DAVID SOLE
Mark Dodson, the SRU’s Chief Executive, will have been hoping all week that Gregor Townsend’s Scotland team would put in a dramatic end-of-tour performance against Argentina to remove the spotlight from him.
Keith Russell’s victory in court has the propensity to create more negative press coverage than Dodson would care for – yet the CEO isn’t helping himself.
In an interview with the BBC, Dodson seemed far from contrite or apologetic.
Indeed, when asked directly (twice)if he owed Russell an apology, Dodson avoided the question completely.
Instead, he deflected the question towards the review that has been set up to explore the whole issue, and Russell’s accusations of a ‘toxic’ culture within the SRU – something that Dodson claimed he did not recognise.
And therein came the second opportunity for the SRU to shoot themselves in the foot – which was taken with aplomb.
While the right thing to do was to
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Had Dodson apologised to Russell, no one would have had any grumble
announce a review into these accusations, the person chairing the review is a member of the SRU’s Board.
In order to ensure that the review had no sense of bias or ambiguity, the sensible thing would have been to appoint someone who is completely independent.
Lesley Thomson’s credentials are undisputed professionally, but as a member of the SRU Board, she is a paid employee (at least if she is receiving the same package for a Board member as was advertised recently), so has a vested interest.
Unless the outcome of the review is damning of the culture and upholds Russell’s accusations, there will be suspicions of a ‘cover up’ – whether there has been one or not.
Had Dodson apologised to Russell and set up a truly independent review, then no-one could have any grumble with him or the SRU.
It’s not been Dodson’s finest hour. All of which has been a distraction from the rugby, which has been a bit ‘up and down’.
After a good victory against a fairlyordinary Canadian team, Scotland stumbled to defeat against the USA, having coughed up a 21-6 lead.
It was a game that Scotland should have won, particularly having dominated the scoreboard so well.
It meant that they needed to finish on a high in Argentina.