TOL Rugby Round Table - Male Player Pathways

The Guests

Graeme Thompson [GT]:?Former Performance Director for the Rugby Football League, British Water Polo and British Curling/Wheelchair Curling. Ex Chair of International Rugby League, the world governing body. Played rugby union for Watsonians and West of Scotland.?

Ruaridh Jackson [RJ]:?Former Glasgow Warriors, Harlequins, Wasps and 33-times capped Scotland stand-off/full-back. Remains actively involved with the sport as a coach at Glasgow Academicals in National One. Came through Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen.

John Fletcher [JF]:?Scottish Rugby’s Head of Pathways and Elite Coach Development since December 2021. Previously?spent a decade as England Rugby Head of Player Development Pathway between 2008 and 2018, and six years at Newcastle Falcons as academy manager then Director of Rugby between 2002 and 2008. Played centre for Tynedale, Northampton, Newcastle Gosforth and England A.

Alan Lorimer [AL]:?A former track and field athlete of distinction, with over 40-years under his belt reporting on Scottish rugby for various local and national titles, with a specialist interest in the schools and youth game where he is universally respected for his deep knowledge and balanced opinions.

One of the original TOL reporters, mainly covering the Premiership and age-grade rugby.

Alistair Gray [AG]:?Founder Director of ‘Renaissance & Co’ strategic management consultancy with over 40-years of experience working with leading European PLCs and sports bodies. Former Chair of British Aquatics, British Basketball, Scottish Hockey and other international hockey bodies. Founding Chair of the Scottish Institute of Sport.

Author of 'The Game Changer' published by Routledge in 2019, highlighting how organisations in business and sport have not only improved performance, but also changed the game in their industry.

Has consulted widely, especially at the performance end of team sports. Clients include The English, Scottish and Irish Football Associations, Irish and English Rugby Unions and English Rugby League. Chair of the SFA’s 'Project Brave' working group which initiated a radical overhaul of the academy set-up in Scottish football. He has consulted widely in Ireland including the strategy for the Irish Institute of Sport, the first development plan for Irish Rugby and several reviews of Ireland’s performance following the Rugby World Cups over the last 20 years. Managing director of Genesis, the consulting firm that authored a wide-ranging review of Scottish rugby in 2003.

The Host

David Barnes [DB]:?Failed club player with Hawick, Edinburgh Accies and Trinity Accies. Freelance rugby journalist since 2004. Owner and editor of The Offside Line since 2016.

The Venue

The Duke's Umbrella?on Argyle Street in Glasgow offers creative takes on pub classics, including vegan versions, showcased in old-fashioned surroundings.? The Duke's menus encompass an array of gastro-pub classics, from lunch to Sunday roast, fish and chips to sausage and mash.

Start at the beginning

DB:?“The catalyst to this event was?an article written by Graeme which we published on The Offside Line at the start of February?discussing the male performance pathway in Scottish rugby, the challenges it faces and what needs to happen going forward. It prompted a refreshingly healthy debate in the comments sections on our site and on LinkedIn, which was largely thanks to Graeme’s willingness to engage positively with those who comments.

“Then, less than two weeks later, the Scottish Rugby Union released?an update of their male performance pathway review,which revealed that Super Series is to be scrapped [almost certainly after this Spring’s Sprint competition], with the funding to be redirected towards an expanded academy programme where the age ceiling will be raised from 20 to 23, as well as a new focus professional ‘A’ team matches at international and pro level in order to provide our best emerging players with appropriate game-time.

“So, seeing as you started this Graeme, why don’t you kick off the discussion by giving us your thoughts on that male performance pathway update?

GT:?“I think my initial reaction was that it is headed in the right direction. Glasgow and Edinburgh academies being more proactive – with more competitive games, better quality of coaching, better environments for players in the 18-20 age bands, some of the things I think will make a difference.

“I have concerns around the birth of the strategy. To me, this is going to be a long, hard road, because as?Nigel Carolan, the Glasgow Warriors assistant coach who has an intimate knowledge of Irish rugby, said last year:?Scotland are ten years behind,?so it's going to take a long time to play catch-up, never mind get ahead of the game.

“This is a massive turnaround process we’re talking about here, and you've got to keep the resources going, you've got to keep believing in it even when it's not producing results after two or three years.

“And there's a lot of information to put around it, a lot of flesh on the bones, and an awful lot of work to do. I think that was admitted in?the interview TOL published with?Stevie Gemmell,?Al Kellock?and?Keith Wallace.

“It's a concern that?Jim Mallinder?inherited Super6, and now we're going to have another Performance Director inherit another strategy, albeit there's some signs that this could be one that is heading in the right direction.

"I just hope it's going to be followed through, and I'm talking about the Board, the new Performance Director and the new Chief Executive. They've got to be really committed because this is five-year minimum to see a difference – it's probably a six- or seven-year project.

"This can't be an initiative, it has to be a long-term strategy to get us to be competitive so that domestically developed players who are coming out of youth clubs and schools are actually going to be part of the Scotland men's national team future, because it's gone from 80 percent Scottish developed players at the 2011 World Cup, down to 58 percent in 2019 and 52 percent in 2023.

“Now, you could actually argue: Does that matter if results are good? But I’d worry about the long-term consequences of that approach.”

AG:?“In 2005, Scotland were already at least ten years behind professional rugby in Ireland. We did the first development strategy for Irish rugby in 2000, and that was built on the provinces, so you had the Ireland national team, then Leinster, Munster and Ulster, while Connacht fought like hell to get themselves a strong professional team. And the whole thing was integrated with the provincial branches having their own CEO, the pro team was part of it, then you had an under-18 squad, an under-16 squad, and under-14 squad. All of them were thinking?‘I am wearing Ronan O’Gara’s shirt and I’m playing for Munster’?from a very early age.

“And things like sports science standards weren’t left to individual schools. They have standards which the IRFU brought down through the provinces, into the schools, into the youngsters, and they all got good game time.

“I think your challenge is right, Graeme. Does it matter where the kids come from? And are we just trying to build on something that's weak in terms of the early part of the pathway?

“It would be really helpful to have reliable figures for participation levels for boy’s rugby across Scotland. How has it survived lockdown? And how do we not only reach but also make a real impact with these budget-strapped schools who don't play team sports because they're too expensive and the teachers don't want to spend the time? There's a number of chronic weaknesses in the system."

AL:?“It's not actually a weakness, it's a reality that state-school rugby players have to seek their rugby through clubs – that is the only way because state schools bar the very odd exception, like Peebles High School, and Carrick Academy but even that's gone now, have to play through clubs.

“The question is, are we doing enough to maximise the talent with, roughly speaking, 95 percent of youngsters educated in the state sector? Now, if you look at the numbers who actually come from the state sector and then make it to the upper echelons of the game … 95 percent is not the figure!

“So, we're over-reliant on the independent sector at the moment, and this is unsustainable because even the independent sector is down to probably about five or six schools playing it seriously.

