THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
DAVID FERGUSON

THE Scottish Rugby Union has scrapped its director of rugby role, relinquished by Ian McGeechan in May, in the first sign of significant change under the new leadership.

The executive board is understood to have debated the matter at length over the past few weeks and reached agreement yesterday that the post of director of rugby was too wide-ranging to be efficient.

Gordon McKie, the new chief executive, stated: "The director of rugby role as currently defined is huge and embraces every conceivable facet of the game - be it international, elite, professional, community and the whole myriad of support services in coaching, fitness and conditioning, medical, referees, game analysis, administration and the like.

"We are reviewing the structure of 'rugby division' and it seems clear that it would be more sensible to reorganise some of the constituent parts to enable sharing of best practice across all our rugby interests. This would also give greater responsibility to those managing specific areas and place greater emphasis on good communication.

"Consequently we have advised those who applied for the director of rugby position that we are declining their applications. Meantime, I have asked Richie Dixon to continue as interim director of rugby to help in the transition to any new arrangements and thank him for his support."

The future of Dixon, a former national coach and head of coaching, remains unclear. He may either return to the coaching role - clearly someone with some standing in the discipline is needed to oversee the vital and growing area of coach education - or take one of the redundancy packages on offer.

However, Jim Telfer, the SRU's first director of rugby and the man responsible for creating the 'rugby division', admitted he was concerned at a loss of 'rugby people' from the decision-making body now running the sport.

"I would not say it is necessarily a bad move until I see exactly what structure they are going to put in place, but I am worried that we may no longer have a rugby expert at executive level," said Telfer.

"The role has indeed become huge and Mr McKie is right in pinpointing that. The first Lord Mackay Report in 2000 advocated splitting it into a domestic director and professional one, but that never happened. And to be honest the title is a bit of a misnomer, because you don't actually direct everything but merely work with the various rugby departments and recommend; if clubs didn't like my suggestions they threw them out - often!

"But, among all the finance experts and other experts in property, media or whatever, at least there was one person at executive level well experienced in rugby. When Richie goes it will be another good rugby man, with great experience and widespread respect around the world, lost at that level.

"We have heard a lot of talk so far about business decisions that the new regime are to undertake, but we must remember that this is a sport, a human industry dealing with people of all ages, and not just about profit and loss.

"There are many aspects which go into winning on the rugby field and simple business arithmetic doesn't cover them all."

The news from Murrayfield also served to dismiss speculation elsewhere yesterday touting Graham Hogg, the former Scotland A coach, as a new candidate for the director of rugby post. Other speculation on the future of the national coach also seemed wide of the mark. A report stated that the board was expected to retain Frank Hadden in an interim role as national coach through the autumn Tests to further gauge his suitability for the post. Interviews will be held next week, but it is understood a firm decision will be made to give the new coach at least a season in charge.

Meanwhile, Scotland will again have no referees in charge of Six Nations Championship matches this season. Rob Dickson, Scotland's leading referee, will take charge of the autumn Test between France and Tonga, while he and Malcolm Changleng will run touch at games in November and during the Six Nations.

Up-and-coming referee Peter Allan has been given touch duties in the Ireland v Romania match in November.

This article was posted on 7-Sep-2005, 07:28 by Hugh Barrow.