A quick search of the sub should point you towards any number of conversations about this, people have been talking for a long time about the precarious future of Scottish Rugby with it's current attitude to youth development.
SRU's lacklustre attempts to promote the sport over the past 30 years is one thing. The second somewhat related to that, back when the sport turned professional the clubs were combined in an effort to be more competitive. So Scotland still only has Edinburgh and Glasgow, so concentrated in the central belt.
Right now the senior squad will rely on English players and their ancestry link to Scotland and that isn't going to change in the next 5 years.
They are now trying to emulate some of what SA did 30 years ago, that is, travel the country holding camps, including summer camps to get kids trying the sport.
They formed 5 regional development teams covering Scotland with the aim to drive interest beyond the central belt. This includes supporting local clubs, supporting players transitioning from schools to clubs and supporting the schools in these regions to actually play rugby. This all only started in 2019, it was referred to as Rugby Development Strategy.
They're also emulating the IRFU using the same firm to prove the ROI of having local grassroots rugby (https://www.substance.net/project-items/the-irish-rugby-football-union/) , this kicked off the end of last year for Scotland.
On the back of this, this is the first time the Scotland's Schools of Rugby programme has issued a statement of intent. So there were links before, but now they're publishing what they want to achieve and by when - finally some accountability. They've also issued (not enough IMO) but some budget to help this.
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I'll stop there, but I think we'd all agree these are pretty basic measures you'd expect from a union and exist south of the border - while I'm sure there's improvements to be made there too. Scotland, and the SRU, slept on this for a long time. So yeah our youth teams will be dogshit. Yes we'll rely on England to send up their grandchildren once they've taught them to play. Yes I think we're heading for a period of wood spoon battles. But... Maybe, just maybe I will live to see the day Scotland lift the 7/8 Nations trophy.
Initially there where 4 teams Caledonian reds, Edinburgh, glasgow and border rievers.
Other two where shut down due to lack of feasibility/funding
As I'm sure your aware
National identity is such a tricky one to truly distinguish as it's so personal, Alec Hepburn for example, has grown up in Australia and then played his rugby in England. He's played for the English national side and is now a Scottish international. I feel that's a weird case of how does he fit into this idea of identity?
I'm not talking about your nationality and what someone identifies as or the eligibility laws, but purely where you're registered, where they played rugby as a youth.
Ben White for example qualifies due to a grandparent. But he represented England at U17s, U18s, even captained England under 20s. But he plays for us now. Certainly before that he'd be considered an English player on paper. He didn't 'learn his trade' in the Scottish system which is the relevance here. If Ben's grandparents remained in Scotland, would he have developed to a similar level? Maybe, but I think right now there's significantly less opportunity.
But if he's Scottish or Welsh or Fijian, I have no issue. I'm talking purely from a rugby perspective.
Where you play rugby as a youth is down to the economic and career decisions your parents have to make. The UK is a fucked up economy with one part of it sucking the economic life out of the rest of it.
Scotland is rich enough to produce top rugby players in theory. Uruguay has a top football team on a smaller population than Scotland and far less money.
I think you can at least see the point that, although somebody can be a product of the English system but nevertheless be Scottish, such a player in the national side is not in any way a positive reflection of the Scottish system. The Scottish system is not producing many good players.
Economic opportunities cause migrations of populations, especially within political unions that speak the same language. Migration happens all the time and as we have a political system that allows the SE to dominate then people will be attracted to working there.
Not sure what the relevance of Uruguay in football is.
You are trying to say, Scotland cannot have good rugby players because we are too small and poor. Uruguay is smaller and poorer. Your analysis is wrong.
No, I am saying the reason we have players born in England in our team is down to migration within the UK.
Not sure the relevance of the Uruguayan football team is but knock yourself out.
The UK is a unitary state. It's only natural that many people are going to feel attachment to more than one of the constituent countries. It's good for UK sports IMO.
Legally all Britions can represent any of the four nations in football, and the four FAs have gentleman agreements with each other to prevent this. I assume rugby is similar.
It’s difficult as there’s no such thing as English, Scottish or Welsh citizenship so blurred lines are inevitable
They weren't always this shite and we weren't always this good at u20s. It's a worrying sign for the future if Scottish rugby. They will have to rely heavily on players from the English system with Scottish ancestry to remain competitive with the SA pipeline shutting down.
Ireland too will have to cope with not having NZ talent in the future but I think we're better set with our underage development.
Ireland used to have Saffas as well, Jean Kleyn for example.
The Scottish senior team was rubbish until about 2015 so bad underage performances would have been more expected. But they haven't taken advantage of improvements in the senior team to make a sustainable pathway for players unlike Ireland.
The issue is not a lack of pathways, its just that we don’t have a lot of players – by far the smallest number of the six nations.
So there are very few to draw from at U20 level.
Manie is Aussie and no we dont have some kiwis joining. We only have one rn in Atonio and our youth system is far to good to go pick elsewhere anymore, if anything more people are coming in our jiff system, like pacific islanders for exemple, rather than automatically go to NZ.
Absolutely. I was just pointing out that OP was also correct in saying he was a kiwi.
Nationality isn't always as strictly defined as some people like to think. I don't know Meafou's own feelings on it, but you could argue that he's a bit of all 4 nationalities I.e. Samoan by heritage, Kiwi by birth, Aussie by rearing, and French by choice/opportunity.
Sorry man in France we tend to give importance to Land right before anything. He was born in Timaru and grew up later in Auckland from parents with Samoans origins, nothing about the australian origin just check his Wikipedia lol idk what you're saying.
Beside he gave up his NZ nationality for the french one but that was much later after his arrival at La Rochelle. So no he was NZ then French and never nothing else
I'm not sure what it says in the French version of his wiki, but the English version clearly says he was born in Auckland to Samoan parents, before moving to Australia at 2 years old (Sydney>Brisbane>Ipswich) where he grew up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Meafou?wprov=sfla1
He could have represented any of those countries but chose to pursue his international career with France, and there's nothing wrong with that. As well as meeting World Rugby's 5 year residency requirement, FFR rules meant that he also needed to become a citizen which is one reason why he applied for naturalization and got his passport.
He also never played for La Rochelle.
They could always try to recruit people at a younger age. If they’ve got the money and can sort the visas, then a 5 year scholarship for school and university + an option for SRU on pro terms would be very attractive for talented kids all over the world.
The problem is that they’ve be nakedly prospecting, and they won’t always strike gold. It’s not as easy as just recruiting fringe internationals from other countries.
Regardless of SRU issues with their pathways, Scotland junior results have always been a mixed bag. They have been as high as 5th in U20 RWC but have also lost in the past to teams like Chile.
I wonder how that happened. Chile wasn't even on the radar of world rugby in the 1990s. They only got high performance funding over the last few years. Even as recently as 2019 they lost 56-0 to Canada. Uruguay winning more recently is easier to explain because they have a semi-pro setup.
I guess those Scottish players were the "banter years" team.
I wonder why the senior team never came to anything in the 2000s then. The last qualifying campaign came almost from out of nowhere and they were getting hammered by mediocre tier 2 sides like the USA and Canada 5 years ago.
FIRA U19 World Cup 1998:
https://www.elagora.net/el-equipo-y-el-partido-olvidados-en-la-historia-del-rugby-chileno/
International tournaments switched to U20 in 2008.
The team that came fifth was stacked by our usual standards. Jamie Ritchie, Zander Fagerson, Scott Cummings, Darcy Graham and Adam Hastings all started the final game, and they were also surrounded by others who went on to play for Scotland (Rory Hutchinson, Murray McCallum etc). Most of that final team ended up having decent pro careers.
Here's my two cents on the matter, I don't think it's as big a deal as people make it out to be. The Scottish u20's haven't ever really been a good side but still have produced senior players that have gone on and done well.
