Scotland Rugby League forges ahead with optimism

Scotland has never been a rugby league hotbed, it is fair to say, with the sport only having been established North of the Border for two decades.

Before that date, though, there were plenty of Scots who contributed massively to the history of our game, and one, David Valentine, even captained a Great Britain World Cup winning side.

Latterly, the likes of George Fairbairn and Alan Tait also played for GB. It is also a quirk of history that actor Roy Kinnear’s father, also called Roy, was one of the earliest Scots to jump codes from Scottish Rugby Union, back in 1927.

The World Cup showed that there is an appetite for the game in Scotland, with the national team’s progress to the World Cup quarter finals last year attracting comment in the soccer-dominated Scottish media.

Even rugby union journalists in Scotland took sympathetic and sensitive note of the side’s achievements, and Scottish RU can be a backward-looking and deeply conservative affair, generally speaking.

Scotland Rugby League Performance Manager Ollie Cruickshank is looking to build on that, if not surge, at least strong ripple of interest.

He remains optimistic that soon the true legacy of 2013’s World Cup will begin to show itself.

“The interest in RL in Scotland is growing and more people are looking to get involved,” he told Love Rugby League.

“We have also recently had an increase in numbers playing Wheelchair RL so it’s not just the traditional form of the game that is taking off.

“The biggest challenge the clubs have is funding, with large distances to travel for fixtures. This is where the clubs are finding the costs start to mount up.”

Costs and funding are, sadly, still massive issues for the Scottish game, especially after RFL funding was pulled from the Celtic countries after the World Cup.

Cruickshank is pleased that a growing number of private sector backers are buying into the sport in Scotland, while SportScotland is also working with the SRL.

“The SRL are working closely with SportScotland with regards to funding and the development of the game within Scotland,” he added.

“The number of Scottish businesses that are now starting to engage with us is promising and we are hoping that we will be able to start attracting more and more companies to get involved with us moving forward.

“There have been some troubles along the way this year with the full time staff being made redundant and the sport being run by volunteers who all have their own full time jobs.

“We have seen a slight increase in player numbers on last year and we will be looking to build on this moving forward and getting the structure in place from the youth up to the open age and international teams.”

The Commonwealth Games is the next big international event for Scotland, with eight teams contesting an U-19 9s tournament. The event will be held over two days at Clyde FC’s Broadwood Stadium on June 27 and 28 , with free entry for spectators.

Scotland are viewing the tournament as a chance to really help with the development of professional, student and amateur players who are in their structure.

“Scotland held two selection days one at The University of Edinburgh playing fields and the other in Bolton,” Cruickshank explained.

“We had over 50 people register across the two days which was fantastic. The coaches were impressed with the standard of players attending. All 50 players who attended will all be invited to attend the selection day for the U18 & U19’s squads for the end of season Internationals, no players were eliminated from the pathway and were given advice on areas to work on if requested.

“The 9s is a great concept and something that we are all really looking forward to. Looking at the squad that the selectors put together there is a range of both experience and new players, we attracted both amateur and Super League academy players to the selection day and we are looking forward to seeing them combine on and off the pitch.

“I think there is the possibility that we could see some of these players work their way into our plans for 2017 and beyond and the 9s is a perfect way to get the taste of international footy.”

While plans for the international game seem to be progressing depressingly slowly at times, Scotland are actually happy with the schedule ahead of them, and are looking to keep progressing.

“We have been kept in the loop by the RLEF on the plans for the coming year and moving forward and we are planning ahead with this in mind,” Cruickshank added.

“The next few years are exciting times both for Scotland and the fans, 2014 will be a massive year for us and we are looking ahead to 2016 and 2017 with our plans for this year we won’t be sitting back and trying to rest on 2013.

“A tour Down Under would be a great idea but fitting this into the schedule would be difficult. with the fixtures soon to be announced we are happy with what is going to be on offer over the next few years.”