FURIOUS Ayr president Billy McHarg last night accused the coach of Premiership play-off rivals Heriot's of putting club before country by launching a "calculated" move to have national skipper Ross Curle banned.
The utility back had been due to lead the Scotland Club side - also coached by Phil Smith - into battle with English Counties at Blackpool tonight.
But instead, Curle will be starting a five-week suspension after being cited for a dangerous tackle by Smith in the wake of an incident during Ayr's league victory over the Edinburgh side at Millbrae on Saturday.
McHarg is convinced Smith's motives were to make sure Ayr would be without top-scorer Curle in the build up to the deciding title play-offs.
The long-serving president declared: "It is pretty obvious when you look at the course of events.
"It is pretty clear to me that Phil Smith has been quite prepared to lose his Scotland Club captain in the hope he would also be absent from the Ayr team at the most important stage of the season and when his own team will also be in contention to win the championship.
"As far as I am concerned, this is a calculated course of action and he had put the his personal interests in Heriot's before those of his role as Scotland coach - and that is ridiculous.
"Ross is totally gutted.
"He had been on a real high after the victory over Ireland - and was buzzing after scoring 20 of our 26 points against Heriot's at the weekend."
Curle was not penalised for the alleged offence at the time by referee Cammy Rudkin, but a disciplinary panel at BT Murrayfield on Wednesday found him guilty on video evidence.
Currie No.8 Ross Weston has been handed the captaincy, while Chris Auld of Gala replaces him at centre.
Smith stated: "I would rather not comment on this matter as I am looking forward to the match."
On the the appointment of Weston he said: "Ross is our most experienced and capped player, he is not a loud guy, but he leads by example.
"He gets his head down and says 'follow me' which the boys will do."
Scotland Club: F Thomson (Melrose); C Gossman (Ayr), L Steele (Heriot's), C Auld (Gala), S McLeod (Hawick); S Edwards, G Wilson (both Heriot's); N Beavon (Melrose), F Scott (Ayr), E McQuillin (Melrose), R Nimmo (Heriot's), I Moody (Boroughmuir), J Hill (Heriot's), P Eccles (Melrose), R Weston (Currie, capt).
Subs: R Anderson (Gala), F Watt (Ayr), S Muir (Hawick), M Peacock (Currie), G Graham (Gala), G McNeish, K Buchan (both Heriot's).
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