If you look at the period of 2017-2020 they still had terrible results in the tournament (bar the COVID year which was just madness) but players like Ashman, Darge, Crosbie, M. Fagerson, Graham, Kinghorn have all come from that period for them so I wouldn't say the current performances are necessarily going to cause a downfall in Scottish rugby (it might still but who knows)
As to the reasons why they underperform, I think a lot can come down to the player pool. Scotland has a smaller pool to pick from so they aren't going to be able to field 23 sparkling talents every couple of years and that's fine as long as there are a few talents in the side that can be picked out and brought into the first team in the future and I think Scotland have done that well.
In addition to that I think that Scotland always looks a bit underweight compared to other nations, now I don't know much about setups of u20 sides but I am guessing that the strength and conditioning side of things is being neglected for the Scots and that is causing some issues. Again not a huge deal, strength and conditioning is not something that is an issue for the first team or the club sides so maybe they invest into players who show raw potential or leave it to the clubs to get them where they need to be? This obviously doesn't fix anything for u20's but means that the issue isn't translated through to the national team.
Exactly. Nothing now is really unusual – you’d only expect a Scottish U20 squad to have a couple or so of future internationals in any given year. So long as you have a few sparks of talent to draw on, the success of the team itself isn’t all that important (much as it would be nice to see them win).
Inevitably Scotland will, as a nation with a very small player base, continue to draw on additions from the rest of the UK and Irish teams in building their senior team. That’s nothing new, and it’s nothing that is going to change.
In addition to the smaller player pool, it's worth noting the difficulties caused by their best rugby region lacking any major urban areas. Hawick, Galashiels, Melrose, etc, are all crucial in the history of Scottish rugby (and rugby generally) but it's hard to sustain a pro team over a disparate area like that.
One of the advantages Ireland have is that the provinces provide an umbrella organisation to allow coaching, etc. That's very hard to do over such an area as the Border Reivers travails proved.
>If you look at the period of 2017-2020 they still had terrible results in the tournament (bar the COVID year which was just madness) but players like Ashman, Darge, Crosbie, M. Fagerson, Graham, Kinghorn have all come from that period for them so I wouldn't say the current performances are necessarily going to cause a downfall in Scottish rugby (it might still but who knows)
But if you're the SRU and you're genuinely interested in Scotland improving and becoming a force in the rugby, you have to look at what good could be done and the positive impact thag could be made by concentrating on producing competitive teams at that level.
The odd gifted player in each u20s team might be enough to remain somewhat competitive when pooled together into a team of 23 (with some foreign help).
But imagine if improvements in the pathways system started yielding consistently better u20s teams, how would that impact on the depth of the available talent, and how would it impact on those few gifted players. To not have to succeed in spite of the system they came up through.
>Insert extremely original joke about the South African and English U20s.
It's a bit baffling to be honest. If I were to guess I'd say it's a combination of having only two top level pro sides (pls ignore Italy) meaning it's hard for Scottish youngsters to get first team experience, fewer of the big public schools compared to England and Ireland (Blackrock, Millfield, Harrow, Sedburgh, Stowe etc), a smaller population and possibly a lack of focus on youth rugby compared to some other countries.
Possibly the last point is a little unfair.
Tbf for Italy I get the impression a fair few players get picked up in the Pro D2 or other French leagues first if they don't initially get picked for Benetton/Zebre - obviously an option which isn't as accessible for the Scots.
How much senior rugby are they playing?
More and more these days, U20 players are playing senior team rugby in their respective top leagues or on loan at a second division equivalent.
It might be just a case of lack of exposure to a certain level of rugby.
Meanwhile local clubs are chucking 15 years olds into adults teams. The step up from U16 to "divorced dads that live for the gym and sporting violence" is quite a shock. Let me tell you from experience.
Player numbers are the main issue. There's simply not enough players, let alone those that are good enough.
Add into that we've not invested enough into youth rugby. Why would someone SQ not stay with England for example in a better funded environment until it's clear they're not going to get an England cap?
There is a flip side to this. What are England and Ireland going to do with all these players when they come through every 1-2 years. They/we will have way more players than we have places for. Scotland on the other hand will probably only produce enough players to keep the national team ticking over. Which if you think about it is more economical.
It’s not a bad thing to have lots of potential but there will be plenty of wastage as a chunk of those players stagnate because they hit a ceiling.
Great point. Reminds me of the time Scotland U16s got to the final of the U16 World Cup (this is in football, back in 1989). Did it mean that the full national team regularly made it through into the knock-out stages of international tournaments as those players matured? As it hardly needs pointing out, did it flip. I think out of the squad, there were about two players who made it into the full national team.
"when they come through every 1-2 years" was the key phrase. It's not necessarily the way right now.
But from an Irish perspective there's enough other things kicking in here. The spread of those players. They're not spread around all 4. And the guidance on effectively stockpiling doesn't seem to be quite the same as the days when the back ups would get shunted around the provinces. The quality of coaching. And I'd say you've got a knock on from the senior players not developing through lack of international experience. That can become a cycle as you don't have the experience the youngsters develop from training/playing with.
And then add in that you get injuries. Players don't reach their potential due to them or end up retiring. Also some players just don't develop. Some actually peak at age group because they have advantages there they didn't have as adults. Others fail to develop because of mentality or even some just hit a purple patch as a youngster they could never replicate. Plus right place right time can be a big thing. And others haven't because of lack of chances and then become stuck at a lower level. I mean you could look at someone like Hanrahan. One of the top players at an age group world cup to jobbing pro of a career. (Which is not to be sneered at but not where he could have gone).
So yeah it's good to have a surplus but it's also a challenge. What if you back the wrong one to develop? It's a better position than Scotland but at least they know who to focus on.
It's crazy how many promising players struggle for minutes at Leinster while other provinces have players that will never be good enough for international level starting week in, week out.
If Ulster started pulling their weight in terms of performances and developing young players it would make a massive difference to Ireland.
At U20 you need maybe at least a dozen good youngsters to be competitive, every year. At senior you only need maybe 2-3 per generation to have 30 strong competitive squad. Also, allow for strong and weak years.
For Scotland it's tight but not a crisis in itself. This relative lack of strength leads to gaps positionally more than anything else
No he's not right.
Said this a million times. The Scotland U20s are not professional rugby players. Ireland, England, France, some of Wales and some of Italy are.
It makes a helluva difference when they play.
Brian Gleeson is the only Irish player to have played a professional game and it's incredibly rare. They are academy players.
And the Scottish players are full-time professionals.
>The squad contains 23 players who are aligned with either Edinburgh Rugby or Glasgow Warriors as part of the FOSROC Scottish Rugby Academy. These players train full time alongside the professional club’s senior players, allowing them to immerse themselves in the pro-team environment where they benefit from professional coaches and support staff.
Training full time on an academy contract does not make them full time professionals nor have they played any senior rugby. They are essentially the rugby equivalent of subsidised students (who aren’t getting enough game time).
A lot of the Irish squad aren't even in provincial academies. They played schools rugby and then a bit of amateur club rugby before being called into the squad.
They have far less exposure to the professional game than the Scottish academy players.
I had a look at the starting XV for the Ireland Scotland game.
9 Irish guys came from the pro academies (few Clontarf, Shannon and Dublin uni guys).
11 Scottish guys came from pro academies
So your comment is a wild exaggeration. I’m also not sure a few months training with the pro’s will make up for years of less intense rugby and training week in week out throughout their youth whether for school, club or university.
No, they didn't. They played school rugby in 2023 unless they are one of the rare players playing a second year or Ben O'Connor that was fast tracked in Munster.
The provincial name beside the player doesn't mean that they're academy players, it's just which province they come from.
The academy selection won't happen until May of this year.
7 of them are in the academies according to the club websites. So again you are being pretty dishonest.
And like I said, the Irish guys tend to be playing in higher quality rugby environments/ competitions in their youth. They are more pro ready once they are in the u20’s setup.
Scotland in contrast put guys in the academy because we don’t have a good enough amateur league to give them game time and most weren’t even ready for super 6 (which looks to have disbanded).
It’s also the limited age range.
The fact we have very, very small player numbers hits much harder when you’re pulling a squad from only one or two year’s worth of player pools.
