His first season as club captain has been about as challenging as it could have been for Aberdeen Grammar’s Jack Burnett.
Grammar find themselves embroiled in a relegation battle for the second successive campaign, the injury problems of 2021-22 swapped for the wild inconsistency of 2022-23.
Burnett, a Grammar stalwart, was appointed club captain last year amid a raft of changes on the back of Premiership relegation.
Piecing together where things have gone wrong this season and trying to see a brighter future for Grammar has been difficult.
“I didn’t anticipate us being in the same position two years in a row and that is challenging,” said Burnett.
“The player pool is quite small, which is another challenge and I feel I carry the weight of that with the number of players we’re able to recruit and keep at Grammar.
“We’ve lost some key players through the season. Patrick Mulholland was a star for us last season, Scott Renfrew was a powerful forward, Patrick Ritchie has left us to join the navy. These are big players who were playing consistently in the Premiership.
“I’ve got a really good network of mates at the club who help me an awful lot. I’ve been at the club all my rugby-playing life; I’m almost as much a fan of Aberdeen Grammar as a player.
“I want the club to do well and succeed, to win on Saturdays and celebrate with the people who come and watch our games. I want that badly. I hope we can give them that on Saturday.
“There’s people at the club who still have a lot to give, people whose journeys with Grammar have just begun. That’s exciting.
“There’s a lot of people trying to do the right thing and it will come good. We will find the bottom of the trough and bounce back up.
“It’s a case of pulling together, until the end of the season, and fighting until the final bell.”
Need for a regroup after Dundee loss
The hammering at the hands of Dundee last weekend came as a huge shock and the magnitude of the defeat was not lost on the players.
It robbed them of another opportunity to claim valuable points, against a team they had already beaten this season.
“I think we realised losing the game puts us in a really difficult position,” said Burnett.
“I wouldn’t say there was necessarily frank discussions; we all know the situation and we all know we’re running out of weeks to accumulate points.
“We all realise losing that game was a pretty big hurdle to fall at. At this stage of the season, with enough points to play for, we expected a better performance from ourselves.
“The mood after the game was pretty sombre. I think people feel we’ve got a point to prove and we’ve played beneath ourselves in a number of games this season.”
Grammar welcome GHK to Rubislaw this weekend, with five games left of the season.
They sit second-bottom of National One and as it stands will be one of three teams to go down, ahead of a league restructure this summer.
“We probably need to focus on one game at a time – not worry about the league table and other results,” added Burnett.
In an ordinary season, when they weren’t restructuring the leagues, we’d be looking at things very differently
“We can’t control referees, the bounce of the ball, the weather; we just have to play rugby the way we know we can. I don’t think we’ve done that this season the way we can.
“It’s frustrating being in the same position two years in a row. In an ordinary season, when they weren’t restructuring the leagues, we’d be looking at things very differently.
“We’d say it was disappointing but that we’d done well to stay in the league. The restructure paints the picture that it’s more disappointing, with the bottom three getting relegated, and makes the job even harder for us.
“We need to remember it is a slightly abnormal year and there have been some good performances along the way – just not as many as we’d like.”
- National 3 leaders Gordonians will not be in action this weekend. Jim Greenwood’s side were due to host Murrayfield Wanderers at Countesswells on Saturday but Wanderers have insufficient players to field a team. The visitors have been docked three points.
Conversation