Graham Shiel is one of the most respected men in Scottish rugby after spending most of his career as a player and coach in Scotland.
Shiel started out in the amateur era playing at Melrose and the South of Scotland before the game turned professional, where he played for the Border Reivers, before merging to become the Edinburgh Reivers and went on to captain Edinburgh.
He was a Scotland international winning 18 caps and playing in the 1991 and 1995 World Cups.
When he retired, he became rugby development officer with West Lothian and East Lothian Councils. He went on to hold coaching roles at Stewart’s Melville and Edinburgh Rugby in their academy.
Alongside regional and national academy duties, he was head coach of the Scotland sevens squad and had the same role with the Scotland women’s sevens squad.
He was head coach of Boroughmuir Bears for the duration of the semi-pro Super Series and has now returned to Boroughmuir as head coach.
Rob Robertson sat down with him to hear his views on the current state of the Scottish club game and his fears over the lack of opportunities for young Scottish players.
Are you concerned that the semi-pro Super Series is over?
Just frustrated. It is like a whole pathway has been shut down by ending it. What happens to the players, coaches, strength and conditioning people, refs, who were all part of it over the years?
How are young players going to get a level of competition to develop and where to meet the demands of the modern professional game?
We must be one of the few tier one nations in the world not to have at least a semi-pro level of rugby.
France has and Wales has just introduced it. New Zealand has pro-level rugby and their Mitre Ten which is semi-professional.
England have their top division and divisions below that where some are semi-pro. We continue to move backwards with our structures, losing six semi-pro teams.
What happens now?
Four Super6 clubs have effectively gone back to the Premiership so they can retain and pay their players and continue as they have been operating.
The other two clubs Stirling and Boroughmuir are placed in National one and in theory are unable to pay players.
The playing field has changed dramatically for Stirling and Boroughmuir. Players are already exiting Scotland or have left the Super6 to play with Scottish Premiership clubs.
Next season at club level where three clubs go down and one will be promoted from the Premiership will be a transitional one, which feels like we are spending more time in transition than having a clear direction of travel.
Are you staying with Boroughmuir?
I am staying through until 2025 as head coach of the club and looking at the future sustainability of the club.
You played a lot of young players for Boroughmuir in the Super6 as did some other teams. Are you concerned where these young players will now get their chance?
It will be a real tragedy if young players in Scotland are not given a fair chance to reach their full potential and that is a fear I have.
We have a real challenge in Scotland in generally finding enough and bringing on those young players in the present environment.
I was strong-minded about playing younger players in the Super6 project because in my opinion and my brief from the club was to develop some of the younger players.
Why wouldn’t you want to try and give these younger guys a chance? They are the next generation who are thriving and striving to improve and need opportunities.
Is there a proper pathway to the top for young players?
The simple answer is no. It is a long time ago but when I came through at Melrose there was a pathway starting from under-14 to senior rugby. The game has changed enormously due to the demands of professional rugby.
It is a different era, the game has changed but we still need a clear pathway, which is no longer there or as accessible as it needs to be. To navigate the present system is tougher for young players.
I was wary of the Super6 project to begin with, but it turned out to be a very positive programme and helped develop and improve our training environments and that led to better conditioned and prepared players to move into pro environments, which was why Super6 was introduced.
Is it tougher now for young players to come through and get a pro contract for Edinburgh or Glasgow Warriors than ever before?
Yes, it is. You have between 55 and 60 pros at Glasgow and the same at Edinburgh and maybe around 15 Academy players aligned to each of these clubs so we are talking about 140 or around that figure professional players in Scotland.
That is a very narrow player base and added to that the fact that a lot of these players at Edinburgh and Glasgow come from outside Scotland means that there are fewer opportunities for home grown players coming through than ever. There is a very finite group of players we are working with in Scotland which is a concern.
How does that affect the Scotland national team?
When you are picking your national team out of 120 players plus those identified outside of Scotland it is a big concern.
Not all of the pro players are international class or indeed Scottish Qualified, so a reduced playing pool makes it hard for Gregor (Townsend) as his selection options are limited.
You can understand why he casts the net wide to try and find Scotland qualified players from other countries.
Look at France for example. They have a Top 14 competition with 14 pro teams and we have two and they have another sixteen professional teams below that (Pro D2), before you get to semi-pro in their lower leagues.
They have competitive leagues with a lot more players to pick from as have many other countries.
So how do we bring on young players?
It is going to be tough because at the moment the pro-environment at Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors is the only way we can do it.
That is the reality as that is the only avenue left for them. Without the semi-pro Super6 the next level down is the Premiership, which is not aligned to performance rugby, it is aligned by the SRU to community rugby.
It does not get any funding, any support from the performance game in Scotland to enhance the programmes and environments the players are in.
That sounds more than a bit concerning?
It is and the only way we are going to have more Scottish players over the next ten years is if we get a third pro team and I know that is very unlikely to happen due to finance.