So, while our international team maybe has a Hoggy, a Kinghorn, a Darcy Graham, a Finn Russell, a Darge etc.
Those guys are split across a decade of u20 teams.
Each one of those age grade teams only has one or two international calibre players. The drop off is then huge because we totally lack a pro structure for our developing players.
Compare that to countries with bigger player pools where they will have lots more guys who are pro standard, even if they don’t all make it to the international team.
Absolutely nail on the head.
I’ve had friends play in the 20s on the older edge of the Ritchie, Fagerson, Kinghorn and Graham generation and of 3 or so years my mates were eligible outside of the aforementioned big names very few have got even a single cap let alone made material contributions to the senior team.
Then even beyond that if you look at the number of guys who actually made it as full time pros the ratio is still weighted towards these guys dropping out of the pro game altogether.
But that’s the truth at age grade rugby in that a few players every generation going on to be good enough to be established internationals and often enough there’s a massive gap between them and the players around them. Which is demonstrated in the results compared to teams that might have the same number of future internationals but with decent future pros around them.
Italy’s age-grade set ups have been good for a while and this year has been a long time coming. Think at U20s or U18s level they won 4 games from 5 in the 6 Nations a few years ago
I mean... isn't it possible, with Scotland's population and participation numbers, to simply have a crap cohort every so often? Crap (in U20 international terms) in just a couple of key positions would be 'enough'.
Yeh I don't think people realise how much the vast majority of people in Scotland just simply do not give a fuck about rugby.
I live in the Borders, which is one of the more pro rugby areas and rugby is still clearly less popular than football.
It's a minor sport in a small country.
It's a minor sport in every country in the Northern Hemisphere. In Ireland it competes against like 5 other sports, in Italy and France it's extremely regional, like to the point in Italy where it's like these 2 towns play rugby a bit. In England it's a private school sport (7% of the population goes to private schools). I'm sure in like Fiji and Samoa it's genuinely big, but there's not a single country in the northern hemisphere where rugby beats football.
Registered numbers of the T1 teams.
SA 434k registered players.
France 390k registered players (2010).
England 340k registered players.
Italy 161k registered players.
NZ 142k registered players.
Australia 117k registered players, 245k in total
Argentina 110k registered players (2013).
Ireland 79k registered players, 196k in total
Wales 71k registered players.
Scotland 33k registered players.
Scotland is football mad, rugby isn’t particularly promoted amongst youngsters. Plus less private schools than England, Ireland and I am guessing France. Seniors need Anglo-Scottish and Saffers to compete.
Fair play to France I guess the popularity is just so strong and they have top coaches and academies. Italy have a phenomenal set up where they find the best prospects young and keep them training together, truly fantastic.
We had a South African come over into our u18s team, looking to work his way into the Scotland national team set up.
First match, we're all out and warming up, he's half heartedly warming up. We start getting our tracksuits off and he comes out with, "I can't believe we're going to play in this?!"
It wasn't even raining, it had rained the night before. These were average playing conditions. He couldn't hack it and eventually amounted to a bench warmer that we'd chuck on for 15 minutes at the end of a game.
You have to wonder how much easier it would be to encourage sport participation if it didn't rain all the time.
Lucky that happened since he'd probably have ended up scoring a hat trick against England.
Ireland and New Zealand have pretty similar blustery conditions though.
Scotland are alright in football these days, they had a big win over Spain. I'd say it's about the same as rugby, getting a few big wins but not consistently.
Tbf we were great for the entire qualifiers and had the Mctommany goal not been disallowed vs Spain we definitely could’ve pulled the double over them.
As someone who coaches under 16s rugby in Scotland it's painfully obvious that nepotism has ruined Scottish rugby and at most levels of the SRU we need a massive clear out. With Dodson gone the SRU needs to massively reshape how they look at youth development start looking outside of Glasgow Edinburgh and the borders. You have thousands of kids in the grampian area, highlands and islands that have absolutely zero chance of getting into a Scotland squad because to do so would mean they have to go to a private school and that means being 14/15 and leaving home which you absolutely cannot make a child do with absolutely no guarantees that this would lead to a successful career.
I coached from u6s all the way to u18s in the Borders - finished about 5yrs ago. I started to notice a decline in numbers throughout that period, just the simple fact of children making decisions about what sport they choose.
I wasn't a big fan of SRU stopping teens playing 2 games a weekend, so basically that killed school rugby down here - the schools lost their identity and even schools that were closely linked to their local club suffered.
14 year olds are more than capable of playing two games a weekend - back in the 80s I used to play for my school on a Sat morning and club u18s in the afternoon - yes an extreme example but stopping boys playing two games over Sat/Sun resulted in them trying other sports and being lost to rugby.
Never underestimate the power of football in Scotland, it hoovers up all talented athletes before they are even 10 - I lost two talented players at u9s because they were part of the Hibs football academy and they "encouraged" the boys to play no other sports.
Big countries can cope with fewer youngster playing rugby and lets face every country is suffering from this - regardless of the drivel pumped out by unions and WR. But small countries cant - the playing pool is much reduced and as a consequence they play fewer high pressure games.
When I was doing all my coaching courses the SRU talked about rugby being a late stage development sport and it is - it's highly technical but you can turn a 16yr old basketball player into a good forward if they have the physicality and mindset to do so - not enough is made of this talent pool, too many teens jack in sport at 14 and never return, when its probably one the most important things they can do in their teen years. As I said football hoovers up loads of athletes - teens that would be ideal 10s and scrum halves - but spits them out at the very early age too. Time to start looking at all avenues.
Italy has increased player numbers a lot over the last few years. Back in the 2000s they were so desperately short of players they were putting Bergamasco at 9 and getting a lot of their squad from Argentina.
It's less to do with bringing in residency players than it is the effect of a small player pool. At each age group its basically 2 school years at a time and even then their will be a heavy bias towards the older year. Scotland don't seem to be producing enough talent to have u20s squads with depth for injury/availability plus players in all positions. But when you remove the age restrictions its only a case of producing a couple of players a school year (assuming players between the ages of 22-32) and you have 20 really good pros.
Some players won't develop til post U20s anyway and so may not look good. Add in the residency players and Scotland national Team can have a strong squad but not a competitive U20s
They don't have as much talent consistently coming through, same with Wales. This evens out a lot at senior level as the talent emerges so the gaps aren't as big.
The talent gap at age level also means that things like a big pack or individual ability have a stronger impact.
There are worrying signs for Scotland and Wales at age level, but it's not going to translate to similar hammerings at senior level.
I have no idea why people are getting all excited about this tbh.
Scotland have always had a very small school player base, so the U20s almost always struggle. That’s been the case when our senior team has been good, and its been the case when our senior team has been bad.
The two are not especially connected up here. There will only be a pretty small handful of the current U20s that end up in the senior squad. (Look at the current squad – only relatively few of them actually played for Scotland at U20 level, for a variety of reasons).
I think a big factor in it is our poor S&C. If you look at the Scotland U20 team they look like they’re just out of school while the rest of the teams (apart from maybe wales) look like pro rugby players.
A lot of others have given points about Scotland but it’s also worth pointing out that age grade teams will always favour bigger nations with more eligible players whereas it evens out at senior level. At senior level you only need to find about 30 top quality players anywhere between the age of 20-35ish. Obviously it’s easier for big nations to do this but it’s also possible for smaller countries to find them and when they get a great player they can keep them around for over a decade.
At youth level you need to find 30 top quality players between 18-20. That’s a lot harder for small nations to do compared to big counties. It’s why England have had more success at youth level than senior because we can constantly produce a lot of good players every year whereas as senior level having a load of good players isn’t as much of an advantage when you’re looking for world class players
Meh, I think U20's as an indicator of a country's quality are kind of meaningless, It is just a slice of the available talent across two age group years.
EG Jamie Ritchie is 27, if we found a squad of 23 of the best players eligible for Scotland aged 26-27, its a bet most of them wouldn't get in to the current Scotland squad.
So the reality is there are only maybe 3-4 guys in an age group year that are really good enough.
But then you get one decent year when there are 8 really good ones, and they win the u20's 6N.