“And even then, it is going to creak. What happens if VAT is added to school fees or they lose their charitable status? Is there going to be an exodus from private schools?

“The top rugby-playing private schools have essentially set the height of the bar because what they do is fantastic, but they have all the advantages going for them – they can train in daylight, they've got acres of playing fields, they've got specialist people on campus to deal with strength and conditioning, and they've got very good coaches."

?DB:?“Where does the performance pathway start? We talk a lot about the players in the academy, but we know there are guys in the state/club sector who are not getting access to these advantages Alan has described, and the longer they go without that extra coaching and support the academy can offer, the wider the gap will grow, and the more reliant we become on the small number coming through certain private schools.”

JF:?“It starts at 15, for obvious reasons around maturation. In terms of our playing base, there's about 2,500 to 3,000 under-15s play rugby in Scotland, with about 25 percent of that number coming through the initial talent search by being nominated by their club or school.

“Other nations have different numbers and different environments – doesn't mean it's better or worse, it's just different."

Best versus best

RJ:?“I’d be interested in seeing a deeper analysis of the Irish structure. It's no secret that Irish success recently is very much built around Leinster, but it would be really useful to understand that better and maybe identify what we can learn from those guys. We’ve got five or six schools in Scotland who are doing really well. Ireland and Leinster are pretty much the same, where they have five or six top schools where a really high percentage of top players come through that school system.

“So, I don't know if anyone here has any experience of that school structure and why it has been such a success?”

AL:?“It’s actually a much higher number than that. Ireland have a huge number of independent schools, and one of the reasons for that is that the fees at independent schools are about a third of what is charged in Scotland because the Irish government pays the salaries of the teaching staff. So, the schools are very affordable for a lot of people.

“It's useful to look at Ireland from a certain point of view, but I think we can't begin to compare ourselves with them because we just do not have that high percentage of independent schools.

“We'd probably be better looking at what's happening in Italy, who have done very well in the under-20 Six Nations, not just this this year but for the last six or seven years. They're producing good players, and these players are now coming into the senior team. So, what are they doing that is so good?

“Well, it’s similar to France – although admittedly France have got huge numbers so in a way the system doesn't matter – where it's not done through schools, it’s done through clubs.

“I think we should be looking at this 95 percent who are in state school education and trying to make that work through the clubs.”

GT:?“My understanding of what happens in Italy is that six or seven years ago they brought in this strategy where at under-18 level you went to an Italian rugby union school, overseen by the FIR, then at 19-20 you would move to what I would call the professional academies.

“Now, they have slightly changed that part over the last two or three years, so now they still have four academies but two of them are very much more aligned with Benetton and Zebre, because?Conor O’Shea?and?Stephen Aboud?from Ireland had created a structure which was quite centralised and people felt they wanted more connection with the professional club.

“But there are things you can do. If?you look at what's happened down south, you have a Premiership under-18 academy league [split into north and south] played over seven rounds of matches televised online.

“Most of the English rugby union fraternity will be independent schools as well, and because it has gone down to one term –?as it essentially has in Scotland with the conference system – the professional clubs have a chance to intervene and begin to create their own environments for their future players earlier.

“You have to respect the school environment because they are autonomous organisations who do a really important job at the start of the player pathway, but these English clubs have made it very clear that they want best versus the best, and they want their kids coming into professional environments.

“That brings us back to the numbers issue. In Ireland they can produce four teams to play against each other, whereas in Scotland I don’t think we have the numbers to do that. But do we have the ability to create two squads, bring them together more often and maybe try to get some more game-time against peers – like go over and run a development camp with the Irish or the Italians – just give them more exposure to younger players so that they understand that where they are at domestically is really good, but you’ve got to benchmark yourself to understand where you are internationally.”

AL:?“To be fair, we actually do that. We send two or three squads down to Wales to play a cross-border competition at under-16 level ...

GT:?“But I think it needs to be more than that. There's not enough competition."

AL:?"Have we got the right competitive structure set up internally? The conference system went half-way, I believe, but if you're going for the full 100 percent you have to have the best playing against the best and that means we have to have the clubs playing against the schools, which we don't.

“The other thing is that the clubs who are managing to make an impact at under-18 level right now – Boroughmuir is the foremost of them, West of Scotland are doing well, Ayr are doing well ?– they've realised what has got to be done within our youth structure and implemented that to get it up and working. In Boroughmuir's case I know it's taken a lot of business input and they have that expertise on their Board, but that is still only getting them maybe three quarters of the way to where Merchiston or Watson’s are.

“So, it's moving in the right direction, but there is only the three of them at that level. Stirling have tailed off a wee bit although hopefully they'll come back again, and you’ve got the odd ones coming in like Mackie who have made a bit of an impact recently but face a big challenge to sustain what they've done in the last two years.

“One of the problems I see with youth rugby, and I see it a lot in the Borders, is that there's not the coaching expertise going into it, and it would be rather good if we could see the top coaches coming down and giving sessions to the likes of Hawick Youth or Jed Thistle, to show their coaches and their young players what is required.”

DB:?“That’s a real bee in my bonnet. We talk about needing more depth but speaking from personal experience of my son’s under-14 team of state-school kids in Edinburgh, I’ve never seen anybody from the SRU along having a look at what is there and how they are being coach. Now, I take the point that the pathway starts at 15, but I’m afraid I don’t have much faith that we are really looking closely outside the traditional ‘hotbeds’ for want of a better phrase.

GT:?“You've got to be careful here because at under-14 there will be a lot of kids who haven't gone through that maturation by that point, so you are investing in kids who haven’t had a chance to biologically make some significant changes.

“Every sport is different. Pathways are about giving experiences and giving evidence to talent ID to make good decisions on. And each year you should have to reprove yourself. So, I actually think where the pathway starts at the moment makes a lot of sense, and most in rugby league and union are probably starting around that same time.?

“I think ?what Alan said about the governing body grappling with this issue between clubs and schools is interesting. The schools are an autonomous body who do what they want to do, and the governing body negotiates with them and tries to get them to go for structures to help with talent development. But, actually, what most governing bodies end up doing, like the Premiership down in England, is say:?'We've changed as much as we can and now we’re going to create our own activity, which is under our banner in our manner'.

"I think the SRU has got to acknowledge the schools programme, acknowledge the benefits, but recognise its weaknesses, and say this is what we are going to put in to try to add to the experiences there, so that when players come out at 17-18 they are more ready. That might be physical conditioning. It might be exposing them to more games. It might even be something more holistic like?‘what is the life of a professional player?’.?It might be educating the parents about what they're doing to support their kid.”

AG:?“Best versus best needs to be competitive with the best referees and the best facilities and the best pitches. It needs to be these players playing roughly 20 to 23 games a year in a competitive environment.

