"Why the SRU should fund London Scottish"

The more I think about this, the more it makes really good sense.

1. It's a relatively cheap alternative to a third professional side.
2. It provides game time for i) promising BT Premiership players; and ii) the excess talent from Edinburgh and Glasgow (including Rennie-type players who simply need a fresh start)
3. It can act as a focal point for the plethora of young Scottish-qualified players in the South East (I was schooled in Surrey, and I can think of a dozen SQ players in my year alone) rather than the clumsy 'exiles' system of feeding into the age-grade Scotland sides.
4. It can act as an academy-of-sorts for Scottish coaches looking to make the step up.

The only downside I can see is that it will draw on the SRU's resources. However, for the first time in years the SRU is a viable and growing outfit, and this could have an interesting impact on the player pool available to the national team.

Excellent article, that all makes a lot of sense. 370k minimum, 870k maximum to effectively set up a 3rd pro team - can't argue with that.

Given that we've just got 20 million from BT, you'd hope there would be cash to invest.

The real issue I can see is whether the RFU would let a Scottish club in an English league.

Given the VAST resources English rugby has, it will be a tiny speck of lost resources for them - doesn't mean they'd agree though.

Agree the key question is the last one RDW .. Would English rugby allow it and who would decide? Assume both PRL and RFU approval would be needed.

In the long term, on an international basis Scotland would probably have an earlier call on SQ players than England on any EQ players I would venture - not sure if this would be a sticking point.

The SRU should get this on the table asap given the recent love being shown to Scotland right now from our southern cousins...

Can't see the RFU or PRL agreeing to it. I'm sure there are some clauses about developing English players. Not that I would be against it as such but it would be easier if London Scottish became a Scottish team, fully under the SRU rather than RFU, and then joined the Pro12 or something like that. Although I can't see the RFU just giving up a team.

Nice idea, but practically unworkable I think.

HammerofThunor wrote:Can't see the RFU or PRL agreeing to it.  I'm sure there are some clauses about developing English players.  Not that I would be against it as such but it would be easier if London Scottish became a Scottish team, fully under the SRU rather than RFU, and then joined the Pro12 or something like that. Although I can't see the RFU just giving up a team.

Nice idea, but practically unworkable I think.

Probably wrong but think the developing English players thing is just linked to extra funding, which presumably LS would be getting direct from the SRU instead.

A London based Pro12 team would be interesting

lostinwales wrote:

A London based Pro12 team would be interesting

It certainly would. Bet it got good crowds No room for them in the pro 12 right now however

lostinwales wrote:

HammerofThunor wrote:Can't see the RFU or PRL agreeing to it.  I'm sure there are some clauses about developing English players.  Not that I would be against it as such but it would be easier if London Scottish became a Scottish team, fully under the SRU rather than RFU, and then joined the Pro12 or something like that. Although I can't see the RFU just giving up a team.

Nice idea, but practically unworkable I think.

Probably wrong but think the developing English players thing is just linked to extra funding, which presumably LS would be getting direct from the SRU instead.

A London based Pro12 team would be interesting

There is definitely funding for the number of English qualified players, but I 'think' there is something more fundamental, although that might be tied to the academies.

I can see some sense in it but can you imagine the furore if the RFU suggested paying Glasgow or Edinburgh to play English players?

They don't need to give them money, they play loads as it is...they just go to play for Scotland.

Slightly off topic, but I wondered if you took the best 15 players from the Scottish Premiership and put them into a team, how competitive would they be in the the Pro 12?  I'd assume that it would be the lower end of the league, but would they get a shoeing week in, week out?

It definitely seems to me that there is scope for another pro team in Scotland (player wise),  I was just looking at the Edinburgh and Glasgow and I wonder how they can possibly be accommodating and developing their players properly (as regards to getting first team game time).  I mean they have 12 hookers between them (including EDP)!?

They'd get pumped week in week out. You can't just throw 15 amateurs together and expect them to compete in a Pro league.

Not to mention you need at least 35 players for a reasonable squad.

I didn't mean as a one off experiment, I meant if you created a team out of them and try something long term. I suppose I'm asking what sort of level the players in the Scottish Premiership are at. Are they all dedicated amateurs or are they players that have slipped through the professional cracks, or a combination of the two?

