IT'S 25 years tomorrow since David Sole and his Scotland team-mates embarked on their long, slow march into a wall of noise at Murrayfield and subsequently strode into the history books with a 13-7 victory over England.

That secured a Grand Slam and was the prelude to one of the most raucous, joyous evenings ever seen across the country. Rugby might have been regarded as a minority sport in some quarters, but it crashed into the limelight with a vengeance.

What some people tend to forget, though, is how the whole triumph was masterminded by a brace of Scots in Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer, whose good-cop, bad-cop routine behind the scenes was the catalyst for Sole and his colleagues to ambush the hugely-fancied RFU collective. There was no sense at the time that Scotland would feel the need to scour the Southern Hemisphere for coaching talent a decade or two later, but that is precisely what has transpired without any evidence that the stampede to hire Australians and New Zealanders en masse has had any positive influence on the game in this country.

Instead, as the Scots struggle to avoid another Wooden Spoon in the current Six Nations campaign under their Kiwi mentor Vern Cotter, there's a feeling the door has been slammed shut on a few rough-hewn characters by the current policy. I spoke last week to the great John Rutherford, a proud son of Selkirk, and he waxed lyrical about the impact which the former Test prop Peter Wright has made in steering the Borders club to success in the Scottish National League. At the start of the season, the Philiphaugh club were concerned that a mass exodus of players might leave them struggling to avoid relegation. But fast forward seven months and Selkirk have won 20 consecutive matches and are still in with a chance of reaching the 100-point mark: a remarkable achievement which highlights how Wright, whether at Glasgow Hawks, Peebles or in the Borders, has proved himself a master-motivator and the sort of person who can encourage youngsters both to enjoy their rugby and acquire a winning mentality.

Rutherford has watched all this and marvelled at the seismic transformation in his old club's fortunes. "Peter has done a fantastic job and I would regard him as being international coaching material, but perhaps he is too honest for it to happen," said Rutherford. "He speaks his mind, so does Craig Chalmers, and that hasn't always endeared them to Murrayfield. But when you look at what they have contributed to Scottish rugby in the last 20-25 years, it's sad that they seem to have been ignored."

This phenomenon hasn't simply been confined to the oval-ball pursuit. On Saturday, prior to watching another defeat for the SRU's finest at Twickenham, I endured Scotland's cricketers being pummelled into the dust by Australia in Hobart. It left them with a big fat zero from their half-a dozen World Cup fixtures and the most depressing aspect of the comprehensive defeat was the lack of any discernible game plan from the Associates, who are also coached by a New Zealander, Grant Bradburn, who followed in the footsteps of Australians Pete Steindl and Peter Drinnen and England's Andy Moles.

Naturally, nobody was expecting Preston Mommsen's squad to upset Australia any more than the rugby fraternity were being tipped to end their drought in Richmond. Yet, the fact is, both squads spoke in advance of the World Cup and Six Nations about the need to turn good performances into the solid currency of victories. The message was straightforward: "No honourable defeats, we're better than that." Yet talk is cheap and platitudes are irrelevant. And when the losses mount up, you have to scrutinise the role of those at the helm.

None of this is intended as a "No foreign coaches" diatribe. That would be absurd and it might be that Cotter will eventually succeed in attaining the sustained success which eluded his predecessor Scott Johnson.

But equally, there are no shortage of Scottish individuals whose qualities have been marginalised. Quite apart from Wright and Chalmers, Phil Smith at Heriot's, George Graham at Gala and Kenny Murray, formerly of Ayr - whom he led to Premiership glory for the first time in their history - have demonstrated their capabilities to inspire and invigorate players in their teams.

In cricket, Dougie Brown has proved his credentials on the English county circuit, John Blain is making strides in the west of Scotland and there are other figures such as Steve Knox and Neil MacRae who boast a wealth of knowledge and experience. So why does everything feel so insulated and weighted in favour of non-Scots?

The irony, of course, is that Telfer, one of the most patriotic men ever to wear the Scotland jersey, was the architect of guiding the sport down the New Zealand template, oblivious to the fact rugby is in the latter's DNA and is their No. sport by a country mile. Telfer turns 75 tomorrow and one wishes him a happy birthday. But it would be good if he recognised, belatedly, that Scotland shouldn't always look to the other side of the world for coaching talent. There is plenty of the right stuff here.

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