League placing speaks volumes for improved Grammar

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jan 9, 2000 | by Richard Bath

IT would be the ultimate irony, if not a seismic shift on the richter scale of the North East's sporting landscape. Should the current trend continue for the dismal Dons, the only Premier club in the Granite City could be situated at Rubislaw, where a steep upward curve has promotion in the air for the city's top rugby club, Aberdeen GSFP.

Just how unlikely that scenario is was brought home by Jonathan Phillips, the New Zealander who is the current backs coach at Grammar and the man charged with developing youth rugby in the city and surrounding area. "You must be joking! Everybody here is obsessed with football. Even though the carnage over at Pittodrie has helped push our gates up over 300, there's no way we can ever hope to compete with football."

Even so, there is little doubt that Phillips' recent recruitment of grizzled former All Black lock John Fleming has revitalised not only the fortunes of the club, but of the whole game in the North East. They are currently lying third in division two, handily-placed for the second promotion place - Sean Lineen's high-flying Boroughmuir will get the first spot. And Grammar will no doubt have learned valuable lessons from their cup defeat by Kelso yesterday.

Their division two position of strength that is all the more remarkable considering where Fleming found the club when he turned up last September. Barely off the plane from Wellington, Fleming saw his new charges thrashed 73-0 at Meggetland (they were lucky to get nought), and go on to lose four of the first five games of the season. As chilling introductions to Aberdeen go, it made Ebbe Skovdahl's welcome look like a boy scout's induction.

It was Aberdeen's sporting culture, however, which Fleming found it most difficult to come to terms with. "We lost four of the first five matches, so it was obvious that what we were doing just wasn't working," he says. "So we changed our approach to a more expansive style and are now confident playing a more adventurous game.

"It's always difficult when you go to a new place because everything's very different. But the problems I found weren't specific ones of skills or attitude, but more a question of lifestyle. In New Zealand, rugby defines people, and they see it as a potential way to earn a living. So at home most guys have been playing rugby since they could first walk and the game is generally their first priority; whereas here people often come to the game later and work is invariably their first priority."

As well as working on basic skills in order to play a faster, more expansive game, Fleming has also tried to instill a more hard-nosed edge to Grammar's play. He has also made sure that the club has a far wider range of players to call upon. "Only five or six of the team who were playing in that first game against Boroughmuir are now automatic first choices," said Fleming. "We've worked hard to build strength in depth and now have a group of 25-27 players who can all step in when needed, which means that we have back-up in most positions."

The tactic worked spectacularly. Less than three months after his side were humiliated at Meggetland, Grammar were unlucky not to beat the Edinburgh side when they drew 24-24 at Rubislaw.

But the changes haven't been indiscriminate. Grammar still rely heavily upon the cultured influence of outside-half Keith Oddie, who leads from the front and kicks all the side's points. But behind him there is a potent mix of young and old, of student, itinerant Australians and oil workers. Of those, 20-year-old blindside flanker Andrew Wilson and former Australian Barbarian openside Matt Taylor, from Queensland, have been two of the stand-outs. With winnable home league matches against Stirling County and Biggar, and away matches at East Kilbride, Dundee and Musselburgh, Aberdeen GSFP can determine their on-field future.

Off the field, the club is working equally hard to put down deeper roots and keep the game expanding in this football-obsessed corner of the country. Club secretary Derek Younger has spearheaded fundraising efforts that have seen the outlay rise tenfold to #100,000 a year, and in tandem with the SRU - who have acted on the Mackay Review's recommendation of having two development officers for the north of the country - have unleashed the Kiwi duo of Fleming and Phillips on an unsuspecting population.

Phillips, in particular, has been stoic in his efforts to raise the profile and constituency of the game, even trying to get the city's main three clubs - Grammar, Gordonians and Aberdeenshire - to merge their first teams, a venture which has now effectively fallen through.

"You've got to start from the bottom," says Phillips. "In the two and a half years that I've been here, I've been working alongside Colin Robertson to increase the number of coaches, and by doing that we've raised the standards slowly but surely. By having high-profile teams like Kelso coming here, we're raising the profile of rugby and making sure kids start playing and start getting into the game.