FP News 2021
7
Colin Rigby I spoke to Colin Rigby (whom many will know from the FP Rugby Club), who was elected VP of the SRU last year. We discussed the pandemic, the club game, the national team, and head trauma amongst other topics. Thanks to Colin for being generous with his time and his answers. You were elected VP of the SRU in summer last year. Has it been difficult to make progress with the domestic reform you talked about in the campaign in the difficult circumstances of your term so far? It’s certainly been an interesting opening six months - effectively three AGMs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the cancellation of the competitive domestic season, the start of a governance review, and new autumn series – the Autumn Nations Cup and new ways of delivering the game to the wider audience, CVC money into Pro 14 now 16 and of course, the win at Twickenham. In addition, thanks to Doddie Weir and Rob Wainwright, a lot of us have had the chance to do some exercise in the Doddie Aid inter-district challenge for
MND in January raising over £1m – a quite remarkable achievement! One of the major items I campaigned on was the level of transparency given to clubs to explain the context behind decisions. The VP Notes are now published after each Scottish Rugby Council meeting and I am delighted they have been a resounding success. Going forward, since minutes of our Council meetings are now also being published on the Scottish Rugby website, my aim is to weave this into one document combining the minutes of meetings and the VP notes. The Governance review is well under way with already some five meetings. President Ian Barr and Stewart’s Melville’s Gavin MacColl QC as chairman are driving the review and we remain on track to report back to the clubs by early summer. As we progress through the pandemic, we will start to focus on how domestic clubs will emerge from the pandemic and reform going forward as the game on and off the pitch as we knew it will need to adapt. One of the positives of the pandemic is that I have been able to speak to more clubs than I would normally as forum meetings are via Zoom rather than in person. Some of the positive initiatives clubs are coming up with to keep contact with
their own rugby community are truly outstanding. For example, buy a virtual round; virtual dinners with delivered meals and wine with speakers; and regional fitness competitions including throwing the welly; and inter-club football leagues to name but a few. With that in mind, are there new priorities for the leadership of the SRU after the pandemic? The pandemic, globally, has led to all organisations reviewing their priorities and strategies for the coming years and Scottish Rugby is no different. The priority firstly has to be the wellbeing of stakeholder, that is the clubs and their communities and employees. We responded with a four-stage plan - Respond, Reset, Recover and Rebuild, and I believe Scottish Rugby was proactive from the outset in its response to the pandemic. We are now in the reset phase and various strategies are being evaluated and refined, the difficulty on this occasion is the majority of decisions are impacted by items outwith Scottish Rugby’s control such as government legislation and restrictions. So, to answer your question, yes, there are new priorities, around survival and realigning the game for when we can eventually resume.