"Ireland have it with their 'Interpro' – provincial – tournaments at different age group levels, and unless we get that from age 14 to 16 in terms of the performance pathway – forget the participation side – we are not giving ourselves a chance. Glasgow and Edinburgh should immediately start to develop that approach supported by the other regions in Scotland.”

Winning isn't everything

JF:?“I'm going to chuck it out there that just because you are successful at age-group, there is no correlation that you’ll be successful at seniors. There just isn't.

"Does anyone know off the top of their head who the under-20 team is that have only won the World Cup once?"

DB:?“The All Blacks?”

JF:?“South Africa. And in terms of northern hemisphere, only England and France have won it .

“Having said that, we definitely need to consider what Ireland have done, because they have come off the rails a bit and are definitely ahead in terms of their under-20 performances and then into their seniors. It is really interesting because they weren't that competitive a small number of years ago, whereas now they're really competitive. To beat France in France at under-20 is a considerable achievement, and they've beaten England twice in recent years, so we definitely need to consider what they're doing.

“They went to a centralised model through the work that Stephen Aboud did ?[before he went to Italy], and they’ve had a big spike. They got the players in more often, they really intensified their training and their environment, more time on task and physically they do now mature quite well and quite quickly.

“Often with the French and the Italians, their physical maturity would be ahead of the Anglo Saxons, and it does make a big difference in a sport like ours because your physical maturity is a performance advantage, so we're working really hard on our physical development, but, actually, it is just the case that lots of our players physically mature a bit later.

“Our genetic pool is different to other people’s – more like the Irish and the Welsh – and in Ireland they do now definitely have a bit of a spike around 16 to 18, mainly in their private schools, because they go really hard around their physical development. They have a big competition focus, and they know that you'll win games of rugby if you're physically quite able.

“Our private schools do a lot of amazing stuff but I think it's only recently that they've been a bit more intentional around the physical development stuff, certainly compared to the Irish where if you look at their facilities and the schedule of their week it will be different to our private schools.

“It is something always worth considering that just because you're good in age group, there's no guarantee you're going to be good at seniors. It makes sense and it should work like that, but it doesn't always."?

GT:?“I take your point there but when I looked at the U20s World Championships, South Africa have only won it once, however their average finishing position the last ten years would put them up in the top two or three in my view.

“So, I would say there is still a benchmark that gives you some kind of trend analysis.

“I would never take one set of results, but there is stuff there ... because we've actually seen the rise of Ireland and France in the last six or seven years which has correlated with their under-20s performances.

“I agree that there's an unfair focus on results each year, and they've been particularly difficult for Scotland. But I think if you take trends, it is something that is worthy of benchmarking. Because when you're trying to develop talent over six or seven years, you need to be able to say:?'Are we on track?'?Are we improving our position over time??Over the last five years we used to be in the top five, and now we're actually in the top three, even though we might not have ever actually won it.'

AG:?“Points difference as well is quite important. Are we getting better? Are we getting closer to the top teams?"

AL:?“John, are you saying, really, that because Scottish players perhaps mature a wee bit later that we shouldn't get so tied up about the results in the under-20s?"

JF:?“I'm not necessarily saying it as crudely as that, but I do think you always need to be mindful around age-group rugby that clearly winning is an important part and it is definitely something that we do measure, but it also needs to be considered that the two main things that will impact on your result in age-group rugby will be your physical maturity and your depth.

“In our sport – even at age-grade level – a percentage of your team will be injured, so the depth of your squad is something you have to consider.

“I do think we as people involved in the system need to be more explicit about what is important. And sometimes people don't like to talk about it, but there's certain parts of our program at certain times of year where it's more important to win than others.

“The World Trophy is a results-based competition, where we have to go and win it. As simple as that. I personally feel as though the Six Nations for under-20s is not just about winning, and we are quite explicit about that internally, but I think we just need to be a bit braver in saying publicly that at this stage of development, certain games are a six out of ten or a five out of ten in terms of the importance of winning, and we're actually going after other stuff like combinations, trying one or two people in new positions, style and identity of rugby, which is all more important at this stage.

“Obviously as they get older, everybody's aware that the importance of winning soon becomes ten out of ten at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Scotland.

“This conversation has made me think that sometimes we don't have those conversations or don't want to put it out there about what we are really trying to achieve, and then we just end up taking a bit of a kicking.

“You can't do everything all the time with young players. There has to be a curricular type approach to development, with competition part of that but not the be-all and end-all.

“Certainly, in my time with England, there'd be two games at under-18 where he number one measure is the result of this game, but that was only two games out of about a 12-game program.”

“My view around the Scottish youth system and the pathway is that our best players are as good as anybody else's in the world. We have some very talented players and what will happen in the future is a number of these youngsters are maybe playing in teams that are not being that effective, but they will become really, really good players. But we just don't have as many as the big nations.”?

AL:?“We've done reasonably well at under-18 level at the Six Nations festivals which which were introduced about four or five years ago, but it doesn't seem to kick on. Is that perhaps because of the lack of an under-19 team? Would that be worth concentrating on again?'

JF:?“That is definitely something that we're currently looking at … what happens when they move from that quite protected world around the under-18s into, essentially, adult rugby?

“There's also some things to consider with the under-18s, such as that the games are only 35 minutes [per half] long, and the the scrum is de-powered significantly and we probably all noticed that was a part of the game where our under-20s struggled against the likes of England during this Six Nations.

“And I'll go back to it, from being involved in the pathway for a number of years, Scottish players are skilful at 18 and they can compete because not many teams at under-18 will really push the drive at the scrum and line-out. People take each other on in terms of ball in hand quite a lot instead. Whereas under-20s is more akin and closer to the senior game, where people are trying to tactically find an advantage. And currently people have worked it out over the last couple of years that they can go at Scottish Under-20 teams mainly through their scrum and their line-out drive, as we saw against England – not so much the French – during this Six Nations."

Age is just a number

GT:?“There was a comment in the pathway review update that we're going to make decisions about players based on their performance, not their age, which is really important.

“You could be in the academy at 24. If that's where you're at, that's where you're at. I'm really interested in that because, to me, that's where the gains can be made.

“Take physical conditioning: you've got to be in really great facilities with really great people giving you dedicated support and not just part of a 45-player squad all in together.

“So, John, do you foresee that there is a greater chance that they will be in more professional environments – world class is a phrase that's often used – compared to over the last five or six years?”

JF:?“That's what the intention is. And it's also bumping into people, isn't it? Deliberately being inspired by the people around you, Scottish international players, players from all over the world. What we want is, when our best young players leave school they will be attached and more associated to the club, probably playing their systems a little bit earlier, wearing their shirt, coaches are much more likely to take notice of you in that environment than in the previous club environments.

“However, lots of the young players will continue to play in our club game as well, which I also think is important at times because you're playing against men, you're playing in a competition that has a different element as well. So, I think the blend is quite nice. It's a combination of: a national age-group programme, so people your age; 'A' games, so you're attached and you associate and you could be playing alongside somebody like Ruaridh a couple of years ago which will really challenge and stretch you; and then playing in clubland as well.

