Scotland to take Player Poaching to the next level.

[SelimNiai]

Its beacuse it's a daft thing to openly advertise for when all you need to tell them is to put this geezers salary into investing into youth coaches and you'll find the talent.

Heck, my names Scottish. Do I qualify?

 

[ZeroTwo]

Its beacuse it's a daft thing to openly advertise for when all you need to tell them is to put this geezers salary into investing into youth coaches and you'll find the talent.

Heck, my names Scottish. Do I qualify?

Only if you can play wing. Or centre. Or fly half. In fact I hear you're a nifty front rower?

On a serious note I'm so out of ideas as to how to fix this.

 

[SelimNiai]

Only if you can play wing. Or centre. Or fly half. In fact I hear you're a nifty front rower?

On a serious note I'm so out of ideas as to how to fix this.

Nope, none of those. I was never "nifty" at anything. Played 2nd or back row when not injured.

Its the Quick Fix v Long Term Solution, they could stumble on a player who will turn out brilliantly for them in the next 18 months or wait 5 years or so until a kid in an U15's team is coached well to realise potential.

 

[Peat]

Its beacuse it's a daft thing to openly advertise for when all you need to tell them is to put this geezers salary into investing into youth coaches and you'll find the talent.

Heck, my names Scottish. Do I qualify?

They have youth coaches, they're not finding the talent. At least not in enough numbers.

I really don't see the issue with this, speaking out of cold practicality. Every level of 'elite' Scottish rugby is propped up by players from abroad. Just look at Glasgow's squad list; 14 members of the pack were born and raised outside of Scotland. Four members of the Scotland U18 side are likewise - George Thornton, Connor Eastgate, Mike Dewar and Thomas Gordon. I deleted my list of the U20s of similar stock but it was about twice the size. It's the only way for Scotland to achieve some moderate success at the moment, not that there's been much of it.

It's not short term fixes vs long term mends; Scotland need both. Scotland need strong professional teams for their youngsters to learn their trade in and it needs a strong enough pool of available internationals that they don't keep losing matches simply because one or two members of the team are not of the required standard. Teams cannot be much stronger than their weakest link and right now, Scotland's playing pool contains too many insufficiently skilled players at the highest level. If poaching can sort that, then good for them. Simply dropping in kids and assuming they'll make it won't work. It's not like Scottish rugby is allegic to young talent; guys like Russell, Ashe, the Grays, they've been promoted about as quickly as is possible. But you don't want a team of kids and if there's not enough Scottish born and raised talent willing to play in Scotland to provide the experience and know how in those teams, then go abroad.

There's enough players coming into Scotland already that doing it better and more successfully would pay back this role's salary in any case. It's not like this position would pay for a pro Caledonian Reds by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not sure the salary of every foreign-raised rugby man in Scotland would pay for it tbh.

If the SRU are doing this *and* increasing youth funding, where's the bother?

Meh. Rambling post is rambly. But I feel the reaction here is more emotional than rational, and also, Scotty seems to be somewhat overrating Scotland's player pool.

P.s. The single best thing Scotland could do for the promotion of Scottish talent is to get more Scottish players in the RFU Championship and get them playing professionally at a suitable level of competition for their age.

 

[ZeroTwo]

Very interesting take on it all. I think you're right about the lack of talent, but don't think it's because we're plain bad at rugby.

We have similar playing numbers to Wales (http://www.scottishrugby.org/playing-numbers) however we have a terrible age ranger to adult rugby player percentage. Basically means most kids give up on the sport as they get older. Having coached from 11 years to 15 years I'd say this was true. I don't have any other countries to compare it to from my experience but I think there's a need to fix that issue before we can compete with the big boys.

I tend to think that they leave because there's very little inspiration. There's no world cup winning team and until this year very little to celebrate in terms of clubs (who we all know aren't exactly a huge deal in Scotland). Perhaps if one of these import players turns out to set the world alight or we manage to build a team who can consistently break the top four of the 6 Nations it would help. Not saying it's the only problem but think it's definitely there.

