Can clubs in different sports in Glasgow learn something from each other? I hope so.
After Celtic won the European Cup in 1967, their legendary manager Jock Stein used to say to his journalistic friends, and he had many, that the club would have to be judged on what it achieved in Europe from then on. The same could be said of the current Celtic, and indeed Rangers squads, because they are so far ahead of the rest in Scotland in terms of income that they should always be in European competition and judged by European standards.
It is another Glasgow club that now faces the same sort of examination, the one that plays with an oval ball and is called the Warriors. As they prepare to take the field against Ulster at the Kingspan Stadium for their first competitive match of the season, the Warriors know that they will face even more scrutiny than ever before with their opponents in the United Rugby Championship and the European Cup all keen to lower the colours of the URC title holders.
The pressure will be on the Warriors to win every game because they did such a brilliant job in winning the championship, but with a settled squad and coaching team, I believe they can emulate and possibly even surpass their feats of last season, and to top what they did, they must aim to go deep into the Investec Champions Cup and yes, set the final in Cardiff on May 24 next year as a target.
The genius of Stein was that he kept his squad fit and focused for a decade and I think, I hope, that head coach Franco Smith can adopt the same approach.
I don’t think Smith will be too bothered about losing a couple of pre-season friendlies to Zebre and Connacht if they have helped him to finalise his thoughts on selection and tactics though obviously he would have preferred to have won both matches. By Saturday it will have been three months since the Warriors won that quite astonishing final in South Africa, so hopefully Smith will have his men tuned up and ready to go, and if so I can see a winning start for the Warriors.
The job for Edinburgh Rugby is different. They must simply avoid the long slump that ruined their season, and aim for a much better position in the URC and success in the Challenge Cup.
Head coach Sean Everitt has called their opening URC fixture against Leinster a “hell of a start” and he is not wrong. But with Darcy Graham back and scoring in the pre-season win over Gloucester, there is definite hope that Edinburgh can hit the ground running.
Meanwhile, congratulations to the women’s national squad. Their comfortable victory over Fiji at the Hive Stadium last weekend meant that they moved up to 5th place in the official world rugby rankings, the highest position our women have ever achieved. It’s been the product of years of hard work, and years of investment by the SRU which, most importantly, saw the women treated as professionals.
It’s been all good news for some time now but having overtaken Australia in the rankings Scotland’s women will be assessed on what they achieve against the other top women’s teams, the Englands and New Zealands of this world.
Just like the Warriors and Franco Smith, Bryan Easson and the women’s squad are going to be viewed in a different light from now and I welcome that development for I am sure they will respond positively.
Lastly, just word of welcome to Alex Williamson as he prepares take to the post of chief executive of the SRU. As I wrote last week the announcement of this appointment was imminent and the successful candidate would not be a person from rugby management, as we found out later that day – nice to get something right.
There have been a few comments about his previous sporting management experience being ‘just Goodwood’ but frankly that’s a looking-down-your-nose cheap shot. I have an advantage over the people who made such comment, in that have I actually been to what is one of the top sports venues in the UK.
Several times I went to the horse racing at the ‘Glorious Goodward’ meeting, one of the numerous sports that Wilson presented at the Goodwood estate. All I can say is that if he organises the SRU in the way in which Goodwood came together, then he will be a huge asset.
He also has the kind of background in business which is necessary for an organisation that has been overspending and needs to cut its cloth accordingly, and soon. He has to work his notice, but I expect him to arrive at Murrayfield totally committed, completely clued up and ready to get to work - at the very least he should be greeted with open arms and minds as attempts to take forward the sport in this country.
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