“And sometimes clubland gets a real bashing but I think it's really important because occasionally players, especially around the forwards, will get a huge amount of benefit from playing in the top end of clubland."

Back to the future

RJ:?“It seems like we're almost going back to the structure that was in place when I came through. I was at school in Aberdeen and?Sean Lineen?spotted me at a competition and pulled me into the Glasgow academy when I was 18. I was training every day with Glasgow Warriors and there were some sessions which were more separate and academy focused, but a lot of the rugby I was doing was integrated with the senior team.?So, I was training with?Dan Parks?and all these internationals, and that experience was brilliant for me.

"However, I was also playing club rugby for Cartha in Premier Two – I wasn’t even in the top flight – and I was playing rugby week in and week out with and against adults, which is a big step up from schoolboy rugby, even if you’ve played Scotland Under-18s against other international teams.

“Club rugby is physical, it's competitive and I think with Super6 disbanding and some of the better players dripping back in – which I hope is the case – we'll make it even more competitive and professionalised.

“Then, the following year, when I was 19, it suddenly got centralised and all I was doing was training with academy kids – there was a couple of guys older than me but we were all kids – and it was just training, not playing enough and it was not as productive a year for me.

“So, I think the big thing that's been missing recently, especially with the Super6, is young guys playing rugby week in and week out, and just learning rugby, because you can do all the training you want, you can do all the gym work you want, but unless you're experiencing game situations, you will never develop into an intuitive, world-class rugby player.

“I'm not saying club rugby is the thing that's going to define you as an international player, but it gives you a really good grounding and understanding of just playing rugby – and that is the ultimate learning tool.

"Yes, learning good habits, professional habits, how you train, the analysis of games, that's all very important in a professional situation. But the biggest learnings you have is in playing rugby.

“I think the introduction of an ‘A’ league is very good. I don't know how many games you've got lined up for next year, but if you're playing against other professional outfits and you've all been training in that professional environment, it gives you that sense of:?'I'm representing Glasgow Warriors’?or ‘I'm representing Edinburgh Rugby’. I remember doing that as an 18-year-old and being absolutely buzzing for it. It was a step up, but then when those games weren't available I was back playing for Cartha, I was back playing for Hawks, whoever it was, and I just played so much rugby.”

'A' team principles

DB:?“Is the 'A' team fixture schedule going to be competitive? How many games will there be? Will it be a league? How confident are you of getting a proper schedule of genuinely competitive matches?

JF:?“People are working really hard on that, and everybody recognises that it is vital. The ‘A’ league is what we're going after. Those games need to be appropriate. Ultimately, we know that young players need to play.

DB:?“But is this plan realistic? English Premiership clubs seem to be looking less and less towards running ‘A’ teams, and more towards their guys being loaned out to play in the Championship instead. We also know from the Super6 experience that it is dangerous to align too closely to Welsh rugby because it has its own problems and cannot be relied on for cross-border games. Is it not a bit of a gamble to be putting our eggs in somebody else's basket?

JF:?“There is no ‘A’ league in England but the vast majority – if not all – will play ‘A’ team games. Everybody's got the same problems. Big squads, people coming out of their academies at 18 and 19 and needing time on task and needing to do all of the stuff that you need to do in order to perform for your first team. It’s kind of like all of the mistakes need to be out of you by the time you get into the first team. So, ‘A’ team games happen all the time in all of the environments."

AG:?"Is there no interest in the URC clubs forming an ‘A’ League?"

JM:?“Those conversations are happening. I'm not actually directly involved with that so I genuinely don't know that much about it other than we are talking to all of the URC teams and the English clubs, who don’t have an ‘A’ league but play ‘A’ games and like us want their players in their shirt playing meaningful fixtures which they have more control over to develop their systems, look at combinations and so on.”

GT:?“In most professional team sports over the last 15 years, they've got rid of ‘A’ teams. Football did it. Rugby League did it. Chief Executives hate 'A' teams because you're paying a lot of money with only about four or five people who are either coming back from injury or coming through the ranks providing a return on investment. So, what you've seen in England is a move towards loaning them out to Championship clubs. Sale loan their players out to Doncaster, who are the layer below. So, it’s the loan system that has replaced it.

“But it’s like any business, when you're creating a product or service: if you outsource it then you can't control the quality of that environment, and that was my problem with Super6,?who had just moved from being amateur to semi-professional, which was a fantastic achievement, but it wasn't enough to create the kind of environments that people needed to progress to be Scottish internationals.

“We saw that they centralised the Scotland under-20s into one club in effect, which was essentially Scottish Rugby saying that we don't trust putting these good players across the six Super Series clubs so we're going to bring you into our own environment and control it.

"With an ‘A’ teams you actually have control of that environment and?I think that even if there's not a competitive league then you just try and pick up as many games as possible, because competition is great but there's something there that Ruaridh said about it being great to get that learning of rugby at Prem Two level but the minute you pulled on that Glasgow shirt, that's where your sense of longing was, that's where your first loyalty was even before Scotland, because that's who you're with every day and that’s where you get your chance to impress your academy coach for your next contract, or so you get into the first team the next time there's a space."

Falling between the cracks

DB:?"Is there still scope for a guy who is maybe not ready to play at ‘A’ team level or hasn't made the academy to go to the club game and not be out of the picture altogether? Because I think there's maybe a breakdown in communication, and I think it creates anxiety in clubland because it quite often sounds like:?‘We're the performance environment, so we're just gonna take all the players and you guys do what you want with what’s left over, but remember that you?don't?have a role to play in what we're?trying to do’.

“I'm thinking of a game that I reported on recently, which was Marr versus Currie in the Premiership. These are two of the better clubs in that league and they will both tell you that they didn't produce their best rugby that Friday night. It was a scrappy game. But it was a dogfight. It was an absolute war and you looked at it and thought:?‘That wouldn't be a bad thing for a 19-year-old Ruaridh Jackson to go and play in’.?I mean, he would come off it thinking he hadn't played very well, but he'd have learned how he had to win that game no matter what."

GT:?“Not every player will get an academy contract first of all. The front row is the most obvious one where it might take two or three years until they are ready. But the majority of the players who will play pro in the future will go through the academy – maybe 60 or 70 percent.

“Somebody might come out at 19, 20 or 21 having only played the club game –?Jamie Bhatti,?who was 23 when he signed for Glasgow, is a great example of that – and that should always be possible, but you actually want to try and influence those careers as early as possible.

“There will also be plenty people who are stars at 19 and nothing at 23. That happens in every single sport. So, I see the club game as a chance to promote late developers and I also see it as an outlet for where people are contracted to academies and need a certain number of games as a learning mechanism. But they cannot be solely reliant on the club game for all their experiences because it's not strong enough.

