Scots ready to become ‘trailblazers’

Mark Dodson insists Scottish Rugby is ready to “embrace” the responsibility of being a trailblazer for other sports as they prepare to welcome fans back into Murrayfield tonight.

The Scottish Government has given the green light for 700 supporters to be in the crowd in the capital stadium for the derby between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The decision not to grant permission for Celtic to stage a similar test event against Motherwell on Sunday has not gone down well in football circles.

But Dodson, the SRU chief executive, is desperate to ensure they get things right – for all sports.

He told BBC Radio Scotland’s Rugby podcast: “It’s a big night for us and Scottish Rugby are pleased to be trusted with this opportunity.

“We’re clearly aware of our responsibilities but we embrace this opportunity, not just for rugby but for sport in general.

“It’s been a long process. We’ve been working with government as we’ve found a way through this really, really difficult problem.

“We’ve got great sympathy with their position and we’ve been very supportive of their plans.

“We’ve been working and communicating with them on a regular basis and we’ve been in lockstep with the way they’ve approached the problem.

“It’s about safety, it’s about fans’ safety. This is a societal problem and what we’re trying to do is to try to see if we can safely bringing people back into sports events, and hospitality events, in general.

“And we don’t want to rush that.

“Certainly, we’re not playing politics or taking a political stance on this.

“This is about the safety of our fans and about reintroducing sport back to the fans, but in a safe way.

“The larger question is not about the SRU’s finances, this is about how do we get people back into sport, generally, but hospitality overall.”