Tip of the iceberg I fear. If it goes on like this the SRU may find that they only have enough players to make up 2 teams!! For those moving to English premiership clubs I can see the value to them, MONEY, but why move to another Celtic League side is not quiteso easy to understand since all these 'names" are regular 1st team players. No doubt now the pro sides will bleed the clubs dry of their newest talent yet again. Are we going forwards or backwards?

Even in Thailand the message of 2 teams is getting through. Five players signed up this week and it's still only February

Watch this space and read about the coaching departures. The big names (Cusiter & Co) will wait until after the 6 Nations to reveal their intentions

What are the SRU / Edinburgh up to by letting the one man in the squad who is irreplacable.

IMO Dewey is crucial to Edinburgh, he gives the whole team a completely new dimension & his try scoring record is excellent.

I always think in the big games if Dewey plays it increases Edinburgh's chances of victory by 30%

All the talk about building the game in Scotland & taking it to a new level & then selling your best player (s)

I am bitterly disapointed, Dewey should have been made an offer he could not refuse.

Danielli is a great scorer of tries, how many of them do Edinburgh, Borders or Glasgow have at their disposal???????

"Danielli is a great scorer of tries, how many of them do Edinburgh, Borders or Glasgow have at their disposal"

Apart from the fact he doesn't appear to score very many anymore.

Dewey is a massive loss. I'm shocked he couldn't be persuaded to stay although I guess I shouldn't be since the whole Carruthers takeover has been done on a shoestring.

Mid-table mediocrity for Edinburgh next year - worse for the other two teams. And a slow spiral down to an Italian / Argentinian-style exile-dominated national team...

johnny scotsman beat me to it.Whilst disappointed last night to read about the departure of Dickinson and Strokosch to Gloucester the news about Rob Dewey is absolutely devastating.
Here is a player who if he stays fit has the potential to be one of Scotland's greatest three quarters,a Lion in the making if ever there was one and a talisman both for edinburgh and Scotland.
This is purely and simply about MONEY.I don't blame the player,its market forces and I'm sure Ulster can double his salary but if we can't hold on to our stars the pathetic crowd attendances will get even lower.
FACT-47,000 watched the New Year's Eve Magner's League match between Leinster and Ulster.The gate receipts alone could probably fund a top class prop for a couple of seasons.Ulster are awash with sponsorshipcash.They can fund top players so the crowds come,then they do well in Europe and pull in more cash (and more fun for the supporters who get more European trips to follow.)
I don't blame the Carruthers brothers either,obviously they're finding this much more costly than they could have imagined with relatively little income coming in.
Still let's think positive.I'm sure Leinster will be happy to swop Brian O'Driscoll for Di Rollo... well maybe not !!!

The reason Danielli doesn't score tries is that he plays for a woefully under funded / under strength Borders team, if Danielli had played for Edinburgh he would have scored many many more tries.

Are you going to answer the question I posed & you cut & pasted onto your article or just whine?

That I believe shows that professional rugby is on it's last legs, the Irish have just announced that Darcy, O'Gara and O'Driscoll have signed contracts to remain in Ireland. their policy is to keep their best players within Ireland, while we are allowing players to leave. Does the SRU have a policy, McKie was brought in to do what destroy rugby in Scotland, has he got a vision for improving rugby in Scotland, or was he placed there by HBOS to look after their interests.
The only way we can improve things is if we get everyone working together but the clubs feel totally alienated from the Pro Teams, the Pro Teams can't use there best players because Hadden wants for a training session the week before an international, how many International football managers are able to dictate to the clubs that players have to be released.
The numptys that have been in charge at Murrayfield have completed destroyed rugby in Scotland since the game went professional and we are now going to suffer the consequences

This is a shocker. I am devastated by this news - seeing Dewey's name on the teamsheet was enough for me to fork out the £20 ticket price without grimacing. Edinburgh will suffer badly from his departure.

For Scotland this is possibly good though - Ulster are a great team and with their recent performances in the Heineken Cup they are destined for great things. This can only help Dewey's progression into a world class centre.

Good luck Rob.

Big loss for Edinburgh, but here's hoping that Strokosh+Dickinson to Gloucester and Dewey+Danelli to Ulster will benefit their games as much as similar moves appear to have benefited Rory Lawson, Nikki Walker and Scott McLeod.

Who's next? Patterson? Cusiter? Blair? All three?