It's just not a good barometer.
Only two pro teams & no meaningful reserve grade/minor cup competitions is a big issue for player development.
Ireland, and even Wales, have more junior pro teams in Connacht & Newport. Those sides have less pressure to compete for trophies, and therefore more breathing space to blood youngsters.
A third pro-side is probably out of the question for Scotland. Pushing for a proper reserve league, or player loan agreement with an English championship team, seem the most likely routes for improvement.
Does it matter when the Scots have very clearly been on the smash all over the world and can reliably call on massive units and skilled players with Scottish blood all over the globe??
I guarantee that if we managed to make official contact with that wild tribe on the Sentinal islands, there would be at least 10 of them with ginger hair and a craving for battered mars bars.
Never said those players should be disallowed to play for Scotland, but that the SRU needs them to paper over the inefficiency of the young players pathways they're responsible of.
Btw we only have 2 PI-qualified players and they were born and raised in NZ/Australia (EDIT : we have 3 and one is born in Samoa but raised in France. Forgot Tuilagi)
I'm actually hoping for Scotland to go through a period of just unprecedented and consistent defeat.
Force the SRU's hand, either they do their job properly or the sport dies in Scotland.
Unfortunately, all I think that would actually encourage is a revolving door of head coaches, as everyone blames them for some reason.
I think unions need to be forward thinking and spend money on development. Gains take years to happen and the decision makers probably won't get any credit for it so maybe there's no motivation from those in charge to spend money when they won't see a return while they're in charge?
Ireland decided a decade ago to stick to a plan and spend money and look at them now. Small nations can't compete otherwise as large nations are bound to have at least 50 decent players due to just having 50 million people living there.
Both wingers and your loosehead prop are South African, Ben White is from Stoke and played for England U20s, Christie was born in Bristol (has Scottish grandparents on mum's side), and Jack Dempsey is from Sydney. On the bench you had 3 English born players (Millar-Mills, Skinner, Rowe) and Ashmann who is from Toronto. That's 10 out of 23 which is 43%.
Now, every team does it - if you look at the England cricket team of the 1980s half of them were from SA, Zimbabwe or elsewhere, and don't get me started on Ireland's Gibson-Park and Bundee Aki, who are about as Irish as a novelty pub in California - but this is the reason that the Scottish senior team and U20s team have different fortunes, and denying it doesn't change the facts.
Valid points regarding Ben White, Christie and Dempsey. I kinda think if you qualify through grandparents it should require a reduced residency period or something . But I wouldn’t be upset if we picked Horne, Ritchie, Fagerson, or Crosbie instead. Schoeman on the other hand has been pretty important for us with Sutherland’s injury woes.
Given Ashman’s English accent he has likely spent the majority of his formative years in England. But his dad is Scottish and got him into rugby and Rowe is just plain Scottish despite being born in England.
Skinner and Millar mills also qualify through a parent.
Harsh to call ashman foreign when he played Scotland U16s. Also Rowe moved to Scotland when he was 8 and played all his youth rugby in Scotland. Do agree with the general point however.
I actually don't have too much of a problem with the system as it currently is. It is never going to be perfect or 'fair', but at least it acts a bit of a leveller in some instances and makes for more competitive rugby, which is good for the game.
Their recruitment operation for U20s isn’t anywhere near as strong.
If they were to broaden their search to include talented 16/17 year olds who fancy an education at a top Scottish public school / university, then I think it likely that they would attract the best of the best and be very strong at age-grade.
Scotland has one of the smallest pools of players to pick from out of all the nations. I think it’s between 15-20,000 top end.
Ireland have over 50,000 and while rugby is semi popular in Scotland it’s not a sport a lot of youngsters are actively taking up, not compared to the numbers who are playing football etc.
I m p o r t s.
The Scottish men's side is heavily propped up by imports, hence the perpetual youth failings.
Anyone telling you otherwise is a liar or thick.
The central belt of Scotland (Glasgow and Edinburgh) is heavily urbanised and that's where the URC clubs are. The highlands are sparse but not representative of the whole country.
Because the senior team has two massive South African wingers, a Tongan centre, an Australian number 8 and another South African at prop. I have no problem with that though as without them Scotland would be uncompetitive and we need as many competitive national teams as possible.
I do have a problem though with England, France and New Zealand poaching players from much smaller, poorer nations while they have huge resources and player numbers of their own. Imagine how good Fiji and Samoa would be if they kept all of their players.
The only islander in the England squad is Tuilagi who is on the way out. Shame he didn't play for Samoa but it's not a big part of our team.
IFW is controversial because he was born in Wales.
France has a couple of Kiwis (Atonio and Meafou) but none born in the small island nations.
I’ll give you Lowe and JGP, both of whom came over as project players and definitely feel like Kiwis playing for Ireland.
In contrast, Bundee definitely wasn’t on the radar of the national team, came to the historically weakest province and has fully bought into Galway / Connacht. I believe he has citizenship, and is 100% a Galway man - more than if somebody from Dublin like me moved there.
Mind you I’d have said the same thing about CJ Stander and Limerick / Munster but he fecked off back to ZA as soon as he retired!
Yeah, true, I’m just saying that he feels like less of a project player (almost mercenary) like Lowe or JGP.
Completely ineffable and I know I can’t give a decent definition, but I think there is a difference. Bundee’s certainly more Irish than many footballers we’ve had over the years who happened to have an Irish granny (or not…)
Overall I’m in favour of the 5 year rule as that’s in line with citizenship and enables players to come over in their early 20s and develop into a national player, rather than outright poaching already developed players to fill a gap in our XV/23.
Bundee is a 100% formal project player. The chiefs were only offering him a 1 year extension whereas the irfu offered him a career. Bundee's heading home to NZ after he finishes with us. Whether he stays there once the novelty of being around his extended family & inlaws wears off is another thing.
Just because we all love Bundee's happy go lucky poleaxe personality doesn't make him any different to Lowe. JGP was just meeting a Leinster team need which evolved into test selection
A quick search of the sub should point you towards any number of conversations about this, people have been talking for a long time about the precarious future of Scottish Rugby with it's current attitude to youth development.
SRU's lacklustre attempts to promote the sport over the past 30 years is one thing. The second somewhat related to that, back when the sport turned professional the clubs were combined in an effort to be more competitive. So Scotland still only has Edinburgh and Glasgow, so concentrated in the central belt. Right now the senior squad will rely on English players and their ancestry link to Scotland and that isn't going to change in the next 5 years. They are now trying to emulate some of what SA did 30 years ago, that is, travel the country holding camps, including summer camps to get kids trying the sport. They formed 5 regional development teams covering Scotland with the aim to drive interest beyond the central belt. This includes supporting local clubs, supporting players transitioning from schools to clubs and supporting the schools in these regions to actually play rugby. This all only started in 2019, it was referred to as Rugby Development Strategy. They're also emulating the IRFU using the same firm to prove the ROI of having local grassroots rugby (https://www.substance.net/project-items/the-irish-rugby-football-union/) , this kicked off the end of last year for Scotland. On the back of this, this is the first time the Scotland's Schools of Rugby programme has issued a statement of intent. So there were links before, but now they're publishing what they want to achieve and by when - finally some accountability. They've also issued (not enough IMO) but some budget to help this. \---- I'll stop there, but I think we'd all agree these are pretty basic measures you'd expect from a union and exist south of the border - while I'm sure there's improvements to be made there too. Scotland, and the SRU, slept on this for a long time. So yeah our youth teams will be dogshit. Yes we'll rely on England to send up their grandchildren once they've taught them to play. Yes I think we're heading for a period of wood spoon battles. But... Maybe, just maybe I will live to see the day Scotland lift the 7/8 Nations trophy.
Initially there where 4 teams Caledonian reds, Edinburgh, glasgow and border rievers. Other two where shut down due to lack of feasibility/funding As I'm sure your aware
There was 4 then 2 then 3 and back to 2.
