The FOSROC Super Series is now reaching the point where a mature consideration must be made about whether it should continue in its present form or either be shelved or expanded. 

I don’t think the status quo is ideal, I will say right away.

When it started back in 2019, I was dubious about whether Scottish rugby needed this new level of semi-professional rugby. I thought of it then as an equivalent of junior football, bridging the gap between amateur clubs and fully professional outfits of which we have only two.    

In football, the juniors were always a way of getting into the full-time game, but that level has long been dominated by club academies, so would the same happen in rugby where the academy approach has been developing for years? 

I was persuaded by several coaches and club officials that the FOSOC Super6, as it became, was a worthwhile experiment that might, just might, bring on players who could become fully professional and maybe even make the national squad.   

I eventually concluded that the original Super6 concept was sound, but the new league suffered a pretty devastating setback early in its existence. When it was launched in 2019, nobody had heard of Covid-19, and the arrival of the pandemic came just at the time the Super6 league was settling down.

Losing a whole season was exactly NOT what was needed, and I think it is only in the most recent Sprint and Super Series tournaments that the whole project has proved its worth. 

Bringing in ‘A’ teams from the Warriors and Edinburgh Rugby certainly added interest to the Sprint, so I hope that becomes a permanent addition to the Sprint.

I had tipped Heriot’s to win the Super Series and for most of the season I was very happy, only for Stirling Wolves to make it into the play-offs, overturn Heriot’s and then win the trophy with an outstanding performance in the final against Ayrshire Bulls - a fab turnaround by the Wolves from the previous season.   

So where do we go from here? On the plus side there is no doubt that FOSROC Super Series rugby is entertaining and I have to say I enjoyed the season overall. The Super6 and Super Series have been developing players and coaches – the appointment last month of Pete Horne as Assistant Coach to Gregor Townsend specialising in attack is proof positive that the process is working, as his spell at Ayrshire Bulls proved crucial in his personal progress.

More than 20 players from the Supers have moved on to the fully professional level while I will confidently predict that at least one player from the latest Super Series will make it into the national squad. At 21, Stirling’s hooker Gregor Hiddleston was man of the match in the series final, and he has a touch of the Colin Deans about him – I have no higher praise. That perceptive commentator Hugh Dan MacLennan said that he “capped an outstanding season with a brilliant performance in the FOSROC Super Series Championship Final when Stirling Wolves peaked at exactly the right time. He has a brilliant future ahead of him as the classic modern hooker.” He can also play as a flanker so I am sure we’ll see more of Hiddleston.

Yet the Super level is not perfect. Precisely because the Super clubs are franchised by the SRU, there has been no organic evolution of them over time – the reason why junior football clubs still have followings. Their existence can also be apparently damaging to the playing form of parent clubs who face a dilemma – do they invest time and effort into the semi-professional level at the expense of second or third XVs?   

To me the main problem is that there are no teams representing Glasgow, or for that matter Aberdeen or Dundee. That half the teams are Edinburgh-based makes the league lop-sided, but does the SRU now take one of the franchises away from the capital and give it to a Glasgow side such as the Hawks?

That is not the answer. None of the six franchises has collapsed, and after the latest Super Series the only team whose results suggest a possible demise is the Future XV who did not earn a single win in the league, though they twice ran Southern Knights very close.                        

A big word of thanks must go to the FOSROC specialist concrete company whose sponsorship has made the league possible. Their prospects look great as I suspect the firm will grab a lot of work when it comes to repairing the RAAC concrete mess, and I hear that scandal is set to grow and grow. 

FOSROC also does sterling and usually unheralded work in supporting various Academy projects, so genuine thanks to them for their support of our sport here in Scotland.    

Could FOSROC give some more cash so that we have eight franchises, not including the Future XV. I think one in Aberdeen and one in Glasgow would work.