 

[SelimNiai]

@Peat @ZeroTwo I do see your points there, and there's the football element to consider. Whilst domestically it's not the best its ahead of rugby on that point and it seems easier for a 14-15 year old interested in being a pro footballer or rugby player to become pro and make a living in football.

To your point Zero, I agree its hard to entice kids into taking up the sport if they don't have the heroes to want to emulate (that said Wales were poor in the mid/late 90's yet we seem to have a few talents who would have grown up watching that). When I was at Uni I interviewed the Havant RFC captain and participation was something we chatted about, he said after the 2003 World Cup their youth membership increased so rapidly they were having to turn kids away.

 

[ZeroTwo]

@Peat @ZeroTwo I do see your points there, and there's the football element to consider. Whilst domestically it's not the best its ahead of rugby on that point and it seems easier for a 14-15 year old interested in being a pro footballer or rugby player to become pro and make a living in football.

To your point Zero, I agree its hard to entice kids into taking up the sport if they don't have the heroes to want to emulate (that said Wales were poor in the mid/late 90's yet we seem to have a few talents who would have grown up watching that). When I was at Uni I interviewed the Havant RFC captain and participation was something we chatted about, he said after the 2003 World Cup their youth membership increased so rapidly they were having to turn kids away.

Hahaha! I was one of those kids! Played for Havant for a couple years at age groups. Just moved back here.

Yeah I think that rugby and sports in general is more ingrained in Wales than it is in Scotland unfortunately. Not sure why but it shows in terms of player numbers in most sports, turnout at sports games etc. Tricky.

 

[Peat]

I have no doubt that properly managed Scotland can put out a side to equal the rest of the Six Nations, that they could have at least 3 pro rugby sides and maybe 4; I don't think the Scots are inherently bad at rugby. But I think everyone can agree the situation has not been well managed and that it's a long way back. Clever use of foreign raised players can help prevent the situation from getting worse and aid a recovery. As noted, a lack of heroes might be part of it; Glasgow at least offers someone along those lines now.

It would be fantastic if Scotland suddenly found the money to fund the Reds and lure all the expats back - but I've got about as much chance of finding that money tbh!

 

[ZeroTwo]

I have no doubt that properly managed Scotland can put out a side to equal the rest of the Six Nations, that they could have at least 3 pro rugby sides and maybe 4; I don't think the Scots are inherently bad at rugby. But I think everyone can agree the situation has not been well managed and that it's a long way back. Clever use of foreign raised players can help prevent the situation from getting worse and aid a recovery. As noted, a lack of heroes might be part of it; Glasgow at least offers someone along those lines now.

It would be fantastic if Scotland suddenly found the money to fund the Reds and lure all the expats back - but I've got about as much chance of finding that money tbh!

When I said "don't think it's because we're plain bad at rugby" I wasn't trying to imply you thought we were! Just re-read and it comes across that way.
Issue with Glasgow is no one outside of the rugby community knows about it. A good world cup campaign would really help!

 

[psychic duck]

When I said "don't think it's because we're plain bad at rugby" I wasn't trying to imply you thought we were! Just re-read and it comes across that way.
Issue with Glasgow is no one outside of the rugby community knows about it. A good world cup campaign would really help!

The fact they've had year of consistent failure in getting out of pool stages in Europe and only succeeded in a tournament deemed secondary doesn't help either.

 

[profitius]

The fact they've had year of consistent failure in getting out of pool stages in Europe and only succeeded in a tournament deemed secondary doesn't help either.

Its primary for Glasgow.

 

[iINDOMINUSxx]

I have no doubt that properly managed Scotland can put out a side to equal the rest of the Six Nations, that they could have at least 3 pro rugby sides and maybe 4; I don't think the Scots are inherently bad at rugby. But I think everyone can agree the situation has not been well managed and that it's a long way back. Clever use of foreign raised players can help prevent the situation from getting worse and aid a recovery. As noted, a lack of heroes might be part of it; Glasgow at least offers someone along those lines now.

It would be fantastic if Scotland suddenly found the money to fund the Reds and lure all the expats back - but I've got about as much chance of finding that money tbh!

And we even got funded by BT sports when they bought the naming rights to Murrayfield. Not sure what we done with it to be honest.