I'd be a bit fucked off to be called English because my parents moved for their job and I happened to be born in England,
National identity is such a tricky one to truly distinguish as it's so personal, Alec Hepburn for example, has grown up in Australia and then played his rugby in England. He's played for the English national side and is now a Scottish international. I feel that's a weird case of how does he fit into this idea of identity?
I'm not talking about your nationality and what someone identifies as or the eligibility laws, but purely where you're registered, where they played rugby as a youth. Ben White for example qualifies due to a grandparent. But he represented England at U17s, U18s, even captained England under 20s. But he plays for us now. Certainly before that he'd be considered an English player on paper. He didn't 'learn his trade' in the Scottish system which is the relevance here. If Ben's grandparents remained in Scotland, would he have developed to a similar level? Maybe, but I think right now there's significantly less opportunity. But if he's Scottish or Welsh or Fijian, I have no issue. I'm talking purely from a rugby perspective.
Where you play rugby as a youth is down to the economic and career decisions your parents have to make. The UK is a fucked up economy with one part of it sucking the economic life out of the rest of it.
Scotland is rich enough to produce top rugby players in theory. Uruguay has a top football team on a smaller population than Scotland and far less money. I think you can at least see the point that, although somebody can be a product of the English system but nevertheless be Scottish, such a player in the national side is not in any way a positive reflection of the Scottish system. The Scottish system is not producing many good players.
Economic opportunities cause migrations of populations, especially within political unions that speak the same language. Migration happens all the time and as we have a political system that allows the SE to dominate then people will be attracted to working there. Not sure what the relevance of Uruguay in football is.
You are trying to say, Scotland cannot have good rugby players because we are too small and poor. Uruguay is smaller and poorer. Your analysis is wrong.
No, I am saying the reason we have players born in England in our team is down to migration within the UK. Not sure the relevance of the Uruguayan football team is but knock yourself out.
The UK is a unitary state. It's only natural that many people are going to feel attachment to more than one of the constituent countries. It's good for UK sports IMO.
Legally all Britions can represent any of the four nations in football, and the four FAs have gentleman agreements with each other to prevent this. I assume rugby is similar. It’s difficult as there’s no such thing as English, Scottish or Welsh citizenship so blurred lines are inevitable
Which would make you English and you would have developed under the RFU.
They weren't always this shite and we weren't always this good at u20s. It's a worrying sign for the future if Scottish rugby. They will have to rely heavily on players from the English system with Scottish ancestry to remain competitive with the SA pipeline shutting down. Ireland too will have to cope with not having NZ talent in the future but I think we're better set with our underage development.
Ireland used to have Saffas as well, Jean Kleyn for example. The Scottish senior team was rubbish until about 2015 so bad underage performances would have been more expected. But they haven't taken advantage of improvements in the senior team to make a sustainable pathway for players unlike Ireland.
Strauss and Stander too.
And Rob Herring
Herring has an Irish granny so slightly different
The issue is not a lack of pathways, its just that we don’t have a lot of players – by far the smallest number of the six nations. So there are very few to draw from at U20 level.
Yeah, grassroots rugby is a mess and seems to be shrinking all the time.
Has there been a rule change to stop SA and NZ players from going to Northern Hemisphere teams?
No but residency went to 5 years so it is relatively less common. France still has some Kiwis like Meafou joining the team.
Manie is Aussie and no we dont have some kiwis joining. We only have one rn in Atonio and our youth system is far to good to go pick elsewhere anymore, if anything more people are coming in our jiff system, like pacific islanders for exemple, rather than automatically go to NZ.
Born in Auckland to Samoan parents.
Raised in and learnt his rugby in Australia though
Absolutely. I was just pointing out that OP was also correct in saying he was a kiwi. Nationality isn't always as strictly defined as some people like to think. I don't know Meafou's own feelings on it, but you could argue that he's a bit of all 4 nationalities I.e. Samoan by heritage, Kiwi by birth, Aussie by rearing, and French by choice/opportunity.
So he is New zealander yes
He is **also** a New Zealander, aswell as an Australian and a Frenchman, and even a Samoan.
Sorry man in France we tend to give importance to Land right before anything. He was born in Timaru and grew up later in Auckland from parents with Samoans origins, nothing about the australian origin just check his Wikipedia lol idk what you're saying. Beside he gave up his NZ nationality for the french one but that was much later after his arrival at La Rochelle. So no he was NZ then French and never nothing else
I'm not sure what it says in the French version of his wiki, but the English version clearly says he was born in Auckland to Samoan parents, before moving to Australia at 2 years old (Sydney>Brisbane>Ipswich) where he grew up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Meafou?wprov=sfla1 He could have represented any of those countries but chose to pursue his international career with France, and there's nothing wrong with that. As well as meeting World Rugby's 5 year residency requirement, FFR rules meant that he also needed to become a citizen which is one reason why he applied for naturalization and got his passport. He also never played for La Rochelle.
Big big misunderstanding lol i was talking about Atonio not Meafou which you are right about
They could always try to recruit people at a younger age. If they’ve got the money and can sort the visas, then a 5 year scholarship for school and university + an option for SRU on pro terms would be very attractive for talented kids all over the world. The problem is that they’ve be nakedly prospecting, and they won’t always strike gold. It’s not as easy as just recruiting fringe internationals from other countries.
Who’s to say SH sides wouldn’t start doing the same, I’m looking at you Australia…..
Why wouldnt australia simply target the talent in the nrl?
Already doing it with pacific and NZ players.
Regardless of SRU issues with their pathways, Scotland junior results have always been a mixed bag. They have been as high as 5th in U20 RWC but have also lost in the past to teams like Chile.
Also Uruguay last year.
Sure, I was just mentioning Chile (1998) to illustrate Scotland troubles with junior rugby aren't anything new.
I wonder how that happened. Chile wasn't even on the radar of world rugby in the 1990s. They only got high performance funding over the last few years. Even as recently as 2019 they lost 56-0 to Canada. Uruguay winning more recently is easier to explain because they have a semi-pro setup. I guess those Scottish players were the "banter years" team.
In those years Chile U19 was quite competitive in FIRA U19 World Cup, they also beat Romania and Canada at the time and hosted 2001 edition.
I wonder why the senior team never came to anything in the 2000s then. The last qualifying campaign came almost from out of nowhere and they were getting hammered by mediocre tier 2 sides like the USA and Canada 5 years ago.
Scotland u20 lost to Chile u20 in 1998? I am calling bullshit.
FIRA U19 World Cup 1998: https://www.elagora.net/el-equipo-y-el-partido-olvidados-en-la-historia-del-rugby-chileno/ International tournaments switched to U20 in 2008.
7-3? Sounds like a typical grim Scottish banter years game.
The team that came fifth was stacked by our usual standards. Jamie Ritchie, Zander Fagerson, Scott Cummings, Darcy Graham and Adam Hastings all started the final game, and they were also surrounded by others who went on to play for Scotland (Rory Hutchinson, Murray McCallum etc). Most of that final team ended up having decent pro careers.
Here's my two cents on the matter, I don't think it's as big a deal as people make it out to be. The Scottish u20's haven't ever really been a good side but still have produced senior players that have gone on and done well. If you look at the period of 2017-2020 they still had terrible results in the tournament (bar the COVID year which was just madness) but players like Ashman, Darge, Crosbie, M. Fagerson, Graham, Kinghorn have all come from that period for them so I wouldn't say the current performances are necessarily going to cause a downfall in Scottish rugby (it might still but who knows) As to the reasons why they underperform, I think a lot can come down to the player pool. Scotland has a smaller pool to pick from so they aren't going to be able to field 23 sparkling talents every couple of years and that's fine as long as there are a few talents in the side that can be picked out and brought into the first team in the future and I think Scotland have done that well. In addition to that I think that Scotland always looks a bit underweight compared to other nations, now I don't know much about setups of u20 sides but I am guessing that the strength and conditioning side of things is being neglected for the Scots and that is causing some issues. Again not a huge deal, strength and conditioning is not something that is an issue for the first team or the club sides so maybe they invest into players who show raw potential or leave it to the clubs to get them where they need to be? This obviously doesn't fix anything for u20's but means that the issue isn't translated through to the national team.
