Having a new man running the show at Murrayfield will put a long-overdue rocket under all those involved in Scottish rugby. “High performance is about tension,’ David Nucifora said. “If you don’t have tension within the group you are not pushing hard enough."
Tension is one thing that has been missing from Scottish rugby for far too long. Everything has been too cosy.
There was a lack of pressure on coaches and players under former chief executive Mark Dodson and ex-performance director Jim Mallinder.
That is all about to change and there will be some nervous players and coaches about to be put under scrutiny like never before.
Nucifora comes in fresh so there will be no old pals act. He will have complete control. Even signings for Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors will have to be approved by him. A long overdue new era for Scottish rugby is dawning.
The Australian, who brought massive success to Ireland over a decade, insists he is not a direct replacement for Mallinder as performance director but he is and more.
He may be classed only as an adviser on a two-year deal who can take on other freelance work but the SRU have paid a lot for his services and will expect him to be at Murrayfield more than he is not.
He has been told to come up with a ten-year plan to bring on young homegrown players and will be able to hire and fire so it will be interesting to see who is still in a job once he gets his feet under the table.
He will be Gregor Townsend’s boss which will certainly force him and his Scotland team to buck up their ideas. Results matter but even after back-to-back failures to qualify for the later stages of the World Cup you never once felt there was any real threat to Townsend’s job.
Indeed after the 2023 Six Nations, he was handed a contract extension that keeps him in post until April 2026. The Scotland under-20 and the women’s teams have also been under-performing but there have not been changes at the top there either.
Mediocrity was also not questioned at club level. Glasgow Warriors may have done Scottish rugby proud by winning the URC title but Edinburgh failed to even make it into the top eight that qualified for the play-offs. There was no criticism from within Murrayfield of head coach Sean Everitt.
The promise of jam tomorrow has been accepted for far too long but that ends with the appointment of Nucifora.
One of my concerns is where the money will come from for him to make changes? The SRU is £10m in debt and in the process of laying off 35 staff members to try and balance the books.
Read more:
- Scottish Rugby appoints David Nucifora in performance advisory role
- The Australian verdict on David Nucifora taking Scottish Rugby job
Whoever comes in as the new chief executive may not be of a mind to spend, spend, spend on rugby. You may think he or she should do exactly that but there will be pressure from the new chief executive to possibly make even more cuts before the debt gets too out of hand. There could be clashes between that person and Nucifora. If they don’t see eye to eye then there could be trouble.
He arrives at Murrayfield after performing root and branch surgery on the Australian game that is a real basketcase compared to Scottish rugby. He was taken on last December on a two-day a week basis to make recommendations to improve the professional side of the game down under with particular emphasis on the pathway system.
The SRU have asked him to carry out a similar study into all aspects of the Scottish game but there are only so many ideas one man can have.
Will he use the same prototype and come up with the same recommendations for the future of Scottish rugby that he did for Australia?
Rugby Australia chief executive Paul Waugh said Nucifora’s recommendations have been noted and he will be finished with them by the end of November.
He made no effort to keep him longer as they have their own director of high performance in Peter Horne. Not the former Scotland international but the man who worked as a high performance director at Samoan Rugby.
Ideally the SRU would have liked to have Nucifora on staff but with his previous success with Ireland he can dictate his terms and conditions to employers like the SRU. He only stepped down after a ten-year stint in charge of Irish rugby back in March and they will be spitting feathers that the man who did so much for them has joined Scotland.
There is no hiding the animosity between both countries at all levels. The Irish Rugby Union has never forgiven the SRU for voting against them when they tried to secure the 2023 World Cup. SRU chief executive Mark Dodson and his delegation voted for eventual host winners France.
There has been some bad tempered affairs at club level over the years involving Glasgow Warriors and Munster. On top of that the Irish media love to knock the Scotland team for promising great things but failing to deliver. To be fair they do have a point.
Ireland has dominated Scotland and most of the world over the past ten years that Nucifora has been involved with them. They would hate to see the pendulum swing away from them and must be wondering what state secrets he is taking with him from Dublin to give his new paymasters in Edinburgh.
On his watch Ireland’s men’s team won four Six Nations titles, two of them Grand Slams. They also beat New Zealand and were at various stages top of the world rankings.
Nucifora stepped down from his job as performance director of the IRFU after the Olympics that Ireland’s men‘s and women’s sevens teams competed at.
The only negative in a world of Nucifora inspired positives was that Ireland failed to make it past the quarter-finals of the World Cup although in saying that at least they got to the last two knock-out stages unlike Scotland.
When the SRU announced his appointment they made clear one of his main roles was to create a pathway to the top for young Scottish talent. How he goes about that will be fascinating to watch because Super Series - the bridge between amateur and pro rugby - was scrapped at the end of last season.
All that is left is the amateur leagues that started at the weekend. I took in the match between Edinburgh Accies and Hawick. I also watched Ayr versus Currie Chieftains on television. The standard was okay but not at the level required for young players to make the jump to the pro ranks. There needs to be lots of new 'A' fixtures for Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors to give up-and-coming talent a chance to improve.
Creating a pathway to the top with currently such a massive gap between amateur and professional rugby is a tough task for Nucifora to take on.
He would do well to take in a few amateur games himself over the next few weeks so he can see first hand the improvements he has to make. Also he should talk to former Scotland players who have gone into coaching- Scott Macleod and Allan Jacobsen are on the Hawick coaching staff for example- and get feedback off them.
Nucifora needs to be more visible than Mallinder was and get around the clubs and into every area of Scottish rugby.
He is sure to ruffle feathers which is good. Let change begin.
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