Hopefully we have a vibrant Edinburgh and Glasgow and there are going to be Edinburgh ‘A’ and Glasgow Warriors ‘A’ fixtures. In a perfect world we have so many good players in that structure there is no alternative but to introduce a third pro team.
The question remains if that doesn’t happen is how are we going to get growth in playing numbers in Scotland if there are only two pro teams and two ‘A’ teams to remain competitive in Tier 1 of rugby?
Are you happy with reserve Edinburgh and Glasgow teams being set-up?
Yes, but we did play 209 Super Series games over the last five years and we have had hardly any 'A' games in the last 30 years, so something significant needs to change to make the ‘A’ programme successful.
Ideally you would need ten “A” games for each club to give players a regular chance to gain experience and push for a place in the Edinburgh and Glasgow first teams.
What is important is that Edinburgh first team and their 'A' team and Glasgow and Glasgow 'A' need to be separate entities under the same umbrella.
They need an identity and a dedicated support team rather than just having a coach from one of the pro teams to drop down and get involved with the 'A' teams as tends to happen currently.
I get it, it might be a development move for the coach that drops down to occasionally take the 'A' team, but there must be more accountability.
I hope the 'A' teams are not just absorbed into the pro teams, where they become reactive deciding at the last minute who will be involved in playing and coaching an “A” team on any given fixture, but a well-planned and organised playing and training structure to enhance the rugby programs of our very best talent in Scotland.
Taking all of that into account are you concerned about the future of Scottish rugby?
I worry for sure. As a Scot I am concerned for our young players. One thing hasn’t changed is that if you were brought up here you dream to play for your club then one day for Scotland.
We don’t seem to be prioritising that because we are having to bring in players from elsewhere on such a regular basis.
My fear is that we will have to continue to bring in players from overseas at an unprecedented level because we are not affording enough home-grown players the appropriate opportunities coming through the current system from Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Borders, or Caledonia due to having only two professional teams.
Also, there is a dislocation now without the Super Series between club rugby and the pro game, and it becomes very hard for anyone and in the amateur game to progress through to the pro ranks without a significant amount of time and effort and you are talking years, not months.
What more can the SRU do for the young players?
They must give them an achievable pathway. The regional programmes need to continue to operate on as wide a scale as possible which needs the appropriate level of funding.
We still have national teams at under-18 and under-20 team and the pro teams have their academy programmes but how do you widen that to retain more players for longer?
There are also special groups of players of national interest (PONI), but it is tough for them as they are working outside the system and are asked to make significant sacrifices to be able to train within that environment as well as demands on these young players which clash with club commitments.
This also has a ceiling as players need to be Under20 to benefit from the support available. There are however plans to raise the age level of academy players within the pro teams (which currently sits at U20).
Many people feel those young players and clubs outside the central belt are neglected by the SRU. Is that something you feel is happening?
There is support in these areas but unfortunately it will be for relatively few players. It is a difficult one.
How can the SRU afford to upscale and run a level of programme in say Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness with fewer numbers? It is a difficult balance.
It is pretty much that the players, once they get to a certain level, have to move down to the central belt to progress as all training is within the Edinburgh-Glasgow corridor as part of the PONI group.
Is there another Finn Russell out there to be found?
They do exist in Scotland and to be honest they will be pinpointed easily because they are so good. Finn Russell is a perfect example. A real inspiration to young Scots. We won’t miss guys like Finn in the system.
In most instances their destiny is written for them, they are so good and there are so few of them. It’s the young talented players below that level of talent that we need to nurture, to craft into top-class rugby players, which takes a huge amount of time, expertise, effort, and money.
If it is becoming too hard for players to navigate the pathway system, we run the risk of losing players who mature physically and mentally later as they will not be exposed to the appropriate training and playing environments.
We have very few examples of late developers in Scotland as we are unable to provide any outlets for them. Therefore, it requires a huge amount of drive and commitment from individuals which is related to the level of competition, which realistically is not available to players in Scotland.
Currently Robbie Smith is a great example of this, having been forced out of the Scottish system, heading south to forge his own pathway via the Championship into Premiership rugby with Northampton Saints to earn the chance to represent Scotland on the tour this summer.
That is a pathway, but hopefully not becoming a worn one. We need to be able to afford players that opportunity within Scotland.
The World Rugby residency rules that brought us the likes of WP Nel, Duhan van der Merwe and Pierre Schoeman has been upped from three to five years. Do you think that will lessen the chances of foreign players representing Scotland and open things up a bit more for homegrown players?
That rule change makes it even more important to ensure that the pathway system is invested in and improved so that young Scottish players can see a way to the top and are supported in achieving their full potential.
Some players from abroad may now think twice of coming here because of the five-year residency limit. If they feel they can earn a decent living in their own country or somewhere such as France, they may now stay there.
Hats off to them if they do commit to waiting five years for a Scotland cap through residency but I think that will happen less and less which is why we need more homegrown Scottish players coming through our own system.
It is also a big investment for the SRU to bring in someone from overseas and pay them big money and gamble they will be a Scotland player in five years.
Could that money be more effectively invested in stronger programmes to develop and enhance home grown talent?
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