“I know it's tough because I've been there in rugby league when I've sat with amateur clubs who are saying:?‘You take all our kids away at 16!’.?Shaun Edwards?signed at two minutes past midnight for Wigan on his birthday, because he was known to be really good, and Wigan St Patrick’s [Edwards’ junior team] were a bit upset. So, there's always that tension whenever the professionals take the amateurs. It's then also about managing those relationships, and what can the professionals give back in terms of knowledge, in terms of time and so on.

AG:?“One of the first moves should be to really empower Glasgow and Edinburgh, like an Irish province. The worst thing you can do is centralise it into the SRU. Then you can surely rank clubs by tracking their record in bringing young players through, so that they can be recognised and rewarded as almost feeder clubs or support clubs.

“In the work I did with the Scottish FA, the key thing was playing time for 18- to 24-year-olds. Previously they bench-warmed, and we managed, through a working group called Project Brave, to actually make sure the clubs were rewarded for the number of first-team minutes the young players got.

“But more importantly, we redesigned the loan scheme. There is a brilliant story about when?Kenny Dalglish?joined Celtic, and in his first meeting with?Jock Stein?he was solemnly told:?‘Son, I'm loaning you out to Cumbernauld for next season’. And his dreams were dashed. Playing centre-forward for Celtic had been his goal. But when he looked back later he said it was the best thing he could have done because he was playing against these 35-year-old centre-halves who thought they could kick him around the place, and he ran rings around them to score 37 goals, but he learned so much in that environment.

“So, the SFA have transformed the loan scheme so that 18- to 24-year-olds are now getting game time, and the likes of?Nathan Patterson,?Billy Gilmour?and a number of the other youngsters are coming through, not only the club academies but the performance schools which were started in Edinburgh and Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee. And there is a terrific record of those youngsters getting professional contracts at 18, and the much-maligned SFA have actually done quite a lot of good things as a direct result of that.”

Talent ID

DB:?“When we did the media briefing for the player pathway update, there was a lot of really positive things about how we're going to invest in the academies and we're going to work on improving the under-18s programme, but the clubs weren't really mentioned until I brought it up. The response was positive –?‘we see the clubs as an important part of this’– but it did feel like a bit of an afterthought. So, my concern is that there isn’t really a desire there to really push the club game so it can be part of the player pathway, and the danger is that we end up without a mechanism for the players who are not picked up at 16, 17 or 18 to still make it – such as?Gregor Hiddleston?who went from Dumfries Saints in National Two at the time to GHA in the Premiership in the summer of 2021 when he was 18, then onto Stirling Wolves in Super6, then onto a partnership contract with Glasgow?and is now on a full-time deal with Glasgow. And if we don’t hardwire the club game into the performance vision, then we run the risk of that level becoming disenfranchised and just floating away from the pro game, and you won’t attract quality coaching or have playing environments where the likes of Hiddleston can come through."

GT:?"That comes down to the quality of your talent ID. The performance game and the club game are two separate entities in terms of what they provide. We could be like football where they're signing six-year-olds in the English Premiership but I think that's ridiculous because how you can actually predict anything there is beyond understanding. That's more about fear of missing out.

“There's some point in any kind of talent ID process where you have to make decisions because you cannot keep investing across the whole of the pyramid. But you should never then cut your nose off to spite yourself.

“I looked at rugby league and the retention rate of who from the 14-year-old national programme was still there at 15, and if it was up at 80 or 90 percent I'd be concerned because it's like a self-perpetuating prophecy. It's actually round about 55-60 percent, and you don't want it to be down at 30 percent because then you've invested in people who were never going to make it.

“I had a conversation with the guy in Ireland who runs their 16-to-20 programmes. He talks about many different eyes and many different moments, so by the time they make decisions they have seen this player in different environments, including non-pitch. ie. What are they like as a person? What is their attitude?

“So, there is talent out there in the club game and there has to be a network – probably informal – where the SRU, Glasgow and Edinburgh still keep an eye on the 19, 20, 21-year-olds.”

RJ:?“I think we have to spread the talent ID a bit further, it's still got to get up north which I’m perhaps a bit biased about being an Aberdonian.

“But also, once they get into the pathway program, when they are 18 or 19, I think there is a couple of let-downs with the SRU which I have experienced in my role with Glasgow Accies because there's no real links between the clubs and the academies right now. Players will maybe get farmed out to Glasgow Hawks because they are the Premiership team in the city, but there's no actual dialogue with other clubs like GHK, GHA or indeed Glasgow Accies, and half these guys end up playing for Hawks twos which is not beneficial for anyone.

“We have a young nine,?Stewart Black, who came to us as an 18-year-old and played 60 to 70 percent of our games as a starter this year in senior rugby. He's now going off to New Zealand to play for a season out there and then he'll come back and probably play with Accies again, but hopefully he progresses and makes the step up because that's a success for me.

“But right now there's no dialogue between the professional set-ups and the clubs in terms of identifying the best place for each player to be. I'd like to?see an uptake in talent ID coming and watching the club games. I'd be very surprised if there's been anyone from the SRU, Glasgow or Edinburgh who has come to watch a Glasgow Accies game. I'm not saying we're setting the world on fire, but we've got some talented youngsters with about a quarter of our regular team under 22.

“What is the scouting network that goes out watching these players regularly in competitive games? Because that's when you start seeing a few things that maybe you don't see in a training session or a gym – these guys might not hit peak squat scores or bench presses or best Broncos, but actually on the field you might see something a bit like Finn Russell when he came through at Falkirk with a bit of X-Factor about him and somebody thought let’s take a chance on him.”

A two-way street

JF:?“I think it's a great question. Ultimately, the focus will be on those players who are identified.

“I do think it works both ways, where a club coach can say:?‘I think you might have missed this person’,?because the staff count is relatively small in the pathway programme which means we are thinly spread in terms getting out there and watching club games.

"In terms of agreeing where the players play, I think what you’ve said absolutely makes sense. I think we all agree they need to play. The report talks a lot about players?‘playing up’?to get that stretch and that challenge, however an 18-year-old in National One is?‘playing up’, especially in the forwards.

“All of this needs to be individualised and it needs to be the right thing for this person. It might be a case of going to Glasgow Accies until Christmas and then they're looking to go to Hawks. The key is they need to play.

“But I'm not going to say that SRU academy staff are going to be watching lots and lots of club rugby just in case. There's not enough staff for that to happen. As it happens, I do watch a lot of Premiership because my son played in that game which was mentioned earlier – Currie versus Marr – so I'm doing some social experiments at this moment in time!

“I’m confident that the club game will continue doing what it does all over the world – and the universities down in England do – which is help people get into those environments and thrive and then move into the professional environment and do well there if they are good enough. And that is much more likely to be a forward because there’s definitely some backs like Finn who this would apply to but it is much trickier to identify forwards and they don’t as often really stand out at a younger age.”

