CHRIS PATERSON'S return north may be good news for Scottish rugby but it is a great move for the player himself. Gifted though he is, the Gala man was no more than third-choice flyhalf for Gloucester after Ryan Lamb and Willie Walker. With the arrival of Olly Barclay at Kingsholm next September, Paterson would have fallen to fourth-choice.
It says all you need to know about Scottish strength at pivot that Paterson will probably be playmaker at Edinburgh. He is too slight and too slow to play anywhere else except, perhaps, fullback. Even his trump card is no longer working. Despite kic
king 33 consecutive successful kicks at goal for Scotland, Paterson missed three simple enough chances against Munster in the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup recently.
His return will be met with less than rapturous joy in some quarters. Paterson was one of the many big-name players who abandoned a listing ship last summer and, lo and behold, instead of sinking without trace, Edinburgh actually flourished in the absence of so many heavy-weight egos. Under Andy Robinson, Edinburgh may even finish fourth, their best-ever league position.
The suspicion remains that, with Frank Hadden as coach, the team was mollycoddled, with the big names reserving their best for the national squad while using Edinburgh's matches as a useful keep-fit exercise. How else can anyone explain Hadden's star-studded squad finishing seventh in the Celtic League in 2005, his last year in charge?
THE IRB duly announced that 13 of their ELV's will be trialled at every level in the northern hemisphere next season from August 1 onwards, less than three months away. The most important changes are:
• Backs must stand five yards behind the rear-most foot of the scrum.
• The opposition can sack a rolling maul.
• Any number of players above one are allowed in the lineout.
• If a ball is passed back inside the 22 it cannot be kicked direct to touch.
Other ELV's will be trialled in yet-to-be-specified elite competitions.
POLITICS ARE never very far from the surface of Scottish rugby and they were brought into stark relief recently when it was announced that Jim Stevenson would be standing against the holder George Jack for the role of SRU president at the summer AGM. Regardless of any personal merit, and he has plenty, Stevenson needs to be applauded for the ensuring that there will be a genuine contest. His decision to stand should be welcomed by the vast majority of rugby supporters if only to establish the principle of contested elections.
STAYING WITH the politics, Edinburgh Accies coach Ian Barnes is standing against George Clark of Boroughmuir for Premier One's post on the SRU council. The two men exchanged angry letters earlier this season when Barnes was chastised by the Union for remarks he made about his club's lack of access to their best young players who were made unavailable by the SRU youth teams. Barnes questioned whether Clark was representing the best interests of the Union or the Premier One clubs? Incidentally the election for the Premier One rep is due on the May 20, the very same day that Barnes is up in front of a disciplinary panel for "bringing the game into disrepute". Tickets will be available from all good outlets.
FORMER SCOTLAND coach George Graham is said to have applied for a position at Munster where he has the huge feet of Jim Williams to fill. The former Wallaby flanker is an icon in southern Irish rugby and he leaves to fill a position with the Australian national team.
Graham's application comes despite the fact that the former Scotland man is said to have no formal coaching qualifications. It is a moot point how important these qualifications really are, Ian McGeechan has none and it hasn't hampered him any, but still you have to suspect that Munster will expect some sort of paper trail to prove that Graham has attended a few classes.
AND FINALLY, just when Frank Hadden thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. The national coach, pilloried in recent weeks for hanging his fellow coaches out to dry to save his own skin, has now he has been given a warning by the SRU for talking out of turn about Alan Tait's role within the organisation in an interview he conducted last week. For reasons that are not immediately apparent, this has sent Murrayfield HR department into a hissy fit and they promptly issued the national coach a slap on the wrist. Unsurprisingly Hadden was not best pleased.
The full article contains 779 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
