January and a league cup from January to March. All of this designed to protect both the national squad and regional teams.

Yet will this over blown structure deliver a sea change in the fortunes of the Scottish game? Since the arrival of the professional game, the performances of the national side have been a shadow of the great Scottish teams of the past and the regional sides have struggled both on and off the pitch. Edinburgh briefly flattered to deceive in the Heineken Cup but otherwise it has been a sorry tale of failure and disappointment. I’m not convinced this structure will do anything except confuse the paying supporter and denude still further the relationships between clubs, players and the supporters.

Does this give us insight into what could happen in England? Could we end up with complex arrangements between Team England and the Premiership clubs? Could the burgeoning arrangements between the Premiership clubs and the clubs in Division 1 lead to similar arrangements as Stirling County face?

In my view it’s not so fanciful and it could end up with a weakened club game and some very confused and angry supporters. Stirling County clearly were not powerful enough to stop the changes happening to them – would a Newbury or London Welsh face similar dilemmas? It is not beyond the realms of possibility – the days of the membership of clubs having any power are long gone. The RFU and the owners will decide what is best for them. Regions with feeder clubs have been proposed – my club’s owner, Keith Barwell being a big fan of the idea – sound familiar? Central contracts – give clarity but take the England team away from the clubs – the precious relationships between players and with supporters are under threat. A what of the players – do players want the uncertainty of where they will play next and who for? Although, there is much more movement of players between clubs these days I’m sure the level of uncertainty as there could be in the Scottish version must be difficult to deal with.

So much as I love visiting Bridgehaugh, I hope that we don’t move to the Scottish model – I want club rugby steeped in history throughout the land – not some bunch of owners dictating terms to the smaller clubs. Central contracts make me nervous but until we sort out the season – we may get driven there by accident. It is not a pretty picture and I'm not optimistic.

So RFU and owners – what will it be?

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