Martin Hannan

AS promised last week, this column will be about my wishes for the domestic game in 2022, but of course there is one overriding desire which we must all share for this year, and that is the end of the pandemic.

Those experts who said the other day that we must start learning to live with Covid-19 are probably on the button as I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of this blasted virus completely, and my chief wish for the year ahead is that somebody, somewhere will find a cure for it which, added to mass vaccination, could end its scourge. There will never be “normal” again, so rugby, like every other facet of our lives, will need to adjust and go forward into a probably craven new world.

I have said it before and will keep repeating myself, but there needs to be investment in all levels of the domestic game. The Scottish Government has given millions to the SRU in “emergency funding support”, the vast majority of which was a grant of £15 million, but unless things have changed, they will want some of their other cash back because it was a loan. I understand the SRU have to start repaying any loan they have drawn down in September, but can anyone be sure the virus will have stopped spreading by then? If not then the Government must step in to assist our sport, indeed all sport, once again.

There were also tight restrictions on how the money could be spent – in the agreement signed in January 2021, the funds were specifically banned from covering transfer fees and could only be used by a rugby club for “ongoing club rugby-related operations”.

The SRU and member clubs have had to account for all their expenditure of this public money, and the fact that no complaints have been made about the way the cash was spent indicates to me that everything has been done properly.

The problem is that rugby can only go to the Scottish Government well so often, but I have believed from the outset of the various lockdowns that any business which suffers as a consequence of obeying Government regulations should be