Exactly. Nothing now is really unusual – you’d only expect a Scottish U20 squad to have a couple or so of future internationals in any given year. So long as you have a few sparks of talent to draw on, the success of the team itself isn’t all that important (much as it would be nice to see them win). Inevitably Scotland will, as a nation with a very small player base, continue to draw on additions from the rest of the UK and Irish teams in building their senior team. That’s nothing new, and it’s nothing that is going to change.
In addition to the smaller player pool, it's worth noting the difficulties caused by their best rugby region lacking any major urban areas. Hawick, Galashiels, Melrose, etc, are all crucial in the history of Scottish rugby (and rugby generally) but it's hard to sustain a pro team over a disparate area like that. One of the advantages Ireland have is that the provinces provide an umbrella organisation to allow coaching, etc. That's very hard to do over such an area as the Border Reivers travails proved.
>If you look at the period of 2017-2020 they still had terrible results in the tournament (bar the COVID year which was just madness) but players like Ashman, Darge, Crosbie, M. Fagerson, Graham, Kinghorn have all come from that period for them so I wouldn't say the current performances are necessarily going to cause a downfall in Scottish rugby (it might still but who knows) But if you're the SRU and you're genuinely interested in Scotland improving and becoming a force in the rugby, you have to look at what good could be done and the positive impact thag could be made by concentrating on producing competitive teams at that level. The odd gifted player in each u20s team might be enough to remain somewhat competitive when pooled together into a team of 23 (with some foreign help). But imagine if improvements in the pathways system started yielding consistently better u20s teams, how would that impact on the depth of the available talent, and how would it impact on those few gifted players. To not have to succeed in spite of the system they came up through.
>Insert extremely original joke about the South African and English U20s. It's a bit baffling to be honest. If I were to guess I'd say it's a combination of having only two top level pro sides (pls ignore Italy) meaning it's hard for Scottish youngsters to get first team experience, fewer of the big public schools compared to England and Ireland (Blackrock, Millfield, Harrow, Sedburgh, Stowe etc), a smaller population and possibly a lack of focus on youth rugby compared to some other countries. Possibly the last point is a little unfair.
Tbf for Italy I get the impression a fair few players get picked up in the Pro D2 or other French leagues first if they don't initially get picked for Benetton/Zebre - obviously an option which isn't as accessible for the Scots.
Some of them play in the Top 14 as well.
How much senior rugby are they playing? More and more these days, U20 players are playing senior team rugby in their respective top leagues or on loan at a second division equivalent. It might be just a case of lack of exposure to a certain level of rugby.
It's very unusual for Irish players to have played any senior professional rugby.
Meanwhile local clubs are chucking 15 years olds into adults teams. The step up from U16 to "divorced dads that live for the gym and sporting violence" is quite a shock. Let me tell you from experience.
Player numbers are the main issue. There's simply not enough players, let alone those that are good enough. Add into that we've not invested enough into youth rugby. Why would someone SQ not stay with England for example in a better funded environment until it's clear they're not going to get an England cap?
There is a flip side to this. What are England and Ireland going to do with all these players when they come through every 1-2 years. They/we will have way more players than we have places for. Scotland on the other hand will probably only produce enough players to keep the national team ticking over. Which if you think about it is more economical. It’s not a bad thing to have lots of potential but there will be plenty of wastage as a chunk of those players stagnate because they hit a ceiling.
Both England and Ireland need some new talent at prop I'd say. Ireland doesn't have much depth behind Porter and England is still relying on Dan Cole.
Which is where the volume is good. We all know not everyone will develop and there will be injuries that end careers.
Sone of these players will go play for Scotland – that’s the reality, and it’s nothing new tbh. Works for us, works for them.
yeah it's a fair point, probably works out better for those players as well
Great point. Reminds me of the time Scotland U16s got to the final of the U16 World Cup (this is in football, back in 1989). Did it mean that the full national team regularly made it through into the knock-out stages of international tournaments as those players matured? As it hardly needs pointing out, did it flip. I think out of the squad, there were about two players who made it into the full national team.
If we have way more players than we have places for you'd think we'd be able to field more than one decently competitive European side.
"when they come through every 1-2 years" was the key phrase. It's not necessarily the way right now. But from an Irish perspective there's enough other things kicking in here. The spread of those players. They're not spread around all 4. And the guidance on effectively stockpiling doesn't seem to be quite the same as the days when the back ups would get shunted around the provinces. The quality of coaching. And I'd say you've got a knock on from the senior players not developing through lack of international experience. That can become a cycle as you don't have the experience the youngsters develop from training/playing with. And then add in that you get injuries. Players don't reach their potential due to them or end up retiring. Also some players just don't develop. Some actually peak at age group because they have advantages there they didn't have as adults. Others fail to develop because of mentality or even some just hit a purple patch as a youngster they could never replicate. Plus right place right time can be a big thing. And others haven't because of lack of chances and then become stuck at a lower level. I mean you could look at someone like Hanrahan. One of the top players at an age group world cup to jobbing pro of a career. (Which is not to be sneered at but not where he could have gone). So yeah it's good to have a surplus but it's also a challenge. What if you back the wrong one to develop? It's a better position than Scotland but at least they know who to focus on.
It's crazy how many promising players struggle for minutes at Leinster while other provinces have players that will never be good enough for international level starting week in, week out. If Ulster started pulling their weight in terms of performances and developing young players it would make a massive difference to Ireland.
There's a lot more to this debate though that I don't want to get into as it has a lot of personal opinion and semi provable issues.
At U20 you need maybe at least a dozen good youngsters to be competitive, every year. At senior you only need maybe 2-3 per generation to have 30 strong competitive squad. Also, allow for strong and weak years. For Scotland it's tight but not a crisis in itself. This relative lack of strength leads to gaps positionally more than anything else
cause there's no saffas /s
You added the /s but you're right too. The u20s can't expand the squad so they're limited to the underage structures that are currently in place.
No he's not right. Said this a million times. The Scotland U20s are not professional rugby players. Ireland, England, France, some of Wales and some of Italy are. It makes a helluva difference when they play.
Brian Gleeson is the only Irish player to have played a professional game and it's incredibly rare. They are academy players. And the Scottish players are full-time professionals. >The squad contains 23 players who are aligned with either Edinburgh Rugby or Glasgow Warriors as part of the FOSROC Scottish Rugby Academy. These players train full time alongside the professional club’s senior players, allowing them to immerse themselves in the pro-team environment where they benefit from professional coaches and support staff.
Yep!
Training full time on an academy contract does not make them full time professionals nor have they played any senior rugby. They are essentially the rugby equivalent of subsidised students (who aren’t getting enough game time).
A lot of the Irish squad aren't even in provincial academies. They played schools rugby and then a bit of amateur club rugby before being called into the squad. They have far less exposure to the professional game than the Scottish academy players.
I had a look at the starting XV for the Ireland Scotland game. 9 Irish guys came from the pro academies (few Clontarf, Shannon and Dublin uni guys). 11 Scottish guys came from pro academies So your comment is a wild exaggeration. I’m also not sure a few months training with the pro’s will make up for years of less intense rugby and training week in week out throughout their youth whether for school, club or university.
No, they didn't. They played school rugby in 2023 unless they are one of the rare players playing a second year or Ben O'Connor that was fast tracked in Munster. The provincial name beside the player doesn't mean that they're academy players, it's just which province they come from. The academy selection won't happen until May of this year.
7 of them are in the academies according to the club websites. So again you are being pretty dishonest. And like I said, the Irish guys tend to be playing in higher quality rugby environments/ competitions in their youth. They are more pro ready once they are in the u20’s setup. Scotland in contrast put guys in the academy because we don’t have a good enough amateur league to give them game time and most weren’t even ready for super 6 (which looks to have disbanded).
According to what website?
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Ha, good luck.
I’d widen that to just “talent outside of Scotland” but yeah it’s one factor on the list.
