Henry Edwards, currently Scottish Rugby’s community coach development manager and coach of the national Under-18 team, has been appointed to an important new job at Scottish Rugby to boost the number of people playing the game from secondary school onwards.

The role involves overseeing the development of all national and regional representative teams from Under-16s upwards, including pro-team academy rugby players.

“This new post, Head of Player Development, is vital for the future of Scottish Rugby,” said SRU Chief Executive Gordon McKie today.

“Henry is charged with developing and implementing world-class standards of coaching and performance across all our representative teams including Under-18s, Under-19s and, for the first time, our Under-16s players. He will also oversee the development of our National Academy structures, from where the pro-team and international players of the future will be identified.

“A key part of his job, working in tandem with our new rugby development managers, is to increase the number of schools with rugby in the sports curriculum as we need to have as broad a base as possible in order to nurture the talent that emerges from a competitive environment.”

Edwards, 48, former Alloa, Boroughmuir and North and Midlands flanker, progressed to coaching and joined the pro-ranks from Boroughmuir. He was assistant coach with the professional team based in Edinburgh from 1997 until 2004 when he became the SRU’s Coach Development Manager.

Edwards said today: “I’m excited by the challenge that this post represents. It’s obviously a big task and it can only be addressed through working in partnership with my coaching colleagues in the SRU, the wider Scottish rugby community and stakeholders such as Sportscotland and the Scottish Institute of Sport.”

Scotland coach Frank Hadden said: “Success for rugby in Scotland is all about harnessing our limited resources. This appointment should be a massive boost in the development of our best young talent.”

Edwards will take up his new position on 1 May.

This article was posted on 22-Mar-2006, 18:28 by Hugh Barrow.