GT:?“I absolutely agree about it being a two-way street, but I think it's about relationships. So if you went down to Wigan Warriors, you'd see the guy there who is the head of youth bringing in all the people that he trusts in the local clubs probably twice a year, looking after them, inviting them to games, but also saying this is what we're looking for and giving them some insight so that you actually feel bought in to being the eyes and ears. So, there's got to be a talent interface strategy.

“That brings me to an important point which I think is a real issue: who is accountable for developing the talent? Because I can't work out whether it's centralised or whether it's Glasgow and Edinburgh. In my view, it shouldn't be overly centralised – Edinburgh and Glasgow should lead the way – but geographically the SRU as the governing body needs to put in something that allows the next Aberdeen kid or the next Borders kids to still gravitate into the pathway.

"Whose job is it to get more young players into Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors’ first team? Who is the head of youth? Accountability drives people and people know who to go to.”

JF:?“In terms of the male game up to 18, that's me. Then at under-20s it's the two pro academy managers,?Kris Burneyand?Shade Munro, with?Kenny Murray?from a national point of view. And what you are talking about is our intention of how it should work. At 18 years of age, and then for the next year to two years, there needs to be conversations about where players are going, and you're probably aware that Caledonia, Glasgow and the West feeds Glasgow Warriors generally, while the Borders, East Lothian and Edinburgh feed Edinburgh Rugby. I think it is definitely our intention that those two environments have a stronger connection with those regions.

“The SQ [Scottish Qualified] programme is another big part of it. People who are out of the country, either they've moved out or they've been out for some time, but qualify to play in Scotland, that's a conversation on where is the opportunities to play in Scotland.

"And we do run quite sophisticated depth charts, so we have quite a lot of information about what's coming through from under-15 all the way into our senior international set-up, and there are sometimes some quite robust conversations about where a player should go.”

Pro team quotas

DB:?“The recent Scottish Rugby Male Performance Pathway Review update revealed that a new ‘Professional Game Agreement’ is to be created to ensure minimum numbers of Scottish Qualified players in Scotland’s two professional team squads.?I don’t think we know at this point what exactly that will look like, but do we welcome the principle?

“And, also, what are the roles of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Is it to win the URC? Is it to be competing for silverware? Or is it just about having teams that are geared towards sustaining the national team?

AG:?“We faced the same thing in football, and the goal which they eventually all bought into was to produce more better international players, playing more better football, more often. And everything was aligned towards that.

“Even Celtic and Rangers, who are leagues apart in terms of income and everything else, bought into this notion of being rewarded for producing players for underage Scottish teams and so on.”

DB:?“And if you get that right, presumably the hope is that feeds the other, which is you become successful with a different make-up of your squad – with more Scots qualified players.

GT:?“I don’t think you have to choose because Leinster and Ireland seem to do pretty well.

“The ironic thing here is that most sports start looking at their talent development because the first team is not doing very well. So?Scottish football called in Alistair?because we hadn’t been to a World Cup or the European Championships since year dot. Whereas up until about four months ago the Scotland men’s rugby team was ranked fifth in the world. So, this is driven by the Chairman?John McGuigan?saying he wants to see more domestic developed players.

“What could happen –?and Edinburgh had a go at this?– is we see 16, 17 and 18-year-old South African players appearing so that we can say they’re domestically developed. You say ‘no’, but I’ve had arguments in rugby league where you’ve got to be home trained and we’ve had lawyers involved because we can’t have restraint of trade, and clubs will find a way to get around it. Now the unique situation here is, the governing body might set the rules and then try to get around their own rules to meet the outcomes they want.

“So, I think it’s about whatever you put into a system. If it’s better goes into the system, you’ll get better outcomes. So I don’t think you have to worry too much.

“I also think there must be some fascinating discussions at the top between?Gregor Townsend, Sean Everitt?and?Franco Smith,?but that’s for them to work out.?It’s certainly better than for the RFU who have to go to the clubs and negotiate a financial settlement, and?Steve Borthwick?has to deal with ten different club coaches who don’t give a monkeys in reality about England, although they’ll never say that publicly.

“So, I don’t worry too much at the top end of that. It’s more what you put in will decide how successful you are.”

RJ:?“And I do think a successful Glasgow and Edinburgh will inspire local communities. A winning team is definitely beneficial.

“I should also say that there is a bit about this that makes me uneasy, which is judging who is Scottish enough to play for Scotland.

“Technically, I’m a foreign-born Scot. I was born in England and was there for six months because my dad was in transit with work before we came back to Scotland. So I’ve never once considered myself English, I would never have thought of playing for England, but I’m one of those statistics where people say: ?‘Look how many non-Scots play for Scotland’. You can always skew stats to support your rhetoric.

“Yes, you want Scottish players playing for Scotland, and I think we’ve maybe gone slightly too far sometimes. But, ultimately, right now Duhan is a try-machine and there can’t be that many Scottish people upset that he’s decided to play for Scotland. And he will inspire other young Scottish people because they see what he’s doing … even if I don’t think any Scottish person will ever look like?Duhan van der Merwe!

DB:?“I suppose the concern that I have about it, and why I welcome the fact that there’s going to be a quota, is not because of the Duhans of this world, but because too often we’re going for a journeyman 30-year-old as a ready-made solution to an immediate problem.”

GT:?“If I’m Glasgow or Edinburgh and you’re saying my line-up has got to look like that, then I want a bit more control over how they [the mandated Scottish players] appear. In a manufacturing sense, I’ve got to have 15 widgets and seven of them look like this, well I want to influence the supply chain of those widgets. I’m not waiting to see if somebody else might do it – I’m not outsourcing it. And it’s not necessarily a?Franco Smith?problem because he’s just thinking about the next game and his next contract, it’s the strategic person, the?Al Kellock?or the head of youth saying:?‘I’ve got to look after this because in five years’ time we’ve got a quota to meet’.

“You could take a policy of saying: we can’t actually create the environments we require so let’s try and get all our players down into the English Premiership. I know that’s not possible because of the sort of the money that comes from the RFU that almost blocks it. But Cricket Scotland will try and place players abroad because they can’t create the environment, Scottish Hockey too, it even happens in a slightly different way in Scottish football where?Billy Gilmour,?one of the best youngsters of the era, left Rangers at 17 because he got paid more but also he probably thought there’s a better environment that I can go and learn in. So, SRU are quite unique because we’re trying to actually develop world class environments in Scotland.

“I mean, the Scottish women’s rugby union team are all based in England, aren’t they? I think in one recent squad there was only one playing in Scotland, and that’s understandable because these environments are moving quicker down south. So, if somebody is doing a better player development environment, then may be tempted to say:?‘Thank you very much – we’ll jump on the back of that’.?

“But, of course, it does mean you are sub-contracting and you lose some control.”

Coaching essentials

GT:?“John, can I ask what most excites you about the opportunity of the new strategy?”

