Welcome to Kicking Off, the quick way to get up to pace with the day's Scottish sports agenda

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today

 

 

Dancing with danger

The Herald:

Gary Harkins (left) and in-form ex-Rangers striker Kane Hemmings are getting set to head to Ibrox for a match that may have been given an added edge by a throwaway remark from the Dundee captain

 

Hardie attitude

The Herald:

Ryan Hardie is showing the right approach in embracing the chance to emulate Barrie McKay in seeing a loan move as a route into regulars first team football at Rangers

 

Kissing clubmates

The Herald:

Erik Sviatchenko is urging his Celtic colleagues to develop increased belief in themselves when preparing for Continental contests while girlfriend Anna Rudmose is joining him in becoming a Celtic player

 

Walk like a Glaswegian

The Herald:

Former Rangers and Scotland boss Alex McLeish is set to bring his footballing outlook to one of the world's oldest cultures after agreeing a move to Egypt's champion club

 

Picture this

The Herald:

Killie 'keeper Jamie MacDonald believes new boss Lee Clark's visualisation techniques are helping up the team's performance

 

Supersubs strike

The Herald:

Kris Doolan (right) celebrates getting Partick Thistle first goal while fellow sub Davi Amoo claimed the second in their Premiership win over St Johnstone

 

Leading the British challenge again

The Herald:

The Murray brothers are both in the squad for next week's opening match in Britain's defence of the Davis Cup

 

Decision maker

The Herald: Curling's growing profile is giving Eve Muirhead some good but difficult choices

 

Still influential

The Herald: Having captained Scotland more than any other man Greig Laidlaw still believes they can have a big say in this season's Six Nations Championship in spite of continuing their record run of defeats in their first two matches

 

06.05 Radio Scotland sports headlines

Boss Paul Hartley praises Dundee's professionalism and clinical finishing as they cruise past Dumbarton in Scottish Cup... goals from Kris Doolan and David Amoo earn Partick Thistle a Premiership win over St Johnstone... Barcelona extend unbeaten run to 32-games with defeat of Arsenal in Champions League

 

06.32 Radio Five Live sports headlines

Wenger frustrated by Arsenal's lack of discipline as Messi scores twice against his side in Champions League... Juventus come from two behind to earn draw with Bayern... Manchester City set to meet Dynamo Kiev tonight... Hull City stay top of English Championship after the top four teams all claimed wins... Partick Thistle beat St Johnstone in the Scottish Premiership and Dundee knock Dumbarton out of the Scottish Cup... Eddie Jones says Elliot Daly is ready for international action as England aim for a third successive Six Nations win... Australia back at top of cricket's Test rankings after 2-0 series win over New Zealand 

 

 

Read all about it… the back pages

The Evening Times leads with Erik Sviatchenko's warning to his fellow Celtic defenders that they have to up their game to be successful, while Ryan Hardie speaks exclusively about learning from fellow Rangers youngster Barrie McKay's loan experience.

The Dane and his girlfriend Anna Rudmose who is joining Celtic's women's team, also dominate The Herald back page which also has room for Mark Warburton's desire to see a Rangers B team in the lower leagues, anticipation of Dundee's forthcoming visit to Ibrox after their Scottish Cup win over Dumbarton and Greig Laidlaw's view that Scotland can still win the Six Nations Championship.

The National meanwhile leads on Celtic being fined by UEFA, carries a picture from the Dundee game and side panels on Olympian Freya Ross competing in the Scottish National Cross Country as well as Laidlaw's demand that his team get back to winning ways at the scene of their last Six Nations win two years ago.

The Herald:

The Herald:

 

The Herald:

 

Grandstanding - today's Scottish sports comment

Stuart Bathgate casts a pessimistic eye over the state of Scottish rugby in The Herald, but in The National some lighter fare is offered by The Rucker with memories of an English lass who had to be very liberal with her kisses after losing a bet at a Calcutta Cup match.

 

Sporting Twitterati

 

Alex McLeish's move to the land of ancient culture was an open goal for social media:

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile modern culture takes the latest step towards a deification as Lionel Messi answers some of the few remaining criticisms of him:

 

Behind the headlines

The request was an obvious one and the response probably equally so as reporters responded to the PR man's request as to who they would prefer to speak to after Dundee's Scottish Cup win against Dumbarton. Following his headline-grabbing throwaway remark about the prospect of facing 'a new club' at the weekend Gary Harkins had played well in helping ensure that the quarter-final against Rangers at Ibrox would happen and however he sought to elaborate or otherwise it was bound to generate interest.

The request was denied, however, as a much travelled 31-year-old who has been entrusted with Dundee's on-field captaincy, was not considered by either himself, his manager or perhaps just other members of management, with knowing what to say in the face of what was harldy going to be an intensive interrogation.

Whoever is respsonsible for that might want to take a wee look at the photograph above and the backdrop to a save being made by Kilmarnock goal-keeper Jamie MacDonald during his side's meeting with Dundee at the weekend. It is a long way from being unique in showing huge swathes of empty seats and, indeed, there were just a few more than 3500 at Dens Park last night.

Sport needs personalities to generate interest and those seeking to micro-manage every utterance while hoping they can re-generate interest in sport might want to compare images of modern Scottish football crowd scenes with those from the era when players would not only occasionally say the wrong thing but might, for example, give it the Owl and the Pussycat treatment while on international duty. 

This in a week in which some of Scotland's best-known sports photographers discussed on social media the way they were being herded together and given minimal opportunity to come up with something different at photo-shoots, one of them concluding that the ultimate aim of the PR officers involved may be to have a single photographer on duty supplying all outlets, so that the message can be controlled.

They do so at their peril. Loss of diversity of coverage will only accelerate the process of loss of interest. This process of sapping the personality from sport has been the mission of many involved in sporting 'public relations' down the years and examining the impact of that more closely is long overdue.

 

   

 

Thanks for reading. Back tomorrow with another day’s Scottish sports agenda.