Why don't the SRY just offer to pay X amount for London scottish's contracts with scots players. London Scottish would still play according to all the RFU and PRL rules, and still get RFU funding for fielding the appropriate number if English qualified players.

It would enable scots "exiles" to play competitive pro rugby without changing anything about London Scottish's ownership or relation to the RFU.

The SRU would obviously have no control over player selection, training or tactics. They would be like a benefactor who just says that in addition to you getting RFUoney for playing English players in math day squads, we will give you money for scots players in matchday squads.

Just an idea

Because I don't think SRU ownership is ever going to fly

Interesting article. What is certainly true is the lack of playing time for a lot of young Scottish talent. If you look at the Glasgow A team alone, who are due to play Edinburgh A:

15. Sean Maitland
14. Lee Jones
13. Connor Braid
12. James Downey
11. Rory Hughes
10. Finn Russell
9. Murray McConnell

1. Jerry Yanuyanutawa
2. Fergus Scott
3. Gary Strain
4. Tom Ryder
5. Al Kellock (Captain)
6. James Eddie
7. Will Bordill
8. Adam Ashe

Replacements from:

James Malcolm (EDP), Matt Goodwin (Currie), George Hunter (Glasgow Warriors/Ayr), Steven Findlay (Glasgow Hawks), Zander Fagerson (EDP), Jamie Gray (Currie), Tommy Spinks (EDP), Blair McPherson (Ayr), Ali Price (EDP), Danny McLuskey (Ayr), Ruaridh Smith (Currie), Fraser Lyle (Stirling County)

I would love to see guys like Spinks, Bordill, Ashe (there's a great loose forward trio for a start), Fagerson, Hunter, Price and Hughes capable of selection by London Scottish regularly rather than turning into gym monkeys at Scotstoun. All of them were amongst the finest in their age group.

Given the furore over the prospect of the Welsh sides joining the Jeff, I doubt very much if it would fly as a realistic prospect - the SRU would be better investing in a third team in either the Borders or Aberdeen.

Irish Londoner wrote:Given the furore over the prospect of the Welsh sides joining the Jeff, I doubt very much if it would fly as a realistic prospect - the SRU would be better investing in a third team in either the Borders or Aberdeen.

A topic that has been well discussed on here, with the general consensus being the £5M + every year it would take to fund a pro team just isn't an option for the SRU just now, plus the question of where you would get the players from to be competitive.

The reason LS is so attractive is that they are a ready made pro team, which would cost at a minimum 350k, maximum 850k PA just now.

Plus, I don't think a 3rd top flight team is what we need just now, especially given so many of our Scotland players play outside of Scotland.

What we desperately need is decent gametime for our young players. They are not going to develop much if they are getting a horsing week in week out in the Pro 12 in a cobbled together 3rd pro team, but I think they would benefit greatly from an apprenticeship in the Championship.

There was a debate in Wales about this not so long back, where the regions, mostly the Ospreys wanted to loan a few players to London Welsh, and the WRU wanted to fund them as well, but the powers to be in England put a stop to it, something around the fact that a certain amount of English players must be developed through clubs playing in the English structure and a certain amount of English players must be in any matchday squad when playing in England, the WRU then decided that any decent players that could go to London Welsh should be loaned back to clubs in the Welsh Premiership to make our own league stronger, I would think that the Scottish WRU would have similar difficulties as well, anyway, looking at how many foreigners you have at your regions, perhaps you should put more players into Glasgow and Edinburgh before you set your sights on London Scottish.

LordDowlais wrote:I would think that the Scottish WRU would have similar difficulties as well, anyway, looking at how many foreigners you have at your regions, perhaps you should put more players into Glasgow and Edinburgh before you set your sights on London Scottish.

It's a fair point, but in general the positions where we have foreign players are the positions we have very few Scottish options anyway.

But for example look at scrum half - at Edinburgh we have 3 Scottish 9s fighting it out for 2 positions. We also have 2 young academy 9s as well, and they are likely to get absolutely no gametime at Edinburgh this year. They would very much benefit from learning at LS instead of Prem 1 rugby in Scotland.

