Welcome to Kicking Off, the quick way of getting on top of the day’s agenda in Scottish sport
Today
- Celtic manager Ronny Deila ‘felt like a criminal’ in wake of tough fortnight
- Mark Warburton calls on Rangers board to contact SPFL over Alloa's pitch change
- Rangers great DJ reacts angrily to Higginbotham claims that Tavernier was attention seeking when showing injury on social media
- Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes will make a decision on Nigerian trialist Daniel Adejo’s future after watching him in an under-20 game
- Dons assistant Tony Docherty believes presence of Welsh internationalist Simon Church will enable top scorer Adam Rooney to net even more goals
- Motherwell boss McGhee says criticism from fans will never force him into changes
- Scotland agree to roof to be shut in Millennium Stadium for Six Nations clash with Wales
- Head coach Vern Cotter says his Scotland team is fed up with criticism and "bits and pieces being thrown at the team"
- Scotland centre Duncan Taylor up for the challenge of stopping Jamie Roberts
- IAAF President Coe rails against Nestle decision to pull out of sponsoring his organisation
In solitary
Celtic boss Ronny Deila says he was made to feel like a criminal because his side lost two matches
Challenging narrow thinking
Rangers manager Mark Warburton wants his board to call on the SPFL to look into Alloa's pitch change
DJ angry
Rangers great Derek Johnstone tells Kallum Higginbotham he is out of order in calling James Tavernier an attention seeker
Decision time
Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes is to decide on Nigerian youngster Daniel Adejo's future after watching him in action for the club's under-20s
Job sharer
Fellow striker's Simon Church's arrival is being tipped to make it easier for Adam Rooney to score even more goals for title chasing Aberdeen
Mind of his own
Motherwell manager Mark McGhee says he will not be persuaded to make changes to his team by supporter pressure
Facing the accusers
Scotland coach Vern Cotter, who is still awaiting a first win in a Six Nations match, reckons his team are hard done by because of the nature criticism received after setting a new record with eight straight defeats in the tournament
Up for the challenge
Scotland centre Duncan Taylor, the one man brought into the side following last weekend's lacklustre effort against England, says he is set to take on the task of neutralising Wales' strong running Jamie Roberts
Using the facilities
Scotland have agreed to the roof of the Millennium Stadium being closed for their meeting with Wales
Self-righteous indignation
IAAF President Seb Coe's latest outburst has seen him question the thinking of Nestle executives in becoming the latest to look to end their sponsorship of athletics
06.05 Radio Scotland sports headlines
Scotland head coach coach Vern Cotter says his side is looking to turn negatives into positives as they seek a first win over Wales in eight years... Ronny Deila acknowledges that his Celtic side faces a very real title challenge from Aberdeen this season... St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright claims there is no panic in his squad ahead of tonight's meeting with Dundee in spite of a run that has brought no wins in their past eight matches
06.35 Radio Five Live sports headlines
Kenya has missed a deadline to prove to WADA that it's tackling dope cheats and has been given a further two months to address it... Wales head coach Warren Gatland says it is good news that Jonathan Davies is returning to the Scarlets next season because playing in France has helped none of their players... Connacht beat Newport to go top of the Pro12... Salford beat St Helens in Supere League for first time in 16 years... Neil Warnock has been named Rotherham boss until the end of the season... England's women and men are both seeking to wrap up One Day International series wins against South Africa today... Chris Froome says he would rather win another Tour de France title than an Olympic gold medal this summer... Mark Cavendish continues to lead in cycling's Tour of Qatar... Britain beat Holland 6-5 in opening match in the qualifying competition for the Winter Olympics
The Back Pages
The Evening Times is shared between Ronny Deila’s extraordinary admissions about the impact the ridiculous over-reaction to Celtic’s defeats to two of the other top four teams in the country had on him and the online spat between their regular contributor Derek Johnstone and Kallum Higginbotham after the Kilmarnock player’s criticism of Rangers’ James Tavernier as an attention seeker.
