IT WAS watching the latest edition of cricket's The Hundred on the BBC that led me to think about what is wrong with the FOSROC Super 6.
The Hundred is a hoot with all those flashy uniforms, fake names, disc jockeys filling in any kind of silence and a completely phoney formula. Any resemblance to cricket as it is played is entirely coincidental, but hey it seems popular enough and the BBC is certainly giving it big licks.
The point is that everyone is in on the joke about The Hundred, players, fans and commentators alike. Though all the players are contracted professionals, everyone knows it’s not serious, and can’t be when it’s just madcap stuff in a hundred balls. But with Scotland’s FOSROC Super 6, I don't think many people have actually worked out what it is all about. It’s definitely not a joke, not least because people are being paid to play. Ostensibly it is to provide a playing level somewhere between the professional game and the amateur version as played by most clubs in Scotland, and the evidence so far is that Super 6 may be fulfilling the role defined for it.
I compare it to the Juniors in Scottish football and though some junior football clubs have shown that they can take on and beat lower level senior clubs, I could just not see the likes of Ayrshire Bulls ever beating the Glasgow Warriors or Edinburgh Rugby. The gap between the two professional clubs and the semi-professional FOSROC Super 6 is just too big and isn’t going to be bridged any time soon, if ever.
I watched a couple of games recently as streamed live by the BBC and my judgement, for what it's worth, is that FOSROC Super 6 is actually a fairly decent standard of rugby, quite entertaining and a good resource for the game in Scotland. But it has not set the heather on fire as shown by the fact that at one point during the Watsonian v Heriot’s match at the weekend there were only 140 people viewing the game on the BBC website - there were 100 less viewers at one point during a previous match. The various stadia at times have also been embarrassingly less than full. Nevertheless, that was not the fault of the players and coaches of the sides involved, who I can assure you were doing their best. No it was the fault of the SRU and indeed the BBC for not promoting the Super 6 effectively.
Compare and contrast how the Corporation promotes the FOSROC Super 6 as against its promotion of The Hundred. I'm not for one minute suggesting that the FOSROC Super 6 be reinvented as a gimmicky form of rugby - can you imagine players making comments live from the field of play as they do in The Hundred? - for I think it’s not the rugby that’s wrong but the marketing of the tournaments.
I wonder it anyone at Murrayfield has actually carried out an appraisal of how the FOSROC Super 6 has been marketed. If they were being honest they would have to conclude that not enough money has gone into advertising games and promoting the whole Super 6 concept.
We know the FOSROC Super 6 is here to stay and in time will be a Super 8 or Super 10 or whatever other number leaps into the mind of the SRU's chief executive, Mark Dodson. Credit must go to those administrators and coaches who have committed themselves fully to the FOSROC Super 6, and the sponsors must also be thanked for their involvement at a time when I am sure their money could have been spent elsewhere.
Rightly or wrongly, however, the impression was given that the Super 6 was cobbled together in a hurry but now that it is here there should surely be considerable thought about its future.
I am of course an old traditionalist who would have preferred to have had a semi professional league, if we were going to have one, based entirely on the existing clubs and it may well be that bigger amateur clubs like Hawick and Glasgow Hawks will come aboard in future once the current five year deals are up.
Creating the Southern Knights and Ayrshire Bulls fooled nobody – they are Melrose and Ayr and should have kept those names.
Add in Hawick and especially Hawks – it is a disgrace that none of the franchises were based in Glasgow – and you would have the makings of a proper Super 8 semi-professional league which will be better able to do what Scottish rugby requires and find and develop new talent. In time clubs from Aberdeen and Dundee might step up, and I think that will be the true test of the concept – can Scottish rugby develop a semi-professional level across Scotland? I certainly hope so because it would only improve the Super level.