Devastating for Scottish rugby and Edinburgh - I don't see how this makes any sense for the Carruthers lot - losing possibly their biggest draw - or are they doing a Romanov! STOP PLEASE

As i stated in the comments section of yesterdays article on Danielli,

One would presume that the SRU will attempt to move the like of McDougall, Douglas, Ford, Cuisiter etc up to either Glasgow or Edinburgh after they cut the borders after the 6N.

THEY (SRU) must feel that they are managing the situation well behind the scenes,..... as we, the paying public look on in utter astonishment and disgust. Its fair to say that this is, as mentioned above the tip of the iceberg.

You cant blame a player for jumping ship, especially to somewhere where the develop, and actually give the players some love rather than filling their heads with crap like i am sure they have dished out to them by the oldish boy brigade at the SRU.

Utter disgrace, no fight to hold on to 4 excellent players - whats the point in having professional rugby in this Scotland - Edinburgh want to progress with the ERC.......... what a joke

Lots of players want to leave to England/Ireland. They will get paid more, play in less, but more meaningful and bigger, games and be in winning sides. Ulster have at leat 10,000 at every home game, Edinurgh do well to get 4,000.

We can hardly blame them.

I don't blame the players.......I blame the clubs who have fought pro-rugby every step of the way and are still doing it. I fear for the future of pro-rugby in Scotland and if the clubs don't get behind the 3 pro teams it could all be accademic within a few years. If pro-rugby fails we all lose out, as individuals and as a nation.

I can't say I am against this to be honest for 2 reasons :-

1) It gives more lads a chance to come through the scottish system and therefor in theory give more competition for places

2) It means there are less Irish / English / Welsh etc playing in their respective leagues therefor, decreasing competion for palces and weakening their national sides - in theory.

However - in the short-term atleast this will weaken our provincial sides and decrease the attractiveness of the teams to both fans and therefor sponsors and TV - this is the reality of professional rugby, lets hope the SRU has a plan to promote the development of skillfull youngsters through the ranks.

Am I alone in thinking that there may be a positive to this? We have a limited professional player base so surely the departure of players to other countries gives us a chance to increase this player base by bringing through players from the domestic scene onto professional contracts. It may weaken our pro sides but will encourage young ambitious players to show their worth. In the long term this has got to be good for Scottish Rugby.

those two, expecially dewey, should be ashamed of themselves. theyve just turned their backs

Reply to Sad Sack

I admire you're positivity sir but if the players simply aren't of a high enough standard to allow us to compete - i.e replacing Dewey @ Edinburgh if no new signings are made has to be Jorgenson - an Aussie journeyman, Easson a young novice professional or Dey who seems simply not to be up to it.

Indded even Glasgow, have Henderson a average albeit wholehearted player & Morrison never progressed as expected as their 1st choices

If the Borders are axed then MacDougall, Rennie & DeLuca are going to be available.

I fear "death of a 1000 cuts" increasingly poor results, attracting fewer paying customers, attracting less sponsorship, what is the logical conclusion???

I hate being negative but alas there seems to be little to be positive about

#14 You can't blame the clubs for everything. They are run by well meaning volunteers, doing something akin to charity work, and they are working hard just to survive.

The SRU have full time employees responsible for policy and running the game.

Ah the Puir borders!! In another era the comments might suggest we would have worn something on our sleeve so we could be recognised - and dealt with later!

But - "We" have a Plan - not a Cunning Plan - just a Plan...

In Ireland - but not the Ulster bit - the Government recognises International players in ALL sports by providing a tax rebate later in life IF the participants play their sport In Ireland. This has to be a huge benefit and incentive to remain in Ireland..

In Wales - rugby is the national sport. Businesses back pro clubs to asssit player contrcats - the buying a share in a racehorse syndrome.

Players have always moved - money, jobs dissatisfaction, personal,adventure. We breed an awful lotta players in the Borders' 109,000 population - 700+ sports clubs will attestify to that inc 27 rugby 40 soccer and 21 assorted golf clubs...
Whatever happens - we'll help each other we call it co-operation.

Post 6N will be very interesting. If any of the Anti Borders are looking for uniform - i'm sure it can be sorted....

#17 (MT)

I can't blame Dewey at all for this. If he goes to Ulster, he'll be playing in from of cracking 10,000 crowds at Ravers every other Fri night and he'll be playing with other top-quality centres like Steinmetz and Trimble, not to mention getting some help from the Hump.