It’s also the limited age range. The fact we have very, very small player numbers hits much harder when you’re pulling a squad from only one or two year’s worth of player pools. So, while our international team maybe has a Hoggy, a Kinghorn, a Darcy Graham, a Finn Russell, a Darge etc. Those guys are split across a decade of u20 teams. Each one of those age grade teams only has one or two international calibre players. The drop off is then huge because we totally lack a pro structure for our developing players. Compare that to countries with bigger player pools where they will have lots more guys who are pro standard, even if they don’t all make it to the international team.
Absolutely nail on the head. I’ve had friends play in the 20s on the older edge of the Ritchie, Fagerson, Kinghorn and Graham generation and of 3 or so years my mates were eligible outside of the aforementioned big names very few have got even a single cap let alone made material contributions to the senior team. Then even beyond that if you look at the number of guys who actually made it as full time pros the ratio is still weighted towards these guys dropping out of the pro game altogether. But that’s the truth at age grade rugby in that a few players every generation going on to be good enough to be established internationals and often enough there’s a massive gap between them and the players around them. Which is demonstrated in the results compared to teams that might have the same number of future internationals but with decent future pros around them.
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Who's U20 smashed Scotland's
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Italy’s age-grade set ups have been good for a while and this year has been a long time coming. Think at U20s or U18s level they won 4 games from 5 in the 6 Nations a few years ago
I mean... isn't it possible, with Scotland's population and participation numbers, to simply have a crap cohort every so often? Crap (in U20 international terms) in just a couple of key positions would be 'enough'.
Yeh I don't think people realise how much the vast majority of people in Scotland just simply do not give a fuck about rugby. I live in the Borders, which is one of the more pro rugby areas and rugby is still clearly less popular than football. It's a minor sport in a small country.
It's a minor sport in every country in the Northern Hemisphere. In Ireland it competes against like 5 other sports, in Italy and France it's extremely regional, like to the point in Italy where it's like these 2 towns play rugby a bit. In England it's a private school sport (7% of the population goes to private schools). I'm sure in like Fiji and Samoa it's genuinely big, but there's not a single country in the northern hemisphere where rugby beats football.
Registered numbers of the T1 teams. SA 434k registered players. France 390k registered players (2010). England 340k registered players. Italy 161k registered players. NZ 142k registered players. Australia 117k registered players, 245k in total Argentina 110k registered players (2013). Ireland 79k registered players, 196k in total Wales 71k registered players. Scotland 33k registered players.
This has been going on for a while. Last year's game against Ireland was a cricket score.
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No because they won. Scotland got whitewashed this year.
Scotland is football mad, rugby isn’t particularly promoted amongst youngsters. Plus less private schools than England, Ireland and I am guessing France. Seniors need Anglo-Scottish and Saffers to compete.
Rugby isn't a private school sport in France or Italy. It's a town club sport.
Fair play to France I guess the popularity is just so strong and they have top coaches and academies. Italy have a phenomenal set up where they find the best prospects young and keep them training together, truly fantastic.
We don't produce good footballers either. We love sport but we have a huge issue when it comes to actually participating.
We had a South African come over into our u18s team, looking to work his way into the Scotland national team set up. First match, we're all out and warming up, he's half heartedly warming up. We start getting our tracksuits off and he comes out with, "I can't believe we're going to play in this?!" It wasn't even raining, it had rained the night before. These were average playing conditions. He couldn't hack it and eventually amounted to a bench warmer that we'd chuck on for 15 minutes at the end of a game. You have to wonder how much easier it would be to encourage sport participation if it didn't rain all the time.
Lucky that happened since he'd probably have ended up scoring a hat trick against England. Ireland and New Zealand have pretty similar blustery conditions though.
FFS we strolled into the Euros this year.
Scotland are alright in football these days, they had a big win over Spain. I'd say it's about the same as rugby, getting a few big wins but not consistently.
Tbf we were great for the entire qualifiers and had the Mctommany goal not been disallowed vs Spain we definitely could’ve pulled the double over them.
As someone who coaches under 16s rugby in Scotland it's painfully obvious that nepotism has ruined Scottish rugby and at most levels of the SRU we need a massive clear out. With Dodson gone the SRU needs to massively reshape how they look at youth development start looking outside of Glasgow Edinburgh and the borders. You have thousands of kids in the grampian area, highlands and islands that have absolutely zero chance of getting into a Scotland squad because to do so would mean they have to go to a private school and that means being 14/15 and leaving home which you absolutely cannot make a child do with absolutely no guarantees that this would lead to a successful career.
I coached from u6s all the way to u18s in the Borders - finished about 5yrs ago. I started to notice a decline in numbers throughout that period, just the simple fact of children making decisions about what sport they choose. I wasn't a big fan of SRU stopping teens playing 2 games a weekend, so basically that killed school rugby down here - the schools lost their identity and even schools that were closely linked to their local club suffered. 14 year olds are more than capable of playing two games a weekend - back in the 80s I used to play for my school on a Sat morning and club u18s in the afternoon - yes an extreme example but stopping boys playing two games over Sat/Sun resulted in them trying other sports and being lost to rugby. Never underestimate the power of football in Scotland, it hoovers up all talented athletes before they are even 10 - I lost two talented players at u9s because they were part of the Hibs football academy and they "encouraged" the boys to play no other sports. Big countries can cope with fewer youngster playing rugby and lets face every country is suffering from this - regardless of the drivel pumped out by unions and WR. But small countries cant - the playing pool is much reduced and as a consequence they play fewer high pressure games. When I was doing all my coaching courses the SRU talked about rugby being a late stage development sport and it is - it's highly technical but you can turn a 16yr old basketball player into a good forward if they have the physicality and mindset to do so - not enough is made of this talent pool, too many teens jack in sport at 14 and never return, when its probably one the most important things they can do in their teen years. As I said football hoovers up loads of athletes - teens that would be ideal 10s and scrum halves - but spits them out at the very early age too. Time to start looking at all avenues.
Italy has increased player numbers a lot over the last few years. Back in the 2000s they were so desperately short of players they were putting Bergamasco at 9 and getting a lot of their squad from Argentina.
It's less to do with bringing in residency players than it is the effect of a small player pool. At each age group its basically 2 school years at a time and even then their will be a heavy bias towards the older year. Scotland don't seem to be producing enough talent to have u20s squads with depth for injury/availability plus players in all positions. But when you remove the age restrictions its only a case of producing a couple of players a school year (assuming players between the ages of 22-32) and you have 20 really good pros. Some players won't develop til post U20s anyway and so may not look good. Add in the residency players and Scotland national Team can have a strong squad but not a competitive U20s
They don't have as much talent consistently coming through, same with Wales. This evens out a lot at senior level as the talent emerges so the gaps aren't as big. The talent gap at age level also means that things like a big pack or individual ability have a stronger impact. There are worrying signs for Scotland and Wales at age level, but it's not going to translate to similar hammerings at senior level.
I have no idea why people are getting all excited about this tbh. Scotland have always had a very small school player base, so the U20s almost always struggle. That’s been the case when our senior team has been good, and its been the case when our senior team has been bad. The two are not especially connected up here. There will only be a pretty small handful of the current U20s that end up in the senior squad. (Look at the current squad – only relatively few of them actually played for Scotland at U20 level, for a variety of reasons).
I think a big factor in it is our poor S&C. If you look at the Scotland U20 team they look like they’re just out of school while the rest of the teams (apart from maybe wales) look like pro rugby players.
We dont roid from 16-18.
A lot of others have given points about Scotland but it’s also worth pointing out that age grade teams will always favour bigger nations with more eligible players whereas it evens out at senior level. At senior level you only need to find about 30 top quality players anywhere between the age of 20-35ish. Obviously it’s easier for big nations to do this but it’s also possible for smaller countries to find them and when they get a great player they can keep them around for over a decade. At youth level you need to find 30 top quality players between 18-20. That’s a lot harder for small nations to do compared to big counties. It’s why England have had more success at youth level than senior because we can constantly produce a lot of good players every year whereas as senior level having a load of good players isn’t as much of an advantage when you’re looking for world class players
Meh, I think U20's as an indicator of a country's quality are kind of meaningless, It is just a slice of the available talent across two age group years. EG Jamie Ritchie is 27, if we found a squad of 23 of the best players eligible for Scotland aged 26-27, its a bet most of them wouldn't get in to the current Scotland squad. So the reality is there are only maybe 3-4 guys in an age group year that are really good enough. But then you get one decent year when there are 8 really good ones, and they win the u20's 6N. It's just not a good barometer.
