Break Ireland duck and help amateur game: Scottish rugby’s 2025 wishes

2 They find a way to beat Ireland after ten straight defeats

This second wish is intrinsically linked to the first one but even if it didn’t lead to anything more substantial in the bigger picture, defeating Simon Easterby’s temporary charges at Murrayfield on February 9 would be a major standalone achievement. As much as anything, it would send the Scots smashing through a serious psychological barrier and put an end to the patronising Irish head-pats about what a fun team they can be to watch (and play against).

3 Glasgow continue to thrive on two fronts

What Franco Smith’s men achieved in Pretoria (and Limerick the week before) was the Scottish rugby highlight of 2024 — and doubtless a much longer time span too. Leinster are bang in form this season but there is no reason why Glasgow cannot go all the way again, although seedings from the regular season stand to be even more crucial than usual.

The Scotstoun outfit have also started like a train in the Champions Cup and with a fair wind could make unprecedented inroads there too. These are truly special times with an equally special coach and squad.

4 The Warriors have a reason to go back to Hampden this season

Last week’s 1872 Cup match appears to have been a roaring success in every aspect bar that of producing a genuine contest, something for which we cannot blame Al Kellock and his staff. The club’s managing director is already on record as saying he wants decamping to Mount Florida to become much more than a one-off, and how cool would it be to see another large crowd gathering there for a knockout match later in the campaign?

On which note, to have more than 60,000 people attending the inter-city derbies between Hampden and Murrayfield was a great achievement for the sides’ respective off-field teams.

5 Edinburgh come to the party

We’ve all had our fill of hearing — and writing — about the chronic underachievement in the capital. It is increasingly clear that something has to give, and in time-honoured fashion that is most likely to be the coach. Either way, Edinburgh badly need an infusion of energy, direction and ambition, because this listless, shapeless iteration is of no use to man nor beast. A gritty victory over Glasgow Warriors on Saturday offers some hope, at least.

6 The Women’s World Cup is a boon for Scotland on and off the pitch

After failing to win a game at the 2022 tournament Bryan Easson’s side have every chance of making the knockouts in England. Canada — ranked second in the world — may well prove a bridge too far, but by the time the Scots meet them in Exeter they will hope to have seen off both Wales and Fiji to secure that last-eight spot.

Both those games are in Salford, with the proximity to Scotland hopefully prompting a big cross-border charge. When it comes to player numbers and general interest, the Scottish game can hopefully also bask in the reflected glory of what promises to be a huge tournament taking place on its doorstep.

7 The profile of Scotland’s female players is raised

The national women’s team boast some terrific individual stories and the SRU must do better at cultivating and projecting them. This feeds into the bigger imperative of building the women’s game without making the same mistakes which have dogged the growth of the men’s game since the dawn of professionalism. We need to be big and bold, embrace the power of the individual and hone a match-day experience that works for this specific audience, rather than defaulting to a scale-model version of what happens for a men’s Murrayfield international.

8 The national stadium begins to be brought into the 21st century

Murrayfield is the biggest, but now far from the best, stadium in Scotland. After decades of underinvestment so many parts of it are grotty, behind the times or unfit for the sort of revenue generation the SRU must drive to emerge from a challenging financial position.

The union has promised to invest £10million in the Murrayfield facilities over the next two years. That won’t touch the sides of what needs to be done across the estate, but if it can finally guarantee hot water in the toilets and the queue for the women’s facilities no longer stretches back to Haymarket, it will at least show that the new regime cares about the comfort of its core customers.

9 Alex Williamson continues the 180-degree pivot on how the SRU interacts with the wider world

The new chief executive, who is due to take office shortly before the Six Nations, must not only build on the vision developed by John McGuigan since he became the chairman last June but sell it to sponsors, fans, media, government and sundry other stakeholders.

Murrayfield has long struggled with the notion of needing to take people with them but Williamson is known to favour a more collaborative and “open for business” approach, in keeping with the repositioning already undertaken by McGuigan and his board. Get that drawbridge down and throw the shutters open, so that some cleansing fresh air can circulate through the building at long last.

10 The disconnect between the professional and club game is slowed

The SRU performance director David Nucifora recently spoke of his “worry” that the “two [sides of the game] can get too far apart” despite the symbiosis that still exists between them. With the Super Series now disbanded the Scottish game badly needs a replacement outlet beneath the pro teams for quality aspiring players — a performance end to the club game that can sit in harmony alongside the community and social side.

A-team fixtures with Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as the new Emerging Scotland side, are a welcome start in this regard, but there can never be too many opportunities for our best young players to compete at a technically and physically demanding level against their peers. In a broader sense there is also a need to address the disparity between the player numbers quoted by Murrayfield and the brutal reality of more than 220 senior male club games having been postponed across the leagues so far this season.