Jeffrey hits out at Scottish rugby chiefs

Former Scotland international John Jeffrey has lashed out at the Scottish Rugby Union for failing the game north of the border.

The national side only just scraped into the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals with a late 22-20 win over Fiji on Saturday.

And the three professional sides, Glasgow, Edinburgh and The Borders, currently occupy three of the bottom four places in the Celtic League.

Now the 40-times capped flanker has urged Scottish clubs to act together to sort out the problems in the game.

Jeffrey told The Herald: "It hasn't worked and these last couple of weeks have been the lowest point I can remember, with the national team performing dismally against France, the three districts all losing [as they did again this weekend], and then Scotland scraping home by the skin of their teeth against Fiji.

"In straightforward terms, the national side is poor, the districts are a flop, the club circuit is a joke, and the SRU committee needs to be modernised, away from the system where the president gets elected by Buggins' turn.

"We are trying to solve the problem from the top downward rather than the bottom up, and nowadays the supporters never meet the players who are cocooned away from everybody.

"It also helps nobody bringing in all these foreign sporrans, kilted Kiwis and Australians, and my belief is that the clubs, who are the SRU, have to get together and halt the slide through their own efforts."

But Jeffrey is also concerned that coach Ian McGeechan's forthcoming role as director of rugby was never questioned.

He added: ''Why was Ian McGeechan's appointment rubber-stamped, despite the fact his star is on the wane.

"Why wasn't the post advertised, as it would have been in any other branch of business?

"I have the greatest respect for Ian and Jim Telfer and what they have achieved in the past, but good coaches don't necessarily make good administrators and we are reaping that harvest of that philosophy at the moment."