When you’re in the midst of the buoyant crowd on finals night at Murrayfield, it’s easy to be beguiled by the concept of Scottish Schools rugby.
The fans following their school friends make for a fantastic atmosphere, recalling what it used to be like in the Scotland international days at the old Murrayfield when the schools all sent full buses because the kids got in for peanuts.
The St Aloysius College support through from Glasgow, backing their lads in the Under-16 final the other night, had a co-ordinated and choreographed series of dances/chants that kept up an almost non-stop bedlam. Gregor Townsend should hire them for Scotstoun.
Later, the High School of Dundee support similarly outshouted the more genteel George Watson’s crowd during the Under-18 final.
Sponsors Brewin Dolphin have been backing the Schools Cup for 14 years now, and seem perfectly happy with the set-up. However many in Scottish rugby aren’t happy with it, because they believe the trophy’s become entrenched among a clique of elite Edinburgh public schools.
St Aloysius and HS of Dundee were the first non-Edinburgh finalists for four years, something remarked on by both the SRU and the sponsor in the after-final receptions. In my experience, the crowd on finals night is always better when teams outside the capital get there, for example in the two finals in 2003 and 2004 when Dollar and Dundee clashed.
Speaking to one enthusiast of Schools Rugby at Murrayfield on Wednesday, we agreed that just five or six schools, all of them well-resourced and maybe only one Strathallan based outside Edinburgh, can realistically compete for the cup year-on-year.
As for the state schools, the shining light was the Bell Baxter High team from Cupar that won the Under 18 title in 2006, also the last non-capital team to win. However they were effectively the Howe of Fife Youth team, who also won the SRU Youth Cup as well as the National Sevens event that year for a unique clean sweep.
And therein lies many people’s problem. There’s a widespread assumption that the Under-18 teams of the leading clubs that play in the Youth Cup would beat any school XV in a straight-up contest. But the teams are separated into different events, and it’s rare there’s a smooth crossover like there was with the Howe side.
Also, rectors at the independent schools are supposed to be resistant to a unified Scottish Under-18 competition, with clubs and schools competing together.
Rugby is an effective recruiting tool for them, and some even give scholarships to talented players from club sides to improve their teams. It wouldn’t look so good if consistently strong club youth teams like Stirling County, winner of the Scottish Under-18 Youth Cup five out of the last six years, were routinely hammering their boys.
I’m not so sure that would happen anyway; schools as lavishly resourced as George Watson’s, with a former Scotland A cap and national club champion coach at the helm, would surely still be strong in any company.
And a unified event would broaden the competition. You’d get much more of the rest of the country represented, particularly more of the small-town clubs like Howe or North Berwick who run superb youth divisions. The Border heartland, effectively shut out of the schools competition because of swingeing local authority cuts, would be back through Melrose Wasps and Gala Wanderers.
We’d have to lose the Schools Cup name, which would be a shame. But we’d have a much better competition that might engender even more interest and crucially help develop more players.