JF:?“I do like the idea of playing for your club in an ‘A’ league. I think you’re much more likely to get good interaction with the senior coaches, which is ultimately where the young players are trying to get to – they’re trying to attract the attention of the senior coaches in terms of making some judgments around where they are in their development. Although I also understand that there’s some watch-outs such as ‘A’ league rugby, as we’ve already alluded to, can sometimes get cancelled.

“I like the fact that we’re talking about investing in under-18s. I do feel as though we’re a little bit top heavy in terms of lots of conversations often go straight to the pro teams.

“I’m not saying it’s built on sand, because it’s not, but you need to be careful if you’re building your house because while you do want to put the roof on quite early, you’ve also got to make sure you have good foundations, So I am excited about the fact that we are taking time to consider what we’re going to be doing around our clubs and schools in under-18, getting the right coaches and identifying what sort of stuff are we coaching?

“Clearly that is my bias, as I have spent most of my professional life at the start of the pathway, but I do generally feel if you get the start done well then it saves you a lot of time, a lot of hassle, and probably a lot of money.

?“I do think there needs to be more emphasis on coach development. We’re talking a lot about the environment, and what we also mean is the quality of the individual interaction – because we’re all people, and this is a people business.”

“It’s implicit in all of this, but it’s certainly my stated intention that I want to raise the bar, because I genuinely think coaching will get you a couple of places in any league table. So, if you’re Glasgow Warriors and you’re going to finish fourth, I think you could possibly win it through good coaching. Now, if you’re going to finish bottom through your talent pool, you’re not going to finish in the top four through a good coach, but I genuinely think it will get you two or three places.”

AL:?“John, about six months ago we had a conversation after some FOSROC academy games and you said that you like the idea of the Belgian system in football, where there is an ‘inverted pyramid’ which has really top class coaches working with youngsters, because that’s what the priority should be. Do you think there’s any chance of that happening in Scotland at all?

JF:?“I hope so. Some countries and sports absolutely do that. They understand the expertise needed around adolescent development, and they’ll invest appropriately, but that’s currently not the case in rugby union, certainly in Scotland.

“I think there’s a lot of coaches who would want to stay around pathway and not actually move into performance coaching, but they probably feel as though they have to follow that more traditional route.

“I definitely feel as though it’s a very enjoyable, rewarding, fulfilling place to be in pathway. But it doesn’t always pay that well!”

RJ:?“With Super6 – and I’m not sure whether there was pressure there – but I don’t think enough coaches took the risk with young players. And I think that is why Super6 fell down, because every team was too intent on winning.

“Don’t get me wrong, winning is great – the Glasgow Accies guys will tell you that I’m big on winning – but I think too many teams loaded up with experienced players who had either been in and around the pro game or just old statesmen who could get the job done. And Stirling County was a prime example this year – I was happy they won it because my cousin was playing, but you’re not telling me?Craig Jackson?is the next talented 10 coming through Scottish rugby. And I saw him a couple of weeks and told him that!

“So, for me, especially when coaching youngsters, yes you want to instil a winning mentality and build a culture towards that, but it’s also creating a sort of fearlessness within a young coaching group who can go out there and really back players to step up. Super6 should have been incentivised on young players coming through rather than winning.”

GT:?“That goes back to outsourcing your talent development to an organisation that said: ‘That’s great, but we want to win the title’.

“Between 16 to 23, technical coaching is hugely important, but you’re also taking people through a transitional period of their life when they’ve got a lot of expectation and demands on themselves, so it’s a specialism.

“In rugby league, what we noticed was that it was seen as a way into the coaching ranks so an ex-player would become the player performance manager and look after the under-18s, but they weren’t really interested, so we created a head of youth and it became – as John said there – a status. We started paying decent fees to help people invest in themselves to become a talent development coach, and?that’s a point I tried to make in the article I wrote for TOL last month, that the head of youth needs to be right up at the top of Glasgow and Edinburgh senior leadership team, so they feel that they’re strategically driving something and they’ve got some coaches to deliver it to.

“I think taking somebody who has coached at the top end of professional at Glasgow and Edinburgh and then giving them a job with the under-18s and under-20 is not necessarily the right move. They’re a very good coach but that doesn’t mean they’re a good coach for the 18 and 20s, because its about handling young people. You often find that people with education backgrounds are pretty good at doing some of those roles because they think about the young person beyond this result and the next result, to:?‘Where am I trying to get you over the period of this year?’

AG:?“Do you know who you’re coaching workforce is in terms of every individual who is fully qualified? Is there an annual conference where you can bring in people from other sports? How well is continuing professional development managed within the coaching workforce?

JF:?“I think it’s mixed. I think we do coach education quite well although ironically we don’t have a level four coaching qualification at the moment – that will be launched in the summer. So, people who are really ambitious around their coaching have to go somewhere else to get that level of education.

“Education is part of it, clearly. I’m not saying it’s not important, but the coach development stuff is key for me. Pretty much what is happening here with you guys would be better coach development for me – coaches just getting together, having something to eat, having a bit of a drink, talking through stuff. We clearly need to get that blended approach to coaching to improve our coaches.

“My preference as a coach developer is co-coaching. I’ve had the best results by jumping on the pitch with other coaches and just coaching together.

“So, out of the recommendations in the pathway update, coaching was quite implicit, and I think we need to elevate the coaching bit. I think it can be a competitive advantage. I said earlier that teams can move through good coaching. I think we have some really good coaches and I think we can go after it even more. It’s definitely something that I’ll be pushing around that under-18 stuff – let’s really invest in the coaches who will have a big impact, not just around the very best players who go on and play for Scotland, but players who will stay in our game and play for their club first team or second team, and be the volunteers of the future etc etc.”

Performance Director

DB:?“There is a new Performance Director being recruited at the moment. What should Scottish Rugby be looking for?

GT:?“Listening to John tonight just reinforces?what I wrote in that article. There’s a lot of rugby union knowledge already in the SRU, so I’m not convinced that bringing in somebody else with more knowledge is necessarily the priority.

“I think it’s got to be someone who is a strategic leader because there’s people like John who clearly know what they want to do. They don’t need to be given the technicalities of coach development, the technicalities of player pathway. I think they need somebody who has got the strength of leadership to make sure that it doesn’t just go quiet after this latest review is completed.

“Sometimes governing bodies are quite keen to float under the radar but you actually need somebody who is going to come in and bang the drum – not externally but internally to start with – because there’s a change in the CEO as well, with a guy who was very commercially focussed leaving, so there’s going to be a change of dynamic there.

“I do worry about the lack of elite performance knowledge on the Boards with the non-executives, because they are important to where resources get allocated.

“I still think the SRU’s corporate governance is a minefield. It does not help clarity of vision and clarity of strategy, but it is what it is.

“John McGuigan has come out and made it clear that he wants more Scottish-qualified players at Glasgow and Edinburgh. We could actually decide that it’s okay, let’s stay fifth or sixth in the world by doing what we have been doing . But he’s come out and said that, so we’ve got to now follow that through because journalists like David will come back in a year’s time and say:?‘John, can I have an interview with you? Can I just remind you of that goal you set?’

