IAN Barnes has been a reliable critic of Scottish rugby's officialdom for years and, despite being elected to the Scottish Rugby Council, that will probably continue from within.
However, if the SRU wanted a champion of its bid for clubs to work more closely with their neighbours it would do little better than the former Hawick and Scotland lock.
He is talking of this being his final year as a coach, but remains enthusi
astic about the season ahead. As he prepares Edinburgh Accies for a campaign he believes could take the Raeburn Place club from tenth spot last term to first in the league this one, however, Barnes would like to see the union's enthusiasm for clubs' associations matched nationwide.
With customary passion, he pinpointed yesterday the growth of relations between his club and Trinity Academicals, Broughton and Edinburgh University. Club associations are not new, and Barnes has replicated what he recalls from Hawick's old network of clubs, but the SRU also views such links as a means to revitalising the sport and driving up the numbers playing.
"I've never experienced coming up from Division Two to One before and it was difficult for Accies," Barnes reflected, "mainly because we had a lot of young boys and a lot of injuries, but if we hadn't had the association we'd never have survived.
"When we first got it together with Trinity and Broughton those clubs were really struggling and we were shipping players to them every week, but we worked very hard and Trinity and Broughton now have two teams out every week, and last season we relied a lot on Trinity. Edinburgh University helped as well, particularly with the young scrum-half Jerry Tsang, who was exactly what we needed against Currie at Malleny Park.
"It is a good model for other areas, but you have to work very, very hard to make it work. The beauty of our association is the geography – we're all close together – and the structure, with the clubs at different levels, not competing with each other. It's based on the old Hawick model which fell apart when the junior clubs got into the Scottish Cup and became clubs in their own right, and Hawick started a 2nd XV."
Evidence that the north Edinburgh association is working comes from the talented youngsters such as Lewis Niven, the recent Scotland U20s skipper, Tom Drennan and Ruaridh Donner. The first two are now apprentices with the SRU Academy and Barnes rates Bonner highly, but he stated they would have been lost to the area had they stayed with Trinity, inevitably been encouraged to move up a level to improve and not had the close association with Accies.
"But they are still young, and still have developing to do, so we encourage the boys to stay with their friends at their club, Trinity, Broughton or the University, until they're ready to move up, rather than play them in our 2nds team. They know we have people like Fin Calder (former British and Irish Lions captain] watching them every week and so know they will get opportunities to progress."
The other clear benefit is the regeneration of all these proud clubs to the point that Edinburgh Accies now field four senior teams and a social side, on top of the flourishing youth teams, with Broughton and Trinity sending out two every week. Barnes' Accies lost to a last-minute try at Bradford at the weekend, but their U20s team beat their counterparts in the seaside town, while Trinity 1st XV and a Broughton-Accies-Trinity (BATs) side won in Ellon.
Barnes is therefore quite buoyant this week and when added to the belief of his charges that injuries robbed them of a serious title challenge last term he is eagerly awaiting the start of what could be his last season at the chalk-face.
"I'm looking forward to it, but I think it's my last season coaching. I've been in the game for a long time and last season was the toughest I've experienced with the weather. Maybe it's just my age; I enjoy the Saturdays, but I'm getting to the end for coaching."
The full article contains 704 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
