Opinion: No happy ending for latest Border League rugby season but return to pools could be answer
With the latest Border League rugby season now at an end, six fixtures out of 21 having gone unplayed and the competition’s title being shared four ways for the first time ever, Galashiels-based Borders Rugby TV supremo Stuart Cameron offers his thoughts on possible ways forward for the 125-year-old competition ...
Well, the Border League has ended with a whimper and a four-way tie, with all remaining fixtures not taking place – not an ideal situation at all.
Of course, there will be mitigating factors for clubs who haven’t been able to fulfil their fixtures because of injuries et cetera, but clearly it’s been a PR disaster for the Border League and we just hope that next season, if there is a will to continue with the world’s oldest league, that all involved get around a table and decide on a plan which will work.
In the past, Berwick and Langholm have stood down from the competition, which has made things easier.
There is a solution for next season but it would put immense pressure on Peebles as they are in a lower division and finding space in an already-saturated season to play fixtures will be very difficult for them.
The way I see it, there are two options for next season.
Option one:
There are two pools, with the three Borders teams in the Arnold Clark Premiership in one and the three Borders sides in National 1 in the other.
Their national league fixtures count as double-headers both home and away so they each are guaranteed to play their four games with their strongest teams.
At the end of the national league season, the teams at the top of the pools – and please bring back bonus points and points difference – play the runners-up in the other pool to give us two semi-finals and a Border League final, so effectively all that has to be done is to find room for three showcase matches in March or April to play out the league.
That option would mean that Peebles would not be included in the Border League next season, but that decision must be up to the Gytes side as they are very much part of the league as it stands. However, it puts immense pressure on them to play games when they are not in the same division as any other Border League team. They may feel that they would prefer to play friendlies against Borders teams and follow Berwick and Langholm out of the Border League at this time, until they are back in National 1.
Clearly that would be unpopular with Peebles as a club and something they probably won’t want to do – and if they want to continue in the Border League, they have every right to do so despite the pressure on them to fulfil fixtures when the inevitable injuries come along later in the season, as they have done this time round.
Option two:
Peebles go into pool two with the three National 1 clubs and play three games against Selkirk, Jed-Forest and Gala outside of the national league window.
It would mean scrapping the home and away fixtures being double-headers for everyone and going back to one game only counting as a Border League match.
Again, the semi-final and final format would be employed at the end of the season, but that is totally reliant on Peebles being able to play three fixtures to complete the pool.
In an ideal world, it would be great if all seven Borders teams played each other, but that clearly hasn’t worked out this season, so that needs to be ditched.
The plus side of going back to pools rather than how it was this season is that there is a much better chance that games will be played, the double-headers will ensure each club would put out their best team and the popular Border League final would return, with the extra element of a semi-final.
So there we have it – two options which could work next season, one with Peebles and one without.
Again, I would stress that it is only fit and proper that that decision should be made by Peebles themselves, and if they believe they will be able to fulfil all their commitments and that they have an appetite to be in the competition, then option two would work also.
There are people who feel the Border League should stop and there are people who feel we must keep it going because it is the world’s oldest league, but this season has been an embarrassment, and while the Border League has always been difficult to run in this new era of rugby, I think this has been the worst climax to the competition on record.
In the media, we all try hard to big it up and talk it up, but with constant postponements, training matches in some instances being classified as Border League games, points being conceded one minute and then matches reinstated with those points taken off, the uncertainty of what happens when there is a four-way tie et cetera, it is not an easy sell.
Something has to be done to sort the mess out, and hopefully a common-sense approach will be taken when looking at next season.
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