Chatting with Jim Telfer over tea and biscuits at his home in Galashiels the subject of the semi-pro Super Series competition came up. Was Jim concerned it was being brought to an end?
"Doesn’t bother me at all," said the former Scotland and British and Irish Lions head coach.
"I was always against part-time rugby players. Setting up the Super6 in the first place was just a sop from the SRU to the clubs.
"It was like, ‘there is a bone for the dog, away you go and chew on it. You should be grateful we have given you something so just keep quiet and go away.’’’
You may agree or disagree with Telfer’s views on Super Series but what is not in doubt is the fact that it is yet another failed project from Scottish Rugby.
After six years the great idea or folly - pick your own description - of Scottish Rugby chief executive Mark Dodson officially comes to an end in November when the contracts for the six semi-pro franchises end and the money stops - but the last game will be played long before that.
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I have spoken to lots of young players who started with big dreams who will be made redundant. They are devastated. Some may make it into the Edinburgh A and Glasgow A teams if and when they are set up. The others will be thrown onto the scrapheap which is shameful.
What is equally disgraceful and has been overshadowed by the plight of the players is the problems now faced by the next generation of Scottish coaches.
Where will the next Jim Telfer or Gregor Townsend come from? What is their pathway to the top now the semi-pro league is being wound up?
Up until now, Super Series - or Super6 to give the competition its formative name - has been a route into fully professional rugby for Scottish coaches. Former Scotland international Peter Murchie cut his teeth with the Ayrshire Bulls before going on to become a member of Franco Smith’s backroom staff at Glasgow Warriors.
Rob Chrystie was a coach at the Southern Knights before moving up to Sean Everitt’s support staff at Edinburgh. Ex-Watsonians Super6 coach Stevie Lawrie is also part of the Edinburgh set-up.
The biggest break-out star of former Super6 coaches is Peter Horne who was Ayrshire Bulls head coach in 2022 before being elevated to skills coach at Glasgow Warriors before moving to Scotland full-time as part of Gregor Townsend’s backroom staff.
They are all Super6 coaching success stories but what of the present crop that will be out of jobs once the Super Series sprint series ends in the summer? Southern Knights head coach Alan Tait has already left the franchise.
He has coached at the highest level - Scotland assistant under Frank Hadden and head coach at Newcastle Falcons - so he has had a fair crack at the whip and has nothing to prove. The same goes for Eddie Pollock of Stirling Wolves who is likely to move to Stirling County, a club that he has given so much time and effort to over the years.
Who you have to feel sorry for in coaching terms are the other current head coaches who are still relatively young, have a lot to give, but face an uncertain future with the demise of Super Series.
There are some top operators such as Pat MacArthur at the Ayrshire Bulls, Boroughmuir Bears head coach Graham Shiel, Ben Cairns of Heriot’s and Fraser Brown at Watsonians, who is still under contract as a player at Glasgow Warriors.
All of them -plus their respective backroom staff - will be wondering what happens next? All six will be going for the head coach jobs at Edinburgh A or Glasgow Warriors A when and if they are set up.
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Even then those jobs could go on a part-time basis to one of the assistants at Edinburgh or Glasgow Warriors and they could miss out altogether.
If that happens, Cairns could end up going back to the amateur ranks at Heriot’s in the same way Shiel has with Boroughmuir.
What the current coaches at both amateur sides would think about being brushed aside to let them take over remains to be seen.
An even worse scenario is the pair of them plus Brown and MacArthur have to quit coaching completely and find a job away from rugby to pay the bills.
What is clear is that without a pathway to the top the chances of any Scotland coach being as successful as Telfer or coming through the system anytime soon like Gregor Townsend or fast-tracked like Peter Horne is unlikely to happen.
That South African Franco Smith is being touted to take over as Scotland head coach if Townsend decides to leave tells its own story.
Smith has done a great job at Glasgow Warriors but the fact you have two South Africans -Smith at Glasgow and Sean Everitt at Edinburgh - in charge of the two professional teams is a damning indictment of the lack of a pathway to the very top within this country for Scottish coaches and with the demise of Super6 the situation is going to great even worse.
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