Jeff Probyn: Memo to Telfer: the Scots are most elitist of them all

So the English are too arrogant, too pretentious and too condescending and the Welsh are lazy, or so says former Scotland coach Jim Telfer. For a man who spent his time coaching one of the most elitist rugby nations in the world that is one hell of a statement.
One of the reasons rugby in Scotland struggles for popular support and numbers is because a vast majority of its secondary schools don’t play the game.
That makes rugby a game that is mainly the preserve of the public schools and the privileged elite that attend them.
If, as a parent you have spent a fortune educating your kids, you are not going to want them to enter the uncertain world of professional sport, no matter how much of a fan of the game you are.
Sadly, that has an effect on the numbers that play the game in Scotland and has led to the decline in Scottish rugby that is reflected in their results.
Over the last 30 years Scotland have won the Championship only three times, they have shared it twice and have won just two Triple Crowns (winning all the Home Union games) beating England nine times out of 42 encounters.
Those results are the worst of any of the home nations but that does not mean that any team can, or does, take a game against the Scots lightly as they have a tremendous passion and belief in themselves and are more than capable of upsetting the odds.
That’s something that I can testify to from a personal level, having lost to them in the 1990 Grand Slam where they were very much the underdogs going into that game.
We had won all our games at a canter beating Ireland by 23 points (with a try scored by yours truly), France by 19 points and Wales by 28 points, scoring a total of 11 tries while Scotland had scored just five tries in their games.
As we approached the game we had studied how Scotland played and where we thought we could attack them and how we could score against them.
The Scottish back row of Finlay Calder, John  Jeffrey and Derek White were regarded as one of the best combinations in the world at that time and all showed a ‘Richie McCaw’ like ability to avoid the wrath of the referee even while standing what seemed like 10 yards offside.
Our plan was simple: drive the Scottish scrum, tying in the back row, a quick No.8 pick-up and drive into the fly-half, quick recycle and go the same way creating an overlap and scoring opportunity.
The plan worked and we scored a try but for some reason it wasn’t attempted again.
It was a close game and when Scotland made a mistake at a kick-off we thought we were home and dry. But Mike Teague knocked on at the resulting scrum so the Scots got a chance. They won their ball and went blind with a surging run by Gavin Hastings who chipped the ball into the try area where Tony Stanger’s extra height enabled him to gather the ball before Rory Underwood and scored the try that broke English hearts and won the game.
Telfer was a great coach but even he could not stop the inevitable decline of Scottish rugby once the game turned professional and all the nations that embraced it began taking a more systematic approach to organisation.
His comments say more about his arrogant view of other nations and their players than those countries’ teams in the modern game.
It is true that rugby was once the preserve of an elitist few, when all you needed was a Cambridge blue to be selected in an England backline. But that certainly isn’t the case now with many of the current squad coming from the state school system.
The professionalisation of the sport (long before it went professional) did away with ‘old school tie’ selection and (dare I say), the presumption of those who expected to be picked, rather earn the right of a cap.
Unfortunately, Telfer’s moaning about the arrogant English and the lazy Welsh probably helps focus the minds of the players – making it harder for Scotland to get the result.
The review of the RFU performance department has come to an end and made four recommendations, none of which are a major surprise:
1. The current professional rugby department should be focused into two areas – international performance and professional rugby.
2. The international performance department will concentrate on preparing players for senior international rugby.
3. The professional rugby department will focus on the regional game, medicine, coach and referee development and the relationship between clubs and the RFU.
4. Develop a national performance centre that will provide the world’s best developmental environment for players and staff.
I have to say the review seems to be a waste of money and time as all the recommendations are obvious and already taking place.
Points 1-3 are what the professional rugby department was set up to do and given that both the reviewers (Sir Ian McGeechan and Peter Keen) say that it is in ‘good shape’ but it should speed up the process, it would appear that they have not identified any area of weakness in the RFU system.
As for Point 4, if they are saying the RFU should set up a centre in an accessible area of the country (perhaps near Birmingham) and base all elite players, coaching and referee development there this sounds to me like a good idea.
But it’s not new, the RFU had a centre of excellence near Wolverhampton 20 years ago that closed about five years ago when the academy system took over youth development. It was called Castlecroft.