Dundee blown away after defeating Storm Doris

Storm Doris spread no favours in the direction of schools and youth rugby on Saturday as the meteorological maelstrom wrought havoc with the fixture card.

While dozens of matches were called off, two games did survive, but for Dundee High School it was questionable if there was any benefit as they lost 48-0 to Edinburgh Academy. In the west, the top game was between Hutchesons’ Grammar School and Kelvinside Academyand the latter won 17-7 against their city rivals.

The match between Scottish Schools Cup winners, Stewart’s-melville College, and the Youth League Cup victors, Stirling County, was was a casualty of the weather.

Schools v clubs can only be good for age-grade rugby by exposing both to more competitive rugby. But there is also the drawback that rugby-playing schools are for the most part in the private sector whereas clubs, in general, cater for an increasingly non-existent competitive sports culture within the state sector.

The latter problem is, however, not unique to Scotland. English rugby has recognised a huge untapped pool of talent in the state school sector and invested more than £10 million in a programme it hopes will have 750 state secondaries playing rugby by the 2019 World Cup.

In Wales, there is concern over the decline of competitive sport in schools,so a number of schools have emerged as de facto specialist sports academies.

Here, Scottish Rugby deserves credit for its Schools of Rugby programme, which has been running for more than four years. But it can only begin to address a dramatic diminution of extra-curricular school sport over the last 20 years. Evidence from around the world supports a view that participation in sport and academic attainment are highly correlated.