We've also got some young back rowers who probably aren't quite yet ready for regular Pro 12 rugby but would really benefit from some Championship action.

LordDowlais wrote:I would think that the Scottish WRU would have similar difficulties as well, anyway, looking at how many foreigners you have at your regions, perhaps you should put more players into Glasgow and Edinburgh before you set your sights on London Scottish.

There are fewer than you would think at Glasgow, LD.

Glasgow have a formal squad of 46. Of these, only 8 are NSQ (de Klerk, Strauss (Saffer); Nakarawa, Matawalu, Yanuyanutawa (Fiji); van der Merwe, Braid (Canada) and Downey (Ireland)). I am being generous here because Braid is only here on a 3 month trial and Strauss will be SQ by the time of the next World Cup.

I am fairly sure that bears favourable comparison with the other teams in the league.

Now the Edinbokke on the other hand, that's a different thing entirely...

George Carlin wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:I would think that the Scottish WRU would have similar difficulties as well, anyway, looking at how many foreigners you have at your regions, perhaps you should put more players into Glasgow and Edinburgh before you set your sights on London Scottish.

There are fewer than you would think at Glasgow, LD.

Glasgow have a formal squad of 46. Of these, only 8 are NSQ (de Klerk, Strauss (Saffer); Nakarawa, Matawalu, Yanuyanutawa (Fiji); van der Merwe, Braid (Canada) and Downey (Ireland)). I am being generous here because Braid is only here on a 3 month trial and Strauss will be SQ by the time of the next World Cup.

I am fairly sure that bears favourable comparison with the other teams in the league.

Now the Edinbokke on the other hand, that's a different thing entirely...

I hered somewhere that Edinburgh only had two SQ players starting against Connacht the other day, is that true ? If it is I find it very worrying.

LD, it was actually nine SQ players in the starting line-up, but of those, Cuthbert, McLennan, Visser, Hidalgo-Clyne, Hilterbrand and Watson were all born outside of Scotland (though all except Visser have Scottish grandparents/parents).

Of the subs, there were another 5 SQ players, with three born outside of Scotland (Tonks, Atkins and Hart).

I don't think it's a terrible idea. We struggle to develop talent up here and Edinburgh struggle to develop anything worthwhile at all.

As you guys know this is something I've been banging on about forever.

https://www.606v2.com/t49660-london-scottish

Legally there's nothing the RFU could do (provided the UK doesn't pull out of Europe) as it goes against European employment laws.

The SRU don't have to take any ownership of the team, just match the money paid by the RFU for English qualified players. Personally I'd love to see the look on the faces of the PRL stooges when a fully Scottish team enters the Premiership, knowing there's nothing they can do about it. It was satisfying enough when London Welsh forced their way in.

For the cost of one marquee player at Edinburgh or Glasgow we'd have a 3rd pro development team. That's already exactly what LS have been trying to do off their own bat - hence why they have 11 Scottish players at present in the squad of 30. Kenny Baillie and Kenny Logan have stated that they'd like there to be way more.

LordDowlais wrote:

George Carlin wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:I would think that the Scottish WRU would have similar difficulties as well, anyway, looking at how many foreigners you have at your regions, perhaps you should put more players into Glasgow and Edinburgh before you set your sights on London Scottish.

There are fewer than you would think at Glasgow, LD.

Glasgow have a formal squad of 46. Of these, only 8 are NSQ (de Klerk, Strauss (Saffer); Nakarawa, Matawalu, Yanuyanutawa (Fiji); van der Merwe, Braid (Canada) and Downey (Ireland)). I am being generous here because Braid is only here on a 3 month trial and Strauss will be SQ by the time of the next World Cup.

I am fairly sure that bears favourable comparison with the other teams in the league.

Now the Edinbokke on the other hand, that's a different thing entirely...

I hered somewhere that Edinburgh only had two SQ players starting against Connacht the other day, is that true ? If it is I find it very worrying.

