RUGBY, SHINTY...AND FUN

I know this is all about shinty and shinty people...but I can't help commenting on today's Scotland rugby performance. Beaten miserably by Italy to secure a well deserved wooden spoon.

But what conclusions can shinty draw from the whole six nations pantomime - if any?

I certainly don't profess to be any great expert on rugby.
But as someone for whom advancing years doesn't appear to be dimming the competitive spirit that was always there on the shinty pitch, football pitch, squash court, ludo table and draughts board - I think I know a little about the will to win. Didn't often manage it - but that's not the point...

The first aspect I notice - from each of the six nations games (and there are exceptions that I'll come back to), the team patently is not having fun.
These lads are not playing with the relish, gusto or verve one would expect from a squad chosen to represent Scotland.
The second thing is that it is all still very static in attack. A bit less so than in previous seasons but still pretty moribund. Ball is slow and our big backs are taking the ball from a standing start.

And - and this is where I feel the lessons might lie for camanachd - I think we have coached the fun, life and enjoyment out of top level rugby.

I mentioned an exception earlier. That man is a young one, and his name is Stuart Hogg. This Borders lad provided an all-too-rare ray of hope in a dismally sparkless Scotland six nations campaign.
He has a natural ability, but he ain't big. Big, in modern professional rugby, is most definitely beautiful. But the irony is that it isn't.
Not to the paying punter.
Sure - you get the big collisions, the teeth-rattlers that knock seventeen-stone hulks back five yards. It used, back in Jonah Lomu's day, to be a novelty. Now these huge tackles are the norm, and it is getting boring.

These guys are fitter and stronger, and bigger than ever before. They are referred to, unkindly, as 'gym jockeys' - musclebound like never before.

Stuart Hogg was the one Scotsman able to find space this year, and it didn't come (in my opinion) from coaching. It had its roots in instinct; a gut feeling that he himself probably couldn't explain.
I think that we have coached the life, the fun and the spontaneity out of top-level Scottish rugby.

But at least these days we're as big as the opposition...
What would the SRU not give for a Findlay Calder, a David Sole - guys with cruel, ruthless winning ability. Or a Rutherford; an Irvine. Guys with natural ability.

Some say the SRU should be turning back to the Borders for natural talent. Genuine braw Borders lads, not pumped-up public schoolboys. That is, of course, a gross over simplification, but perhaps they have a point.
In shinty's premier division, over-training has already been claimed to have been experienced, where a team runs out of steam because they train beyond match fitness. Don't recall that being a problem in my day...

But teams are definitely fitter than they were in the past. The ball and players can move quickly.

But is the game any better?

I don't think so - in playing terms, at least. I defy anyone to say that modern players have more skill and ability than Newtonmore's John MacKenzie or the Frasers; Kyles Athletic's Barney Crawford or Tom Nicolson; Kingussie's Dave Anderson or Donnie Grant.
Rugby aficionados would argue, quite correctly, that their game has changed.
Likewise, shinty is now different. A summer season, better fitness, a more 'professional' approach - they all have had an impact.

I doubt that it needs saying, really, but but let's not train or coach the natural joy and instinct out of our game.

Start them young, let them play, and above all have fun.