Passion gone south

Saturday, February 02, 2013

RBS Six Nations: ENGLAND V SCOTLAND
The influence of Borders players on Scotland’s rugby successes in the 1980s and 1990s can hardly be overstated.

When the SRU’s finest surged to the 1984 Grand Slam, no less than two-thirds of the team were either born and bred in the south of Scotland, or turned out for the area’s leading clubs; and six years later, when David Sole led out his charges on their famous slow march into the cauldron of Murrayfield, Borderers in the mould of Gary Armstrong, Craig Chalmers, John Jeffrey and Derek White were in the thick of the action, while the try which clinched the second Slam was scored by Tony Stanger, a former pupil of the legendary Bill McLaren, when the latter was teaching in Hawick.

Given the unstinting commitment which has been poured into the sport at such hotbeds as Mansfield Park, The Greenyards in Melrose, Netherdale in Galashiels, and a string of other clubs in the region, one might suppose that the SRU would have recognised the importance of keeping the supply chain going and nurturing the game in the one part of Scotland which has always preferred rugby to football. You might imagine that even the most cursory glance at the roll-call of past Test stars, who have emerged from the Borders, would concentrate the minds of those who run the pursuit in Edinburgh.

But you would be wrong.

Instead, in recent times, the south has been left to wither on the vine and, for many people, it isn’t a coincidence that the administrators’ negligence has coincided with a period where the Scots have tumbled at a dizzying rate from a situation where they were reaching the semi-final of the World Cup in 1991. Fast forward just over 20 years and nearly all the SRU’s resources are being invested in Glasgow and Edinburgh, while the Borders has been marginalised. On the club circuit, Gala and Melrose remain powerful, but where they used to perform to crowds of five or ten thousand, attendances have shrunk. Hawick, meanwhile were relegated for the second time in three seasons last spring and Selkirk, Kelso and Jed-Forest have fallen out of the top tier. No wonder that some in the south use terms such as “treachery” when they talk about the situation.

Armstrong, the redoubtable little scrum-half, who excelled for his country and on Lions duty, is among those who believe that the decision to ditch the Border Reivers in 2007, has contributed to his nation’s slide down the IRB rankings. And, as somebody who captained the Scots to their last significant achievement — winning the Five Nations Championship in 1999 — the Jed man also questions the attitude of those who ply their trade, away from public scrutiny, inside Murrayfield and Scotstoun.

“I have spoken to a lot of guys down here [in the Borders], who are disillusioned with what has gone on and there is a widespread feeling that the SRU were wrong to shut down the Reivers, because it was a real kick in the teeth to the game. I feel sorry for the volunteers who are working as hard as ever at Melrose and Gala, Kelso and Jed, and there is still a lot of passion for rugby in this area. But, with no pro team, the best of our youngsters know that if they want to make a living from the sport, they have to go to Glasgow or Edinburgh — or Newcastle — and it’s hard to keep people motivated when any stars you do produce are moving elsewhere when they are still in their teens.

“I also wonder about what is going through the heads of some of our best players. I watched the autumn tests [which brought defeats against New Zealand, South Africa and Tonga) and I wondered: “Are these guys really putting their bodies on the line every time they go into a contact situation? Or have they spent too much time sitting in front of a blackboard, being told what to do, rather than thinking for themselves?

“I worry about the attitude of some of our current players and wonder whether the money or the honour of representing their country on the international stage matters more to them.”

These are strong words, but they reflect a common perception that the Borders should have been granted more support from the Murrayfield panjandrums than was actually the case. Yet, if the damage has been done, in terms of creating a professional entity, there remains no shortage of rugged Reivers, whose lives revolve around encouraging the next generation of wannabe Telfers, Townsends and Taits to pick up an oval ball.

Chris Paterson, Scotland’s most-capped internationalist and a stalwart son of Galashiels, summed it up, in declaring: “There will always be rugby at the core of the Borders towns, because there are too many people who care about the game for it to be otherwise. I have been to a lot of different countries, and have seen how much the game matters to folk in New Zealand, for instance, but I also know, from my own experience, how much it means to those in the south. And that isn’t going to change any time soon.”

READY FOR BATTLE: Rival captains Chris Robshaw, England and Kelly Brown, Scotland, ahead of today’s RBS Six Nations clash at Twickenham. Picture: Sportsfile Home