At Edinburgh, he'd be playing in front of 1500 (tops), no real talent alongside him to speak of, in a financial setup that's looking shakier by the day (no dissing the Brruthers - I think they're in over the top of their wellies here, and I don't think they're happy).

What would you do? No brainer.

I fear that a lot of folk are probably not looking intriniscally to the Edinburgh set-up. While I appreciate that money will always be a factor in players' mind, you have to appreciate that this is what these guys do day in day out for a living. Yes, that is a given. But you would assume there is a fully professional support system around them.
However, one massive telling factor ( and has long been the case with edinburgh) is that Edinburgh have far from ever had a decent and "professional" forwards coach. With the exception of "lead by example toddy", Henry Edwards was pretty inept and just focused on Frank's throw the ball from touch line to touch line circus. Currently Edinburgh has a virus and thy name be Paxton. The old skool mentalities start to wear pretty thin after the first couple of weeks of July in pre-season, let alone come January. It is no surprise to me that the likes of strokosch and dickinson have left for a superior environment. They are not getting paid all that well at the shed by the way.

Genuinely shocked by this. I thought the Carruthers brothers were supposed to be building something, not stripping it down...

Edinburgh need a venue with atmosphere rather than losing a couple of thousand people in Murrayfield.

Get the atmosphere up and it'll help the players and the viewing experience for the punters.

I've seen too many expensive Edinburgh games where the atmosphere and the quality of the play didn't justify the ticket price.

Good luck to those moving away, you can see it makes sense from their point of view. Now all we need is for the people who take there place to prove they are worth the money paid to them and possibly even a Scotland place.

Agreed - playing at Murrayfield is a huge part of the problem

There is some good youngsters coming through the club system and already playing regular premier one rugby, maybe the pro sides will think now about how to develop these youngsters further, only a few have been attached to the academies.

Very disappointed in Dewey - Embra have supported him very will with all the injuries he has had in the last 2yrs. The least he could do is repay them by staying for another 2yrs.

#23 - Heard it all now, Paxton is the problem - LOL.

common knowledge amongst rugby players in edinburgh that the pro players have no time for paxton and his old school ways. the players want to learn and get better. not going to get that at edinburgh with its current set up.

Paxton is making them play like donkeys in the last 3 months? I dont think so.

#28

Embra were contractually required to support Dewey when he was injured, just as your employer will have to, if you are sick or incapacitated in some way that prevents you from doing your job. Embra clearly had their own interest in getting him fit again.

This contract is coming to an end, so Dewey is entitled to look elsewhere.

Leave the sentiment out of it.

Clearly all is not well in camp Edinburgh - more departures to follow...

The loss of Rob Dewey is a hammer-blow for Edinburgh. He is the best centre in Scotland and will be almost impossible to replace. Edinburgh play so much better when he starts. I cannot believe that he has been allowed to go.

I have some sympathy with Stroker who is not going to get much game time if Taylor, Hogg, Callam and Rennie stay fit. Mustchin is really a back rower as well.

Dickenson is one of six props but while not a great scrummager is fantastic in the loose. Another big loss.

Very disappointed to see this exodus, with no quality replacements in the pipeline. Can only mean Edinburgh will join the other Scottish teams towards the bottom of the ML.

As for those who think it may help Scotland in the long term. Walker, Macleod and Lawson are not getting picked by FH ahead of Scots based players in very indifferent form. What's the chance Dewey would have been picked ahead of Henderson if he was playing for Ulster?

Until the SRU stop treating the pro teams as nothing but feeders for the national team, only the top players who are getting very well looked after will stay. Others, rightly, are wanting more from their careers - a stimulating environment and a chance to play with better players in front of big crowds. Away from the nonsense and negativity at the SRU.
Good luck to the guys - I hope they can do as well as Nikki and Scott down in Wales. Oh, and there's more departures to come by the way.

#14
It's now 2007.
The Clubs stopped fighting with the SRU almost 3 years ago.
If you can't keep up with what's happening, don't make ill founded statements.
If you still think Clubs are fighting the SRU, name the Clubs to which you are referring and let them amswer here.

Edinburgh - Its the backs that are rubbish, Paxtons old ways are going ok for Murray, Hogg, Taylor etc, the backs are over rated.

Simple solution, sign for Glasgow,Edinburgh or the Borders failing to do so means you are unavailable to be considered for the national side.