Scots get short straw in Magners League – again

ANYONE who followed the Magners League last year will remember how tight the finish was. It is likely to be the same again this year, probably going down to the last game of the season to decide who goes into the play-offs.

With that as the background, it is then obvious that home advantage could be crucial for that last fixture. With a win needed, a home fixture may be just the edge required to make that push to the play-offs.

So why is it, then that both Scottish teams are having to play away on the last day of the season – for the second year in succession? Surely, at least one of the teams should be playing at home on the final weekend?

When it happened last year, many Edinburgh and Glasgow fans grumbled, feeling that the SRU lacked the punch to make demands on its Irish and Welsh counterparts.
It won’t happen again, we thought. The SRU will make sure that, having been screwed once in the fixture list, it will not happen again.

Besides, we reasoned, the Scottish sides are no longer the poor relations in the Magners League. Not only have both sides become potential champions (play-off contenders at the very least) but the Italians are now involved and, surely, they don’t have the clout that the SRU does in the Magners League negotiations.

But no, it has happened again. When the fixture list for this coming season’s Magners League was announced yesterday, the Scottish sides were both given away fixtures on the last day of the season.

Two Irish sides have home fixtures (Leinster –again – and Munster, surprise, surprise) two Welsh teams, the Dragons and the Scarlets and the two Italian teams, Aironi and Benetton Treviso. Surely, it would have been more equitable to give two Welsh teams, two Irish teams, one Italian side and one Scottish side home advantage? The fairest solution of all would have been to give both Scottish sides home advantage as neither had it last season, but even half way to that would have been better than the current imbalance.

If it comes down to that last game and if Edinburgh and Glasgow or both lose out in the play-off race by a point or two that could easily have been picked up at home, then the SRU, or whoever is negotiating for the two Scottish sides in the Magners League, will only have themselves to blame. Oh, and the fans will blame them too.

I should stress at this point that this is purely the view of a disgruntled fan. I don’t know what happens in the strange conclave between the competing unions and how they divide up the fixtures. I, as with other fans, can only view the end result and, once again, it looks as if the Scottish teams got screwed.

There is one other glaring omission too. The English Premiership has pioneered the idea of opening day gala days, with two matches taking place at a single venue – Twickenham. The Magners League has enough sides for this to happen across three venues on the opening day.

Can you imagine the crowds who would turn up for these double headers? Blues against Ospreys and Dragons against Scarlets at the Millennium Stadium, Munster against Connacht and Leinster against Ulster at the new Aviva Stadium and Edinburgh v Treviso and Glasgow against Aironi at Murrayfield (alternating with Italy every other year).

Ok, so the Murrayfield crowds would be down a bit on the others but it would kick-start the new season and launch it in style.

The Magners League is the poor relation of Northern Hemisphere rugby, but it doesn’t have to be. It could innovate and get the crowds in from day one.
It is just a pity, however, that there will be no crowds in Scotland on the last day of the regular season…

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