Just for completeness, Edinburgh's starting 15 was as follows (with national status):

15. Jack CUTHBERT - SQ
14. Nick McLENNAN - SQ
13. Phil BURLEIGH - NSQ
12. Andries STRAUSS - NSQ
11. Tim VISSER - SQ
10. Tom HEATHCOTE - SQ
9. Sam HIDALGO-CLYNE - SQ

1. Alasdair DICKINSON - SQ
2. James HILTERBRAND - SQ
3. W P NEL - NSQ
4. Fraser McKENZIE - NSQ
5. Anton BRESLER - NSQ
6. Mike COMAN (captain) - NSQ
7. Hamish WATSON - SQ
8.Cornell DU PREEZ - NSQ

So 8 out of the 15 were SQ, which I appreciate is still not great.

Edinburgh is in a funny place at the moment - they have an awful lot of kids who are qualified to play for Scotland in the squad (Hilterbrand, Berghan, Dell, Alex Toolis, Ben Toolis, McLennan and MacFarland) but, frankly, none of us knows if they're any good or not.

Some Scottish players are nailed on as starters (whether they should be or not is another matter) - Scott, Visser, Denton, Gilchrist and Cuthbert being the main ones but that doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't other options. What is definitely worrying is that there are some faaarihgner who are always selected who are not definitely better than their young, untested Scottish equivalent (for example, Beard, Strauss, Coman and Leonardi).

Okay, I've depressed myself now.

Worth noting that Nel and Du Preez are project players who will likely play for Scotland in the future. I believe that Hilterbrand is also SQ, not that it matters.

McKenzie is SQ as well. The only NSQ players who will never play for Scotland are Burleigh, Strauss, Bresler and Coman.

The Edinburgh 1st XV for me is a follows:

1. Dickinson - SQ
2. Ford - SQ
3. Nel - NSQ (but SQ as of 2015)
4.Bresler - NSQ
5. Gilchrist - SQ
6. Du Preez - NSQ (but SQ as of 2016)
7. Watson - SQ
8. Denton - SQ
9. Kennedy - SQ
10. Tonks - SQ
11. Visser - SQ
12. Scott - SQ
13. Burleigh - NSQ
14. Fife - SQ
15. Cuthbert - SQ

I'm fine with that balance.

Cannot be done without explicit RFU approval:

"REGULATION 14. OWNERSHIP OF CLUBS
14.1 No individual, body corporate, partnership, trust or any other entity
(“Entity”) may directly or indirectly own or control more than one Club
except with the prior written consent of the Union concerned, or where
Clubs from different Unions are involved, the written consent of the
Unions concerned and the Board.

14.2.4 For the purpose of this Regulation 14, indirect ownership or control shall
be widely construed. "

so as i said above, the only way to do this is to keep the RFU agreement in place, and attempt to help fund Scots up-and-coming players in the London Scottish side, but any hint of "control" would mean this IRB rule is breached, and by a Union no less.

quinsforever wrote:Cannot be done without explicit RFU approval:

"REGULATION 14. OWNERSHIP OF CLUBS
14.1 No individual, body corporate, partnership, trust or any other entity
(“Entity”) may directly or indirectly own or control more than one Club
except with the prior written consent of the Union concerned, or where
Clubs from different Unions are involved, the written consent of the
Unions concerned and the Board.

14.2.4 For the purpose of this Regulation 14, indirect ownership or control shall
be widely construed. "

so as i said above, the only way to do this is to keep the RFU agreement in place, and attempt to help fund Scots up-and-coming players in the London Scottish side, but any hint of "control" would mean this IRB rule is breached, and by a Union no less.

The only way it would work, was if LS were to leave the English set-up and join the Pro 12.

There are two options to make this work:

Formal arrangement - with RFU agreeing, could happen as London Scottish ground does not meet Premiership requirements, so if they accept they will always be a championship team I can see all interested paries signing off.

Informal - Players loaned to London Scottish with any shortfall in central funding due to to few EQP being met by SRU.


However SRU have shown no interest in the idea as far as I can tell.

