Killie look to cultivate roots of recovery

Take a look at the landscape of Scottish club rugby, and what you'll see everywhere is the sight of clubs going back to basics. With the Superdistricts monopolising the top players and the big bucks, and with attendances and playing numbers plummeting faster across the country, most clubs are reverting to traditional values.

The players may be fitter than ever, better coached than ever and play a more expansive style than ever before, but off the pitch the game is beginning to resemble the strictly amateur sport of 20 years ago.

Nowhere are the game's grassroots being nourished more assiduously than at Bellsands, where Ayrshire's oldest club, Kilmarnock, are attempting to reverse the decline which has seen them descend from the verge of Premier One to languishing in National One after being relegated the past two seasons.

Leading the charge back to respectability is former stand-off Alistair McCall, who has returned to the club after hanging up his boots and spending three seasons coaching Cumnock. Within six months of his arrival, the club has stopped the rot and now stands atop the league.

The first problem McCall encountered on his return was a severely depleted player roll. "I came back last summer and found a lot of young boys and a few of the players that I'd played with. Lots of boys left after the club was relegated: second row or prop Cameron Pollock went to East Kilbride; Frankie Clark, our hooker, went to Irvine; Tony Wright went to the Hawks; Jason Sharp, our New Zealand scrum-half, went home; and former Scotland U19 prop Eric Milligan went to Currie.

"Look at that list and you'll see - with the exception of a scrum- half - they're all forwards. That means we've got a very young pack."

Yet instead of encountering a motivation problem, McCall says that the rump of players left behind were determined to remain positive and determined to restore Kilmarnock to their former glory. In particular, this applied to a largely unchanged backs division.

"The backs recognised that they got the club into this division and it's their job to get us out. The older guys rallied around and took a lead, and now there's a real spirit about the club. We also have some very good players: winger James Adams scored hat-tricks in both our last two home games [against Trinity and Langholm], while Robbie Stuart at fullback has provided a steadying influence. Young Stuart Pratt on the wing is also going to be a very good player."

What the side lacks in sheer strength it more than makes up for in its mobility in a league where "most sides are forward-oriented and don't like an expansive game, so we try to move the ball around as much as possible and play a different sort of game that tires them out".

It is a policy that's getting results in the short-term, but after a proposed property development fell through and the club realised that a lack of cash will be permanent problem, McCall has insisted that the club work towards the long term.

"We're working to get Kilmarnock back where the club belongs, but there are reasons why that will take time. We used to draw from all over - from Wigtown, Stranraer and Stewartry - now we're finding that those clubs are now on a par with us. To make matters worse, when we were relegated, Ayr were promoted and are now two leagues ahead of us."

The indignity of being relegated because they lost to rivals Ayr - Kilmarnock failed to seal the one win from three games which would have secured their survival after being docked four points for fielding an ineligible player last season - was the trigger for the club's root and branch reform.

"The bottom line is we've gone back to basics. Whitecraigs and Hutchies are within twenty miles and are both paying players but no one gets paid here. We rely on local talent and have stopped going down the quick-fix New Zealand route as we once did.

"We're developing at all levels, and it's beginning to show. We've always had junior sides but for the first time we have an U18 side and next week we're fielding a third team for the first time in three years. And with help from Lorna Murray we've even launched a women's section." Things, as they say in Kilmarnock, can only get better.

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