This can get me lynched in certain rugby circles, but I’ve always had a deep antipathy for sevens.
It was covering the Gala ‘Sports’ a good few years back that did it. I went down to report on a North and Midlands select team fully expecting them to lose in early rounds so I could get back up the A7 to the safety of the north conveniently early.
No dice. They of course went all the way to the final which meant eight hours of “non-stop action”. And naturally they lost the final.
Sevens is a spring religion in the Borders and there are enthusiasts for it all over the Scottish game. Mostly, it must be said, these enthusiasts are players it is great fun to play – or those able to sustain all-day sessions in the beer tent.
But because we in Scotland play so much of it – and because Ned Haig of Melrose invented it, thereby assuring his club remains the among the wealthiest in Scotland it’s naturally assumed that we have to be pretty good at it.
However Scotland’s involvement in the IRB World Series of sevens has been a fraught affair, culminating in the meagre display at the Glasgow 7s last weekend that means our team must qualify at Twickenham this week to maintain our involvement in each leg of the international series.
Scotland’s poor form this season is being laid at the door of ex-coach and former England hooker Phil Greening, one of Andy Robinson’s “mates” that ended up at Murrayfield. Performances had certainly improved under the re-appointed former coach Stevie Gemmell until Glasgow at the weekend.
But it seems to me we’re not clear why we’re in the World Series at all, other than some vague idea that we really should be. It’s only partly a developmental tool for 15s, and at other times it’s a separate entity. Pro players surplus to requirements are habitually farmed out to the squad.
James Fleming, a full-time sevens player, is a case in point. The former Perthshire and Dundee HSFP wing was recruited to the international sevens squad after his blinding speed and prolific try-scoring had a startling impact in club rugby.
Fleming initially prospered in the shortened format, scoring heaps of tries in a struggling team, but hasn’t been in the starting seven this year.
At the same time, he wasn’t given a glimmer of a chance while seconded to first the Glasgow and then the Edinburgh squads. He hasn’t even been allowed back to play a bit of club rugby this season, where one assumes he would remain a formidable weapon.
If our sevens are developmental, he should have at least had one chance to show what he could do in professional 15s. If we’ve got a set sevens squad, why isn’t he playing regularly?
Our friends in Ireland, of course, have long opted not to bother with the IRB World Series at all. They don’t have the tradition in the shortened game that we do, but then again, they aren’t being driven into a dead-end by it either.