The Herald leads with Deila too, but also carries a report on Scotland centre Matt Scott’s bid to be fit for their Six Nations trip to Italy after being forced out of the visit to Cardiff by injury and Mark Warburton’s concerns about Alloa Athletic’s decision to narrow their pitch while The National leads on former Scotland international Stephen McManus’s claim that players should be consulted on the synthetic surfaces being used in the professional game.
Grandstanding – today’s sports comment
In The Evening Times Davie Hay suggests Ronny Deila should listen to those advising him to play two up front and Derek Johnstone offers his backing to Richard Gough as a potential Rangers First board member. ‘The Pick of the Pucks’ discusses the possibility of Braehead Clan owner Neil Black putting a British team into the predominantly Russian Kontinental Hockey League in The National, while in The Herald Susan Egelstaff looks at research on genetics which is promoting the idea that some athletes are born to be champions.
Sporting Twitterati
Sebastian Coe's latest outburst prompts a combination of anger and derision:
Lord Coe accuses Nestle of hypocrisy over ending of IAAF deal - BBC
— Richard Ings (@ringsau) February 11, 2016
But fails to mention IAAF corruption as trigger https://t.co/naz5YP7Eql
Coe ups Nestle attack, saying they renewed TourdeFrance sponsorship despite doping scandals.
— Rob Harris (@RobHarris) February 11, 2016
(TdF chiefs not shown to be corrupt like IAAF)
The more Coe says, the more he loses credibility. One of the greatest Olympic heroes reduced to a laughing stock. https://t.co/guK30CVPk5
— Simon Caney (@simoncaney) February 11, 2016
Behind the sporting headlines
We frequently hear sportspeople who have lost or are having problems claiming to be their own worst critics which is how it should be, but is very rarely true in the modern world.
Not only are increasingly pampered elite performers ever more touchy about any suggestion that they might do better, they are reinforced in their views by indulgent coaches and protective PR executives. On hearing about the irritation expressed yesterday by Vern Cotter, the hugely salaried Scotland rugby coach, at the nature of the coverage of his side's record setting defeat by England last weekend - an eighth successive loss representing the team's worst losing run ever in the Six Nations version of the competition and worst for more than 60 years in the Championship as a whole - it was impossible not to be reminded of the insightful comments made by one of Scotland's first professional coaches.
Back in the early nineties David Johnston, the 1984 Grand Slam centre who was by then Scotland's backs coach, offered the view that while 'amateurs have an inalienable right to fail' professionals do not. What he was referring to was the different expectations supporters are entitled to have once people are being paid to play rather than giving up their spare time for the cause.
Cotter and his ilk would do well to remember that they and their players are being well rewarded for their efforts and are entitled to have better demanded of them, not least after the hype they basked in when Glasgow Warriors finally won a cross-border competition last year and when Scotland got to the knockout stages of a tournament their executives had tasked them with winning.
If there was a petulant ring to Cotter's words, however, it was nothing to the latest bluster from Sebastian Coe, President of the deeply flawed and increasingly troubled IAAF which is now facing another huge pre-Olympic decision after Kenya, one of the sport's most successful and therefore important nations, was found by the World Anti-Doping Agency, to be failing to do enough to tackle its drug cheats.
Coe was not among those who were given the right to snooze on comfy couches at tax-payers expense through some birthright, but it seems he has adjusted quickly to the sense of entitlement associated with being a peer of the realm and this was just another example as he railed against the decision of Nestle to abandon its association with his organisation, just as Adidas had previously done.
He claimed to have been 'confused and angry' by the position taken by a company which doubtless sought association with a wholesome activity when agreeing the deal only to find that the sport is riven with corruption and on-going doping problems.
Should they choose to make it public it will be fascinating to hear the reaction of Nestle executives to his charge of hypocrisy - on the bizarre basis that they chose to stick with cycling after it's doping problems were received - in the context of some of the previous revelations about the behaviour of the IAAF board.
At a time when it has never been more necessary for sportspeople to be their own worst critics it has also never seemed less likely to be the case.
Thank you for reading. We’ll be back on Monday Kicking Off another week in Scottish sport.
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