Scottish rugby's heartland is in dire need of support if the game is to survive in the Borders, writes David Ferguson in The Scotsman.
"Rugby is still the No1 sport in the Borders, and while there have been more youngsters playing league football than rugby every week for more than a decade now football clubs are struggling for youngsters and adult players too. The economic blows affecting many parts of Scotland have hit a region of just 105,000 people hard, and sport is not immune to such issues as rural depopulation.
"Sports facilities in the Borders have felt little substantive investment over the past 20 years, while the loss of a professional rugby team two years ago pulled the ladder for many young rugby players from the grassroots to the elite level.
"The SRU had few choices in the dire need to balance the books at a debt-ridden Murrayfield, but even their promise to ensure the Borders' talent continued to be identified and developed with an academy was not followed through on. Crucially, they help to fund club development officers, yet have fewer full-time employees exclusively in the Borders than ten years ago."
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