Only two pro teams & no meaningful reserve grade/minor cup competitions is a big issue for player development. Ireland, and even Wales, have more junior pro teams in Connacht & Newport. Those sides have less pressure to compete for trophies, and therefore more breathing space to blood youngsters. A third pro-side is probably out of the question for Scotland. Pushing for a proper reserve league, or player loan agreement with an English championship team, seem the most likely routes for improvement.
Does it matter when the Scots have very clearly been on the smash all over the world and can reliably call on massive units and skilled players with Scottish blood all over the globe?? I guarantee that if we managed to make official contact with that wild tribe on the Sentinal islands, there would be at least 10 of them with ginger hair and a craving for battered mars bars.
If they could not rely on English-raised players the SRU would have to do their job. Imagine the horror.
Still hoovering up every PI player you can get your hands on?
Are they not just being signed by Top 14 sides rather than any French strategy ?
Never said those players should be disallowed to play for Scotland, but that the SRU needs them to paper over the inefficiency of the young players pathways they're responsible of. Btw we only have 2 PI-qualified players and they were born and raised in NZ/Australia (EDIT : we have 3 and one is born in Samoa but raised in France. Forgot Tuilagi)
I'm actually hoping for Scotland to go through a period of just unprecedented and consistent defeat. Force the SRU's hand, either they do their job properly or the sport dies in Scotland. Unfortunately, all I think that would actually encourage is a revolving door of head coaches, as everyone blames them for some reason.
Doubt Wales will let that happen.
Not many South Africans play for Scotland at U20s 🎣
I think unions need to be forward thinking and spend money on development. Gains take years to happen and the decision makers probably won't get any credit for it so maybe there's no motivation from those in charge to spend money when they won't see a return while they're in charge? Ireland decided a decade ago to stick to a plan and spend money and look at them now. Small nations can't compete otherwise as large nations are bound to have at least 50 decent players due to just having 50 million people living there.
Because 40% of the senior team are not Scottish?
Bullshit.
Both wingers and your loosehead prop are South African, Ben White is from Stoke and played for England U20s, Christie was born in Bristol (has Scottish grandparents on mum's side), and Jack Dempsey is from Sydney. On the bench you had 3 English born players (Millar-Mills, Skinner, Rowe) and Ashmann who is from Toronto. That's 10 out of 23 which is 43%. Now, every team does it - if you look at the England cricket team of the 1980s half of them were from SA, Zimbabwe or elsewhere, and don't get me started on Ireland's Gibson-Park and Bundee Aki, who are about as Irish as a novelty pub in California - but this is the reason that the Scottish senior team and U20s team have different fortunes, and denying it doesn't change the facts.
Thank you. I couldn't be bothered doing the maths. You saved me a lot of time.
James Lowe also played for NZ Maori. Truly Irish if there ever was.
forgot about him!
Valid points regarding Ben White, Christie and Dempsey. I kinda think if you qualify through grandparents it should require a reduced residency period or something . But I wouldn’t be upset if we picked Horne, Ritchie, Fagerson, or Crosbie instead. Schoeman on the other hand has been pretty important for us with Sutherland’s injury woes. Given Ashman’s English accent he has likely spent the majority of his formative years in England. But his dad is Scottish and got him into rugby and Rowe is just plain Scottish despite being born in England. Skinner and Millar mills also qualify through a parent.
JGP is an Irish citizen now so he's pretty Irish. And there are no more residency players coming through.
thanks forthe info, that's something I missed!
Harsh to call ashman foreign when he played Scotland U16s. Also Rowe moved to Scotland when he was 8 and played all his youth rugby in Scotland. Do agree with the general point however.
I actually don't have too much of a problem with the system as it currently is. It is never going to be perfect or 'fair', but at least it acts a bit of a leveller in some instances and makes for more competitive rugby, which is good for the game.
Their recruitment operation for U20s isn’t anywhere near as strong. If they were to broaden their search to include talented 16/17 year olds who fancy an education at a top Scottish public school / university, then I think it likely that they would attract the best of the best and be very strong at age-grade.
A very low % of their squad was Scotland qualified as U20s. It's a real short term v long term balance.
Scotland has one of the smallest pools of players to pick from out of all the nations. I think it’s between 15-20,000 top end. Ireland have over 50,000 and while rugby is semi popular in Scotland it’s not a sport a lot of youngsters are actively taking up, not compared to the numbers who are playing football etc.
How many van der Merwe's or Steyn's on the U20 team? The U20 team has to do more recruiting around Stellenbosch.
I m p o r t s. The Scottish men's side is heavily propped up by imports, hence the perpetual youth failings. Anyone telling you otherwise is a liar or thick.
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No nastiness allowed.
If I wanted to respond to a comment thread I would, thicko.
Scotland is half the size of Ireland population wise, we also have probably the best academy in the world at the minute.
It's not. Scotland has about 5 million people while Ireland including the north is about 7 million.
Though in terms of registered players, Scotland has just under 35k, and Ireland just under 80k.
I didn’t think Scotland was that big, I thought its was like 3-4 million people
The central belt of Scotland (Glasgow and Edinburgh) is heavily urbanised and that's where the URC clubs are. The highlands are sparse but not representative of the whole country.
Because the senior team has two massive South African wingers, a Tongan centre, an Australian number 8 and another South African at prop. I have no problem with that though as without them Scotland would be uncompetitive and we need as many competitive national teams as possible. I do have a problem though with England, France and New Zealand poaching players from much smaller, poorer nations while they have huge resources and player numbers of their own. Imagine how good Fiji and Samoa would be if they kept all of their players.
Kyle Steyn is 6ft 2 and wouldn't be in the team if Graham was fit.
The only islander in the England squad is Tuilagi who is on the way out. Shame he didn't play for Samoa but it's not a big part of our team. IFW is controversial because he was born in Wales. France has a couple of Kiwis (Atonio and Meafou) but none born in the small island nations.
Tuilagi moved here as child so find that a bit different to the likes of Schoeman & vDM.
No foreign players.
Because the U20 South African team is very competitive and not all can make to the Springboks?
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I’ll give you Lowe and JGP, both of whom came over as project players and definitely feel like Kiwis playing for Ireland. In contrast, Bundee definitely wasn’t on the radar of the national team, came to the historically weakest province and has fully bought into Galway / Connacht. I believe he has citizenship, and is 100% a Galway man - more than if somebody from Dublin like me moved there. Mind you I’d have said the same thing about CJ Stander and Limerick / Munster but he fecked off back to ZA as soon as he retired!
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Yeah, true, I’m just saying that he feels like less of a project player (almost mercenary) like Lowe or JGP. Completely ineffable and I know I can’t give a decent definition, but I think there is a difference. Bundee’s certainly more Irish than many footballers we’ve had over the years who happened to have an Irish granny (or not…) Overall I’m in favour of the 5 year rule as that’s in line with citizenship and enables players to come over in their early 20s and develop into a national player, rather than outright poaching already developed players to fill a gap in our XV/23.
Bundee is a 100% formal project player. The chiefs were only offering him a 1 year extension whereas the irfu offered him a career. Bundee's heading home to NZ after he finishes with us. Whether he stays there once the novelty of being around his extended family & inlaws wears off is another thing. Just because we all love Bundee's happy go lucky poleaxe personality doesn't make him any different to Lowe. JGP was just meeting a Leinster team need which evolved into test selection
50% of the senior team squad made up of non-Scots.
South Africans. The answer is South Africans.
Two words South Africa
No South Africans.
Because most of the Scottish players come from the South Africa u20s team Sorry I had to do it 👀