Can the SRU afford to fund another Pro club? I thought that was the whole reason that a Borders team was axed!
The traditional links to Scotland as a london club makes a fantastic history, but that is where the similarity ends. They are an English club that gets funding from the RFU. There is no reason why a scottish flavour cant remain. Like the recent influx of Irish players coming over to Lon Irish.
Surely the best solution would be for the SRU to loan out players to the London club and give them experience in a different league to what they can get from an Edinburgh/Glasgow academy. And as LT suggests - the SRU (or pro sides) make up the shortfall in lost RFU revenue.

quinsforever wrote:Cannot be done without explicit RFU approval:

"REGULATION 14. OWNERSHIP OF CLUBS
14.1 No individual, body corporate, partnership, trust or any other entity
(“Entity”) may directly or indirectly own or control more than one Club
except with the prior written consent of the Union concerned, or where
Clubs from different Unions are involved, the written consent of the
Unions concerned and the Board.

14.2.4 For the purpose of this Regulation 14, indirect ownership or control shall
be widely construed. "

so as i said above, the only way to do this is to keep the RFU agreement in place, and attempt to help fund Scots up-and-coming players in the London Scottish side, but any hint of "control" would mean this IRB rule is breached, and by a Union no less.

I don't think anyone would be interested in the SRU owning London Scottish, least of all the current owners. The SRU had their chance of doing this back in 99 but rejected it out of hand (which was a shame IMO).

The best option would be to provide payments for Scottish qualified players in the starting 15 - as is currently done for England qualified players. This is akin to unions payments to clubs for their international players (ala the Argentinian internationals). It sits outside of any other funding agreements and is seen as an 'incentive' to encourage clubs to pick English players. This is because it is illegal under European employment law to set limits on players from within European countries. The RFU would love to be able to limit the amount of foreign players through contracts, however this is currently impossible, hence why they created these incentives. As yet no-one has rejected them, but there's nothing stopping the SRU (of which LS are also a member club) from offering an alternative set of incentives.

propdavid_london wrote:Can the SRU afford to fund another Pro club?  I thought that was the whole reason that a Borders team was axed!
The traditional links to Scotland as a london club makes a fantastic history, but that is where the similarity ends.  They are an English club that gets funding from the RFU.  There is no reason why a scottish flavour cant remain.  Like the recent influx of Irish players coming over to Lon Irish.  
Surely the best solution would be for the SRU to loan out players to the London club and give them experience in a different league to what they can get from an Edinburgh/Glasgow academy.  And as LT suggests - the SRU (or pro sides) make up the shortfall in lost RFU revenue.

As was stated in the original article above, it would only cost around £400,000 - as opposed to the full start up costs of a new pro team.

The difference between LS and LI is that Irish have not had a commitment to picking Irish players since the game went pro. Even before 95 they always had the least exile representation of the 3 teams. Scottish have always aimed to pick as many Scots as they can and have set a target of at least 50% exile representation. It's the same in the junior teams. I came up through the system and the first question they asked me way back when was if I was Scottish Qualified.

madmaccas wrote:

quinsforever wrote:Cannot be done without explicit RFU approval:

"REGULATION 14. OWNERSHIP OF CLUBS
14.1 No individual, body corporate, partnership, trust or any other entity
(“Entity”) may directly or indirectly own or control more than one Club
except with the prior written consent of the Union concerned, or where
Clubs from different Unions are involved, the written consent of the
Unions concerned and the Board.

14.2.4 For the purpose of this Regulation 14, indirect ownership or control shall
be widely construed. "

so as i said above, the only way to do this is to keep the RFU agreement in place, and attempt to help fund Scots up-and-coming players in the London Scottish side, but any hint of "control" would mean this IRB rule is breached, and by a Union no less.

I don't think anyone would be interested in the SRU owning London Scottish, least of all the current owners. The SRU had their chance of doing this back in 99 but rejected it out of hand (which was a shame IMO).

The best option would be to provide payments for Scottish qualified players in the starting 15 - as is currently done for England qualified players. This is akin to unions payments to clubs for their international players (ala the Argentinian internationals). It sits outside of any other funding agreements and is seen as an 'incentive' to encourage clubs to pick English players. This is because it is illegal under European employment law to set limits on players from within European countries. The RFU would love to be able to limit the amount of foreign players through contracts, however this is currently impossible, hence why they created these incentives. As yet no-one has rejected them, but there's nothing stopping the SRU (of which LS are also a member club) from offering an alternative set of incentives.

i think an incentive only arrangement would be a good one. i would love to see Scotland consistently stronger at international level, and if sponsoring, or loaning younger players to get match time at LS would help i think its a great idea.