RUGBY

by Elena Hogarth

THERE were several late call-offs in last week’s BT Premiership, but Ayr knew on the Friday that their tie with Hawick at Mansfield Park wouldn’t go ahead.

The Borders pitch had been covered in frozen snow and with temperatures barely venturing out of the minuses, there was no way it was going to thaw out by Saturday afternoon.

No BT Premiership matches were played in the end.

There is now a backlog of fixtures to be completed across all the leagues, and the BT Premiership, at the top of the tree, will be feeling the need to get them played sharpish as the all-important play-offs have to be decided.

Ayr, with Stirling County to play at Bridgehaugh this weekend and the Hawick fixture still to be rearranged, are almost guaranteed a home play-off, but who they will face remains to be seen. Melrose, Heriot’s and Currie are currently in the chasing pack, but Glasgow Hawks and Hawick are in fifth and sixth place respectively and are no doubt eager to get up amongst the big boys.

The play-offs don’t take place until the first weekend of April, which in a cold, snowy January seems an awful long way away. = There’s still a lot of rugby to be played before then with the BT Cup and the BT Premiership development competition.

But it can be maddening for fans – casual or die-hard – to have a match almost every weekend up until December but then only sporadic fixtures to the end of the season due to rain and snow and international matches taking precedence. It’s not great for the players either, - especially if your team doesn’t make the play-offs and gets knocked out of the cup in the early rounds.

There’s not a lot that can be done about the winter weather, that’s just what happens in northern hemisphere rugby.

But the fixtures schedule was touched upon by Scottish Rugby’s head of club services, Nick Rennie, at the inaugural Club Development Conference at BT Murrayfield on Sunday.

A day of workshops for clubs from across Scotland gave clubs a chance to share and learn from each other and listen to speakers such as former Scotland international Tony Stanger who now runs his own sports business.

Towards the end of the day, there was a focus on how to retain players – the great problem of rugby in Scotland. Playing – or not playing in some cases – through the winter was a major factor in male participants dropping out at club level.

Summer rugby would present its own logistical challenges, but with Scottish Rugby looking to hold on to as many participants as it can, making the schedule more player-friendly is on their minds, and a break over the months worst affected by weather is just one suggestion.

But until a solution can be found, fans and players will have to contend with the schedule and the weather and just hope there’s no snow in the spring - or the BT Premiership could be stretching into May.