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August 14, 2009

Pro Player Draft - who's going where

Posted by Editor on August 14, 2009 08:14 PM | 4 comments | Print | E-mail author

Bernie Stortoni has been coaching at West of Scotland (Photo: Courtesy of Vincent - www.auvergne-rugby.fr)
Scotland's 74 home-based pro rugby players have been asked to strengthen the links between the elite and club levels of the sport following the completion of the draft process that has allocated all of them between the 12 Scottish Hydro Premier One sides.

Colin Thomson, the Scottish Rugby Union's head of community rugby, expressed the hope that all of them would be able to pass on the benefit of their top-level experience to ambitious players within the largely amateur club game.

Thomson said: "Scottish Rugby has worked hard in tandem with its professional teams to strengthen the links with clubs and will continue to cement the improving relationship between the professional and club games with pro-player visits to all clubs increasing every year.

"Clearly, not all of these players will play for that club during a season, but anything that gives professional players the opportunity to play and share their experiences with some of the best players in top-tier club rugby is to be welcomed."

Players were split into three categories with each club selecting players based on their 2008/2009 league position with Stewart’s-Melville and Dundee HSFP getting first and second pick having been promoted from Scottish Hydro Premier 2 as runners-up and winners.

Category 3 : strong possibility will play regularly for clubs

Category 2 : possibly will play for clubs, but rarely and probably only for return from injury reasons

Category 1 : will NOT play for clubs except in extreme circumstances

Among the Glasgow players Tim Barker, the Ulster-born lock, is the only one of the six players drafted by Hawks who did not play for the club before turning professional while Heriot’s made sure they kept David McCall by putting him first in their draft list.

Bernardo Stortoni was drafted by West of Scotland where he has been doing some coaching, though in his case the draft had to be massaged with the co-operation of all involved to get him there with Stewart’s Melville heading a list of clubs that agreed to forgo their choice in order to leave him free to stay at Burnbrae.

Stewart’s-Melville FP - R Grant, A Kelly, R Rennie, Calum Forrester, Kevin Tkachuk, A MacDonald

Dundee HSFP - F McKenzie, D Young, Richie Vernon, Hefin O'Hare, Rob Dewey, S Webster, DTH van der Merwe

Glasgow Hawks - Mike Adamson, Colin Shaw, Richie Gray, Tim Barker, Graeme Morrison, Max Evans

Edinburgh Accies - R Samson, K Traynor, S MacLeod, G Laidlaw, M Blair, P Godman

Watsonians - S Turnbull, A Hogg, A Turnbull, Colin Gregor, J Hamilton, Thom Evans

Currie - Chris Kinloch, D Blair, Scott Forrest, Mark McMillan, B Cairns, Dougie Hall

West of Scotland - Jon Welsh, Peter Murchie, James Eddie, Alastair Kellock, Fergus Thomson, Johnnie Beattie, Bernardo Stortoni

Selkirk - S Crombie, S Cross, J Thompson, C Hamilton, C Paterson, John Barclay

Melrose - Peter Horne, M Robertson, Dan Turner, R Ford, Chris Cusiter, Kelly Brown

Boroughmuir - A Easson, R Grant, S Jones, D Callam, A Jacobsen, Justin Va'a

Heriot's - Dave McCall, S Newlands, J Houston, G Cross, N De Luca, Moray Low

Ayr - T Visser, Hamish Mitchell, Pat MacArthur, Ed Kalman, Ruaridh Jackson, Dan Parks

Posted by Kazakh Warrior on August 16, 2009 05:15 AM | Reply to this comment

It's good to see this happening. A little bit contrived, but a far better situation than the bad old days of banning the pro's.

It will be interesting to see which line-ups get picked for the last 2 warm-up games. I have a feeling there's a new order developing. There could be new blood in the back row and back-line...

Posted by AJPatterson on August 16, 2009 12:54 PM | Reply to this comment

The 3-grade system may shed some light on priorities and generally the top players got picked last as they'll never play for the clubs. But that's a bit misleading as some teams went out of their way to pick favourite sons e.g. Richie V at Dundee.

The intriguing ones for me are Hamish Mitchell, who got picked early (is he a lower category because he has a break clause in his contract and is high risk to the picking team?) and DTHVDM. The latter was the very last pick - does that mean that he's going to play a lot for Glasgow? Or did he get forgotten about??

Posted by chocolateteapot on August 16, 2009 04:38 PM | Reply to this comment

More interesting is the fact that Hawks have taken 2 backs as first choice when their problems patently lie with their forwards and the 2 they have taken will be away for spells with the 7's squad! Doesn't seem like the wisest choice!

Posted by Moody Blue on August 18, 2009 08:52 AM | Reply to this comment

So it looks like Colin Shaw, Mike Adamson and Scott Forrest are contracted for the national sevens squad. Is that it? Is everyone else who plays sevens going to be taken from the Academy or are there any other fully contracted sevens players?

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