It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster over the past few weeks, with more ups and downs on the Scottish rugby scene than the Dow Jones. Firstly we saw Edinburgh put in a storming performance to dispatch Llanelli while Glasgow failed to beat Irish development side Connacht.
Then off the pitch there was a similar mix of good news/bad news with the announcement of Mike Blair’s place on the short list for IRB Player of the Year, followed soon after by Frank Hadden having his mammoth training squad shrunk a little by PRL’s refusal to release GP based players.
Blair finds himself in the exalted company of Shane Williams, Ryan Jones, Dan Carter and Sergio Parisse. Carter’s been very hit and miss in the Tri-Nations, and although he did save New Zealand’s blushes on a couple of occasions I would be surprised if he won. Williams had a near-perfect Six Nations and although Wales underperformed in their first test vs the Springboks, he’s the clear bookies favourite. My personal (biased) choice for recognition would be Blair, who has been Scotland’s best player for a few years now (sorry, Mossy fans). Despite Scotland’s relatively poor Six Nations, when given a chance to play his type of rugby in the second Argentina test, he showed what sort of a leader and inspirational player he could be (perhaps in a Lions shirt too?). So much so that one-time rival Chris Cusiter will (only for the moment, one hopes) have to be satisfied with holding down the Perpignan number 9 shirt, where he will soon hook up with a certain Mr D. Carter…
Then last weekend Edinburgh failed to beat the Dragons – who Glasgow defeated away from home on the opening day of the season – while Glasgow got their season moving again by beating the Scarlets in some style. The emergence of the Evans boys as genuine pace merchants is something that should hearten Scottish rugby fans. Glasgow also competed well against favourites Munster the following weekend, with a conversion the difference that cost them a losing bonus point.
Edinburgh have since followed that up with narrow defeat to Matt Williams’ Ulster team and are looking at a pretty sluggish start to the season. It seems they miss Ben Cairns and Malkovich more than we thought would be possible.
Later in the week we’ll take a look at the world’s premier club tournament, the Heineken Cup.
