Premiership play-off dates turn season climax into a farce

03/31/2025 02:49 PM

THE purpose of having a play-off programme at the end of a league season is to sustain excitement and competitive tension over the course of the whole campaign, by ensuring that no single team can run away with the title, while sides who start slowly can battle their way back into contention (as Currie Chieftains after a calamitous start to their Arnold Clark Men’s Premiership defence this season which saw them lose four out of their first five matches before hitting a run of form which carried them to securing a guaranteed top four finish last weekend despite having one game still left to play).

Once into the knock-out stage of the season, the goal is to crank up the intensity levels even further to create more buzz around the league, with best sides in the competition look to get the better of one another in winner-takes-all standalone matches.

There is, of course, an argument that the play-off system is inherently flawed because a team which dominates the regular season to finish miles ahead of the pack can end up with nothing if they have an off-day in one of the knock-out matches. That point of view certainly has merit, but if we are going down the play-off route then it should be done right, meaning the path to the ‘Grand Final’ needs to be clear so that supporters can buy into it what is happening as well as being fair for all the participating teams. The higher ranked team gets home advantage, but all other factors should be as equal as it is possible to manage.

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Unfortunately – and not for the first time in recent history – a lack of forethought and coordination in fixture scheduling means that the play-off schedule for the top flight of Scottish club rugby has descended into farce.

The first play-off semi-final sees second-placed Heriot’s host third-placed Watsonians at Goldenacre next Saturday (4.10pm kick-off and live on BBC Alba), which is on the same day as Glasgow Hawks host Selkirk and Marr host Hawick in re-arranged regular season matches which could both have a bearing on who is relegated this season.

Then we have a two week wait until the other play-off semi-final sees runaway league leaders Ayr host Currie Chieftains (3pm on Saturday 19th April), when the home side will feel refreshed and quietly confident that their three-week break hasn’t diminished their match sharpness, while the visitors will have to make a decision on what sort of team they send to Troon for their final re-arranged fixture against Marr the week before (12th April).

Chieftains head coach Mark Cairns will have to weigh up how important it is to support the integrity of the league by sending his front-liners cross-country for that match which has no meaning for his squad but could well decide whether Marr or Glasgow Hawks are relegated his season. You couldn’t really blame him if he decided that his priority should be to wrap his key men in cottonwool so that Chieftains have the best possible chance of causing an upset against Ayr.

This is not a moot point, because Chieftains are absolutely entitled to believe that they have a chance of winning their semi-final given that they were the only team to get the better Ayr during the regular season, with an excellent 27-24 win at Malleny Park at the end of November.

The fact that this Ayr versus Currie Chieftains match has been hastily arranged on the Easter weekend, meaning that it is going to be a massive pain in the backside to part-time players and coaches with young families, serves to reinforce the sense that the schedule was drawn up on the back of a cigarette pack.

Note: 19th April is also the date of Silver Saturday (Finals Day), which was once the crown jewel in the Scottish club rugby calendar but is now a depressingly diminished occasion, with only four National One teams plus the 2nd XVs of Ayr and Heriot’s having entered the Men’s Scottish Cup this year.

Back to the play-offs: if Chieftains do manage to beat Ayr, they will then be required to play a third big game in as many weekends against either Heriot’s or Watsonians on 26th April, who will in turn have mixed feelings about the benefits of having three weeks to refresh and prepare for one final match against the challenge of keeping part-time rugby players engaged for such a long time at such an advanced stage of the season.

It is, frankly, ludicrous that these two showcase semi-final matches are not being played on the same day. It means that teams are not competing on a level playing field, and supporters are left confused about what is going on. There is no focus on the end of the season, no buzz and how can we possibly hope to market this tier of the game to players and the wider public when it is so poorly organised?

We understand that attempts have been made by individual clubs to move dates to minimise the disruption of such a rag-tag schedule, but self-interest will always trump egalitarianism in these sorts of scenarios, and this really should never have become an issue.

The play-off dates should have been set in stone by the championship committee before the start of the season, with plenty of contingency options built in to ensure that postponed matches – which are an inevitability during a Scottish winter –  don’t get in the way of the season’s climax.

Decisive and bold decisions are going to have to be made and communicated early, with the practicality of fitting an Inter-District Championship (shelved this year) into the schedule on the list of matter’s needing to be addressed.

A conversation about not having Premiership matches on the Saturdays when Scotland played Autumn Test matches against Fiji and Portugal, but a full fixture schedule on the day of the Calcutta Cup match is also necessary.

Next season, with the Premiership reducing from 12 to 10 teams, there should be a bit more wriggle room, so there really is no excuse for the kind of fixture bottleneck which has undermined what could and should have been a colourful climax to the current season.

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