GREGOR TOWNSEND'S first game as a Scottish Head Coach, was when he took a Glasgow Warriors' side to face Sale Sharks, in a pre-season game at Sale RFC. I got the gig to cover that game, in fact I was the only Scottish reporter in the press box that day.
The Sale guys were generally welcoming and very-helpful. The press seats were right next to where the club coaches were sat and this Sale guy was shouting the odds something rotten. I remember thinking: “This guy is a complete erse-hole.” That was my first meeting with Steve Diamond. When it came to the post-match interviews, he came across as an even-bigger tosser. I've had to deal with him twice or thrice since, but, nothing has caused me to change my original impression – Grade One Bawbag.
His coaching record isn't that great, and, if he's the best choice to replace Mike Blair as Edinburgh Coach – I'm with Private James Frazer.
It is a terrible reflection on the SRU's coach development programme that we don't have a Scottish-born and trained coach ready to step-in as the replacement, instead we are reportedly hiring a failed English coach. What happened – weren't Sam Allardyce or Sir Clive Woodward interested?
SPEAKING OF SRU failings. With the imminent return of Fosroc Super Rugby, there has been a lot of talk about player development, in particular development of our Under-20 players.
So, I have been doing a bit of research, into how our best young players move on from the U-20 team.
We switched to Under-20 rugby in 2007, and from then until 2019 we capped 392 players at this level, of whom, 64 have gone on to become full internationalists.
The breakdown is:
2007 – 29 players: 4 full internationalists – Alex Grove, Pat McArthur, Kevin Traynor, Richie Vernon.
2008 – 36 players: 5 full internationalists – Kevin Bryce, Richie Gray, Ruaridh Jackson, Lee Jones, Pete Horne.
2009 – 32 players: 8 full caps – Fraser Brown, Alex Dunbar, Chris Fusaro, Grant Gilchrist, Rob Harley, Stuart McInally, Henry Pyrgos, Ryan Wilson.
2010 – 48 players: 5 full internationalists – Tom Brown, Dave Denton, Doug Fife, Matt Scott, Dunky Weir.
2011 – 36 players: 7 full internationalists – Alex Allan, Mark Bennett, Dave Cherry, Gary Graham, Stuart Hogg, George Turner, Hamish Watson.
2012 – 33 players: 8 full internationalists – Adam Ashe, Jamie Bhatti, Jonny Gray, Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, Rory Hughes, Ali Price, Finn Russell, Scott Steele.
2013 – 23 players: 2 full internationalists – Damien Hoyland, D'Arcy Rae.
2014 – 20 players: 7 full internationalists – Magnus Bradbury, Lewis Carmichael, Zander Fagerson, Rory Hutchison, Jamie Ritchie, Ben Vellacott, Glen Young.
2015 – 21 players: 3 full internationalists – Scott Cumming, George Horne, Blair Kinghorn.
2016 – 27 players: 4 full internationalists – Luke Crosbie, Darcy Graham, Adam Hastings, Jake Kerr.
2017 – 26 players: 2 full internationalists – Alex Craig, Matt Fagerson.
2018 – 33 players: 6 full internationalists – Rory Darge, Jamie Hodgson, Kyle Rowe, Marshall Sykes, Ross Thompson, Murphy Walker.
2019 – 28 players: 3 full internationalists – Ewan Ashman, Rufus McLean, Ollie Smith.
This gives us a conversion rate of 16.3%
To put it another way – each season, we cap an average of 30 Under-20 players. Of these, on average, just under 5 will train-on to win a full cap.
That doesn't look that great, until you remember, in football, where organised youth development has been going on for longer than in rugby, the bigger clubs are quite happy if they get one first team player out of every year's intake of 16-year-olds into their academies.
That might be a bit like comparing apples and pears, but, it is just about the only benchmark we have with which to make a comparison.
WHILE ON the subject of comparisons, I have noticed some cheap digs at the fact young Luke Townsend has been named at ten for the Scotland Under-20 team, to face Ireland tonight.
I have seen suggestions that Luke's selection owes more to his name, than to any particular talent he might possess, considering his elder brother Christian was the Under-20 team's playmaker last season.
Having watched Christian playing for Ayrshire Bulls; I felt he suffered there because he was competing for the role with Tom Jordan, a more-experienced and better player, as he has since emphasised by his form for Glasgow Warriors.
I always felt, Christian was more of a long-term project, but, he appears to have vanished off the radar this season. I am told by those in the know, that Luke is the Townsend who is most-likely to have inherited the family rugby gene and been sprinkled with the magic dust, and I certainly wish him well.
It must be hard for the son of a legend to follow in his footsteps, more-so if he plays the same position, in the same sport. Not many sons have surpassed their father's sporting accomplishments, so I wish Luke – and Christian well, in their future rugby careers.
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