Just when you thought that club rugby was about to be consigned to the back burner for the summer, I can reveal that the Glasgow Hawks have been approached by players who want to play for them next year instead of in Europe for the new Scottish Super Teams.
That is extraordinary. ''I can't reveal who they are,'' said Hawks supremo Iain Russell. ''However, players have come to us and asked to play for the team instead of the SRU ones.''
Now, you have to believe that the Hawks want to join in partnership with the SRU, and work together for a bigger, brighter, madder rugby world. However, there was a joy to the way the Hawks played at Murrayfield, and I saw it in their eyes just like everyone else. Maybe when players think things through and simple concepts like fun, or jobs outside rugby, are taken into account, then club rugby has its attractions once more.
There is no doubt that the SRU are setting out their stall in a certain way when it comes to rugby, and it is a very Scottish way, with all the Calvinistic work ethic you would expect as we scrabble to stay with the big boys.
Players should be just about full-time rugby players for the Scottish super teams. They are to be hot-housed and, astonishingly if you look at someone like Murray Wallace, for instance, you are expected to train with the districts if you have a contract, even if you have not been picked for one of the new super teams.
The clubs, and the Hawks are in the forefront at the moment, can do things in a very different way. Maybe we are not seeing the death of the clubs. They can do things in a very French way. Which is why it is a significant development that the Hawks are setting up a presentation to the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce on May 26.
The Hawks are aiming to get Glasgow businesses on side, and I suspect they are looking for goodwill, jobs for players, and understanding rather than hard cash. It has a European feel to it all, doesn't it?
''In France, for instance, the Brive club has an association with the local chamber of commerce and they have more than 200 of the chamber's businesses helping them to get success,'' says Russell. ''The players at Brive, and many other French clubs, work like most people, and have a two-hour lunch break so that they can practice with the team. The players work, and enjoy a life outside rugby.''
Add to that, Russell insists, the fact that many players do not really want to give it all up for a one-year contract, then the scenario is there for clubs to offer a route which would include rugby, and training within daylight hours, but, crucially, would give young men a chance to get networking in the jobs market thanks to contacts in the Chamber of Commerce, and other industrial and professional outlets.
As I see it, what the Hawks seem to be doing is formalising one of the reasons young blokes would join certain rugby clubs in the first place. Sure, it gives them the highest profile rugby, but it also gets them the contacts within that club for jobs, and an umbrella of help for when things go badly.
They say that if you want a good crowd at a funeral, you should join a bowling club. Well, if you want help with a job then you should join a rugby club.
In case anyone thinks I am being pro-Hawkish in all of this I'm not. I would imagine that the Hawks, if they are sensible, can almost keep this amateur. Any club could do the same. There might be tiny money in it, but it would be tiny. I am a believer in market forces, and neither businessmen nor the men who run rugby clubs are mugs and so they are unlikely to pay players to play club rugby when they can't afford it.
They are, in my opinion, far more likely to take a chance on business training and a job.
It is open to any club in the country as it is more about harnessing local business than shelling out cash. And it is about security. Most of the SRU contracts with Super Team players are one-year ones, and I have spoken to two players who, a year ago, would have walked over hot coals for a one-year SRU contract but who would now think twice.
Maybe, if the clubs keep some of their players, then we do have a good club competition next year.
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