Union Jack at half-mast as cup plan is defeated

THE SRU got mugged so gently at their AGM on Friday evening that they ended up thanking their assailant. There was not much on the table with most of the focus on just two items, the Union-sponsored proposal to abandon the cup and the presidential election with Jim Stevenson attempting to prevent the veteran George Jack from fulfilling his second year in the job.

There was plenty of confusion when it came to the voting on the cup. Countless times club representatives stood up and asked for clarification on what they were voting for and the SRU secretary Graham Ireland was occasionally able to help them.

"It's deeply upsetting," said one delegate who knew what he wanted but still had no idea which motions, amendments or proposals he should vote for to get it. "You've got to tell the people the right way to vote".

Jim Fleming tried and failed. The former referee was handed the unwelcome task of defending the Union's unpopular proposal to abandon the cup, if only for a year.

"I'm a referee," he said by way of explanation, "I'm used to being unpopular." Fleming did his best in the circumstances, he was eloquent, he was articulate and he was voted down by a huge majority. The cup stays in its present format and someone – I may have nodded off around this time – is to look again at the structure of the Scottish rugby season, a subject more studied than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

George Jack also found himself on the wrong side of the cup argument. He put great store by getting around every club in the country, or every club in the Borders, or every club in Selkirk, I forget which. Anyway, his extensive dialogue with the grass roots had persuaded him that the clubs wanted to abandon the cup. This was far from true.

Numerous club officials stood up and very politely rubbished the Union's (ie Jack's) claim to have been in close consultation with the clubs on this matter, which cannot have helped him in his bid for a second presidential term. Stevenson duly won the vote. After the event one beaming Murrayfield insider said that he thought everyone had got what they wanted out of the evening. Apart from Jack, he was probably right.

The only other item of interest was the fact that Gordon McKie admitted that in 2004 the Board had mortgaged a part of the SRU's landbank, presumably the bus park beside the ice rink, to Miller homes. The chief executive seemed entirely blasé about this and added: "Miller will only do something (build] if we want it to happen."

McKie can afford to be more relaxed on the finances. He didn't say so on Friday but the new Six Nations TV deal with the BBC, stretching from 2010-2013, is coming in at a whopping rise of 33% on the previous agreement.