“It’s easy to say: ‘We’ll have a real good push for the next six months or the next year, but have they got the will to prepare these kids over the next five, six, seven, eight years, by putting in the required structures and providing guys like John with more resource? And then, when John come back to them next year and says:?‘We’re still on track but I need a bit more capacity’, are we going to actually make this happen?

“Too often we pin credibility on whether they played at the top level but ex-players and ex-head coaches are not often the right people to drive what happens next on youth development because they’re only interested in the next game? It needs to be strategic. I would go outside of rugby union.”

?AG:?“British Swimming was a good example. They had an Australian sport scientist in?Michael Scottleading the team through to the London Olympics in 2012, which was seriously unsuccessful apart from?Michael Jamieson?and?Rebecca Adlington, then after that they appointed?Chris Spice,?who was a hockey gold medal winning coach, performance director for British Basketball and the England Rugby Union when they won the World Cup in 2003.

“Chris changed the culture of British Swimming back to being coach-led, and he did that by influencing the swimming clubs, by influencing the Board – his influencing skills and his personality was such that he was very happy to go and speak to clubs.

“I agree with Graeme that someone who’s got those skills, and not necessarily in rugby union.”

RJ:?“Out of interest, would you only pitch somebody from elite sport or could it be somebody who’s been involved in something like a schooling body or a university?

GT:?“I would go for elite sport because the demands of that are unique, but I’m a great believer in transferable skills – I have to be because I was in charge of two sports which I knew nothing about in curling and water polo! Whether other people were a great believer in that is another thing!

“But I just think the person who sits above people like John is not someone who ways:?‘Listen John, I need to tell you about coach development’. It is someone who says:?‘Don’t worry John, I’m going to go and secure the budget for the next two years to make sure you can do everything you want to do in terms of your abilities to get coaches up to the standard we require’.

AG:?“To empower John to do his thing, which is an altogether different skill-set.”

GT:?“There’s a vast array of people who have come through Olympic and Paralympic programmes in the last 15 years, who have maybe started in their original sport but now done two or three different sports, and they know how to come in and say:?‘Okay, here’s the strategy, here’s the stakeholders, this is how it all fits together, I’ve got a plan of how I am going to influence things to make sure this strategy delivers what we believe it can deliver’.

“We’ve had a very dominant CEO from what I can see, and there is now an opportunity for performance to rise up the agenda of the things that are important. And I have a great sympathy for governing bodies because there’s an awful lot of mouths to feed and things to do. And the reality is like any organization, they prioritize.

Communication is key

AG:?“If you are a Chair, or a Performance Director, or a CEO, you’ve got to get out into the sport and not just rule it from the lofty towers of Murrayfield.”

GT:?“The downside is it’s easy to criticise someone by saying you don’t know our sport, so you also have to be clever as to what you claim to know and what you delegate. But with people as credible as John and other people in there, you kind of work that out. You don’t expose yourself. You actually focus on the things that you are doing well.”

AL:?“If we’ve got the expertise there already, then what we’re looking for is a good manager. Is the CEO, not the big manager?”

GT:?“He or she could be, but I suspect nowadays with governing bodies of this size that they’ll always …

AL:?“Especially with the ￡10.5 million blackhole in the finances which needs addressed?”.

GT:?“So, I suspect they’re still going to put a commercial bent on the Chief Executive because that is the only way you’re going to trade out of that loss.

DB:?“What you’re saying is you need somebody who can go to the Chief Executive and the Board and make the case that while there is a pressing need to turn around the finances and secure Murrayfield long term, this money is worth spending right now because the danger is that if we don’t spend it and don’t hold our nerve then we don’t have a sport worth saving?”

GT:?“I know one head of youth in rugby league who said:?‘The way I did it was I worked out the economic model that showed it was better to invest in the local St Helens kids than sign the next three Aussies’. So he said to himself, how do I influence these people? I can tell them how great the kids are coming through and we’re doing great coach development, but what actually gets your Chief Executive excited is that you can help him save ￡10 million over three years. So, you have to be smart. It’s the influencing skills.”

DB:?“And you’re worried about the lack of performance rugby people or rugby people on the various Boards?

GT:?“Elite sport performance knowledge – not rugby knowledge. Often governing bodies add in skill-sets which are not about participation and performance, but there’s other ways of doing it. During my time at UK Sport we created performance management groups, which brought in experts who sat as almost like a subcommittee.

“Gareth Southgate?has an FA ‘technical advisory board’, which includes – slightly controversially –?David Brailsford, as well as the journalist and author?Matthew Syed?and someone from Cirque Soleil, who have all these different ideas about how do you develop talent.

“I also see quite a lot of insularity in the SRU. I found it astonishing that an external company had to go out and tell the SRU what their competitors were doing. That is bread and butter of a Performance director’s job, to know what your competitors are doing. And therefore, if you’re that insular, you need some help as to not just what your competitors are doing in rugby union, but what’s the best practice around the world in different sports.

“And there’s a myriad of intelligence from the Olympics and Paralympics over the last 15 years that they could be drawing from.

“The structure looks like it could be heading the right way, but there’s going to be so much need to find the very best practice, and probably on limited budgets compared to England and Ireland.”

AG:?“This will take generations to improve things. There’s no quick fix in terms of performance.

JF:?“The only thing I would add to that is that you clearly need some diversity around your decision-making, and if you don’t feel as though you have that in the team then you’ve got to try and create it. So, you definitely need people who are thinking differently from each other and have had different experiences. Lots and lots of sports would have gone about it in a different way. There’s advantages to having somebody who understands the sport, and there’s disadvantages of having people who don’t understand the sport.”

AL:?“The elephant in the room, is we haven’t got lots of baby elephants. That’s the problem. Expanding the game, expanding the base, and how do we raise the level of the base? That’s two points that I’d be interested in, but a chat for another today.”

GT:?“I’d personally like to thank John for being part of this discussion. It just reminds me that people sometimes think that people who work for the governing body wake up in the morning and try to upset people, whereas they’re actually working their backsides off and care passionately but aren’t always able to demonstrate that.

“So, just to hear you bring it to life has been just a really good reminder that the SRU gets a hard time – and sometimes they deserve it – but there’s people in there who I’m sure are deeply frustrated and perhaps now see a really good opportunity because things are hopefully going to change.”

JF:?“Maybe one thing to add to that is my biggest frustration is not whether it’s criticism or praise or points of view or opinion, it’s when I don’t feel people are that well informed. I think that’s what you’re saying here: inform us of your intention and what you’re going after and then we’ll form an opinion based upon what we see and what we notice and what we hear,

“So, that’s on us and how we communicate. I think we can do that better. Everybody understands that the press will never be in the tent, but what we can do is give them access so they can make an informed opinion.”