 

[YoungScud]

Also Look at Eddie Jones with Japan, They use to get smashed by 100 points by team's like Wales and Scotland. Look at them now they are beating tier 1 nations. They didn't need foreigners to help them improve, Yes they had foreigners in they're team but most off them actually played a good 5 years in Japan before getting called up to the national team. Japan will be a nation to watch out for in the future they're home talent is improving aswell as they're national team. If Japan can do that with Eddie Jones then so can Scotland with Vern Cotter.

Really? Want to see an extract from this year's Japan squad?
Locks
Luke Thomson
Flankers
Michael Broadhurst
Hendrik Tui
Justin Ives
Michael Leitch
8s
Ryu Holani
Hayden Hopgood
Amanaki Lelei Mafi
Centre
Tim Bennetts
Male Sa’u
Craig Wing
Wing
Karne Hesketh


That's 7 back row players, including all their number eights. In fact, the only positions with no foreign born players are the front row and full back. They don't NEED foreign players? That's debatable, but they certainly have some, in fact around one third of their squad. What I get mightily tired of is the constant jabbing at Scotland as the only team playing this game. Take a long hard look at England, New Zealand, Australia and others. All Scotland does is apply the same rules as everyone else. My son was born in Enfield. I invite you to tell him he's not a Scot.

Now, I don't like the idea of bringing in players, but it's delusional to imagine we're going to produce great teams by 'selling' the sport. It's been around since the 1870s in Scotland and yet still has around 1% of the adult population playing. Compare that with swimming at 15% or football at 10%. In fact, before you get to the group of sports at the 1% level, you have to get past 17 others, including dance and tenpin bowling. So let's not kid ourselves there's an easy fix here. There isn't, but one thing that definitely doesn't help is losing, so anything we can do to arrest that trend can only help.

I can also understand the reticence of the SRU when it comes to another pro team. Once bitten, twice shy. We can moan all we want about the demise of the Borders team, but the cold hard reality was that attendance money wasn't even enough to pay Chris Cusiter's wages. That's unsustainable. A little bit of reality and a little bit of positivity would be nice.

 

[iINDOMINUSxx]

Really? Want to see an extract from this year's Japan squad?
Locks
Luke Thomson
Flankers
Michael Broadhurst
Hendrik Tui
Justin Ives
Michael Leitch
8s
Ryu Holani
Hayden Hopgood
Amanaki Lelei Mafi
Centre
Tim Bennetts
Male Sa'u
Craig Wing
Wing
Karne Hesketh


That's 7 back row players, including all their number eights. In fact, the only positions with no foreign born players are the front row and full back. They don't NEED foreign players? That's debatable, but they certainly have some, in fact around one third of their squad. What I get mightily tired of is the constant jabbing at Scotland as the only team playing this game. Take a long hard look at England, New Zealand, Australia and others. All Scotland does is apply the same rules as everyone else. My son was born in Enfield. I invite you to tell him he's not a Scot.

Now, I don't like the idea of bringing in players, but it's delusional to imagine we're going to produce great teams by 'selling' the sport. It's been around since the 1870s in Scotland and yet still has around 1% of the adult population playing. Compare that with swimming at 15% or football at 10%. In fact, before you get to the group of sports at the 1% level, you have to get past 17 others, including dance and tenpin bowling. So let's not kid ourselves there's an easy fix here. There isn't, but one thing that definitely doesn't help is losing, so anything we can do to arrest that trend can only help.

I can also understand the reticence of the SRU when it comes to another pro team. Once bitten, twice shy. We can moan all we want about the demise of the Borders team, but the cold hard reality was that attendance money wasn't even enough to pay Chris Cusiter's wages. That's unsustainable. A little bit of reality and a little bit of positivity would be nice.

Yes like i said, i know there are foreign players in the Japanese squad. They were already qualified to play for Japan before Eddie Jones came. The point i was trying to make was that Eddie Jones didn't need to grab or take anymore foreign players to help him make Japan better. Ok there were a few uncapped foreign players which he called up, But wasn't like John Kirwan who would have done his best to make Japan look like an All black 'B' team.