Just a few random thoughts this week, and if regular readers detect an elegiac note in my scribblings today then that’s perceptive of you.
Two fine performances by Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors at the weekend give me hope for a good end for Scotland’s pair in the United Rugby Championship season, necessary if we are to see a sizeable Scottish contingent in the British and Irish Lions squad.
I will be disappointed if all of Finn Russell, Duhan van der Merwe, Huw Jones, Blair Kinghorn, Sione Tuipulotu, Zander Fagerson, Darcy Graham, and Rory Darge do not make the trip down under. They have been outstanding over the season and deserve selection.
Scotland must continue to improve under Gregor Townsend and yep, keep playing their entertaining expansive game. Hang the results, guys, just go out and play like warrior poets and the wins will come.
Our women’s national squad are also improving and victories in the Guinness 6 Nations over Italy and Ireland added to that exciting win over Wales will see them earn third place, France and England being just too good at the moment. Good luck to all our men and women professionals, and please stay uninjured and enjoy as long careers as you can in this our Glorious Game.
I really do hope the Scottish Rugby Union can find a way forward. I still don’t think it is right that the governing body controls our two fully professional clubs, but no one is stepping up to do that job, so until someone does, Murrayfield will retain ownership with all that entails. Shame.
World Rugby really must get its act together, not least in tackling the continuing problem of head assaults. Regular readers will recall I have Parkinson’s Disease and I will never know if it dates back to concussions I suffered – and ignored – at my three clubs, Vale of Leven, Dumbarton and Lismore. It will give me zero pleasure to point out World Rugby’s deficiencies when the court cases by brain-damaged ex-players start to be decided over the next few years. I want World Rugby and all the Unions to truly embrace the principle that player safety must always be put before spectator pleasure and media interests.
I have always tried to support the community club level in our sport, and today I am taking up the final cudgels in support of Loch Lomond RFC who were formed in 1996 from Dumbarton and Vale of Leven, and it’s in the Vale near my old home in Bonhill that something is decidedly wrong.
The Loch Lomond clubhouse is in need of renewal and the money is there to do the work. It was given nine years ago by Barratt Homes when they built a nice wee estate near the club’s pitches.
Barratt made it fundamentally clear that the £40,000 they lodged with West Dunbartonshire Council was to be given to the club when they needed it for improvements.
But as Club President Iain Norrie has made clear on Facebook the Council is playing jack the lad with the cash and refusing to release it despite the club jumping through every hoop set by the Council.
The crazy thing is that nearly £33,000 of Council/taxpayer’s money is going to the Club from a special Cost of Living fund so the Council accepts the Club is worthy of support. So what’s the holdup with the Barratt money the Club needs to complete its refurb?
I asked West Dunbartonshire Council and their reply was that they had asked the club for “documentation that confirms the money will be spent for the purpose it was provided.”
What absolute tosh, claptrap and balderdash. Put it this way, if the council doesn’t pay up by, say, the end of the month, I may have to return to my old job of investigating duff councils.
By now you may have twigged what I am doing. The fact is that I have reached pensionable age and it’s time to retire from writing about our sport. I’m the lucky guy who turned his hobbies into a job more than 30 years ago and somehow I’ve survived largely unscathed to now, but this my is final column today.
Due to health reasons I have other challenges to face and it’s time to unplug the laptop. I don’t believe in long goodbyes so I’ll just say thanks to my colleagues at various sports desks over the years, and a big thanks to my many friends in rugby.
Thanks to you for reading this. I wish all of you all the best for the future. So now it’s Hannan, exit stage left, to the strains of My Way by Ol’ Blue Eyes. Francis Albert Sinatra said it best.
