Renton Was Right

 

THERE IS A TRUISM in Rugby Union: “Forwards win matches – backs decide by how much”. Basically, this means: if your forward pack manages to dominate possession, you're going to win – how good your back division is decides how wide is the margin of victory.

Because it is a much-more fluid, free-flowing game, you cannot make the same statement about Football. The round ball game is less-dependant on formalised set pieces – football doesn't have scrums, lines out or rucks, the places where the forwards earn their corn. Just the same, you have to be competent at the few set-pieces which do pop-up in the game: defending corners and free-kicks. For Rangers, the reality is, this season, the cry has been “No Defenders” as time and again they fail to do the basics of keeping their goal intact.

Thus it was again in Brugge last night. The greatest exhibition of goalkeeping in Scottish history is supposedly the night Ayr Bruins ice hockey netminder John “Bernie” McCrone saved 97 of 98 shots fired at him by a visiting Canadian team. In Scottish Football, the definitive goalkeeping display is supposedly Jimmy Cowan's first half performance at Wembley in 1949. His heroics in the face of constant English pressure broke English hearts and when the Scots finally got going – they won 3-1.

Jack Butland last night reached almost Cowanesque levels of goalkeeping excellence, but, whereas Cowan had three top-quality Rangers defenders: George Young, Willie Woodburn and Sammy Cox helping him out back in '49, last night Butland was behind a defence which was barely of Schools Football standard.

Embarrassment doesn't quite sum-up how bad this current Rangers team is. I honestly feel for Russell Martin; the buck will stop with him, it always does, because, it's easier to get one new manager in than to recruit the whole new team they will need to import to replace the new team you already brought-in to replace last season's failures.

Of course, they might still turn round on Sunday and beat Celtic. I know, I know, you wouldn't bet on that outcome, but, given how shite both clubs have been this week, you can never say never. If that happens, all may not be sweetness and light, but, the pressure on Martin would definitely lessen.

As things stand, however, Martin seems odds-on to displace Paul Le Guen as the shortest-serving Rangers Manager; the next patsy will be brought in, and since they seem wedded to proving the old definition of Madness being repeating the same old failings, the roundabout will fire-up again.

This entry is written and posted beforte the Aberdeen and Hibernian second leg European games kick-off tonight. You never know, one, or both, might confound pre-match expectations and win from weak positions, but, there is no way I would bet on either side pulling-off the morale-bolstering win Scottish Fitba desperately needs.

I know the graphics boys at both The Hun and The Daily Rhebel keep their cracked Old Firm crests close at hand, just for weeks like this. As far as I know, they don't have a cracked SFA badge ready to slot in – perhaps they ought to have.

Or there again, given how out of touch they are along that Sixth Floor “Corridor of Inertia” at Hampden where the really big decisions, such as: “what else can we do to keep the Old Firm from destroying everything?” are made and the really big choices such as: ”what should and can we do to make Scottish Football better” are avoided, perhaps we have still not reached rock bottom.

Certainly, our clubs are still not condemned to entering the European competition qualifying games in the first round – along with the teams from the traditionally “diddy” leagues of the continent – leagues whose teams, increasingly, manage to knock our own diddy teams out early doors.

I fear we may have to swallow further embarrassing weeks like this, in the years ahead, before it dawns on the great and good of our game that, just maybe we need to rip-up the whole shebang and start again.

I have been saying for years, we need a whole new approach, from top to bottom, but, I see neither the desire in the game, or the intelligence to make the required changes happen.

This week has merely confirmed – Irvine Welsh was bang on the money when he got Mark Renton to say: “It's shite being Scottish”.