A PRESSURE group committed to changing the face of rugby in Scotland last night registered its frustration over its dealings with the sport's governing body.
The Change for Scottish Rugby body was set up earlier in the year as a protest over dismal recent performances by the national team and the way the sport is being governed. But they say they have come up against a brick wall, alleging intransigence on the part of SRU officials and Dodson in particular.
In the latest update on their page, a spokesman said: "We have been quiet on the outside but busy trying to make meaningful inroads on the inside.
"Frustration at the governance of the game in Scotland is the foundation. Far from becoming more at ease with the SRU as we have progressed, that frustration has only increased. From our surveying of the public, we have a guide to what the general public want in key areas of the game. So we tried to speak to people inside the regime to see what they think. So far not one of them wanted to be named because, according to one, 'the SRU will shun anyone who speaks negatively about their actions'.
"Many people have also commented to us that the Scottish Rugby twitter feed has blocked them because they made a negative comment. When speaking to the SRU ourselves we have had to hold back and at times refrain from telling them our honest thoughts as we were scared they would refuse future dialogue. It makes a mockery of the word 'Union'. Instead of admitting they are doing a bad job, they refute all accusations and bury their heads in the sand.
"For example, we explained, and have shown, that the Scottish rugby public want a change to the 'project player policy'. Instead of accepting this, Dodson simply said 'we only actually have two players on that policy: William Nel and Cornel Du Preez'. [Yet] the Toolis brothers, Ollie Atkins and Grayson Hart are all Scottish heritage project players."
The spokesman added: "We simply ask why businessmen are leading our sport. They have stabilised the bank balance but set our game back more than a decade. We get many emails and speak to many people with examples of the disheartening choices the SRU make. We will continue to fight for change but, right now, we are frustrated. Scottish Rugby is full of yes men; the people who pander to the SRU's needs are the people who stay in the system.."
A Murrayfield insider said: "We remain open to dialogue with any Scottish rugby supporter, irrespective of whether or not they agree with the shape of our policies.
"We are certainly not in the business of blocking contributors to our Twitter site in terms of opinion. We would, though, take that course of action should anyone resort to abusive or unsuitable language and content."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article