'Nucifora's plan for Scottish talent has to work'
Scottish Rugby's biggest battle is not taking place in Dublin this weekend when Glasgow take on Leinster in the semi-final of the United Rugby Championship.It's not taking place in the summer when the women's team play in the World Cup or next spring when Gregor Townsend's boys reappear for the Six Nations.Those are enormously important events, but they're not as critical as the piece of work performance director David Nucifora has been doing for months, the first stirrings of which are now public on the Scottish Rugby website.Nucifora excelled in his work on the player pathway in Ireland over the course of a decade. He now has to repeat the trick in Scotland, with the emphasis on the 'has to'. As in, this has to work.So much depends on it. If the future of the professional game in Scotland is to have a chance of a bright future then talented young players need to be given better opportunities.
It's not fair to compare a giant rugby country like France with a small nation like Scotland, but it's no harm to look at how the best do it.When they met at under-20 level in the final weekend of the Six Nations just gone - it was a thriller which France won to become champions - there was a marked difference between the experience of the French boys compared to their Scottish counterparts.Nineteen of France's 23 have played club rugby this season, compared to four of Scotland's squad. The French lads have appeared for Bordeaux, Toulouse, Toulon, La Rochelle and eight other sides, playing a combined 106 matches in the Top 14, Europe and Pro D2. Scotland's figure is 22.They're giving their youth a chance in France. Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Theo Attissogbe, Oscar Jegou, Hugo Auradou, Nolann Le Garrec and Leo Barre all played a part in France's Six Nations title and none of them are over 22 years old.
Can Nucifora cultivate & improve 'reasonable landscape'?
Scotland can't copy that but they can be inspired by it. Up and down the country you'll hear testimony from club folk about the deficiencies of Scottish rugby's talent identification and the woolly thinking on player development.You'll hear them talk of their own talented players who have slipped through the net. Allow for exaggeration of the merits of their local heroes, but they can't all be wrong. Many of them are almost certainly right.From Seb Stephen, the 19-year-old Glasgow hooker, to Freddy Douglas, the 20-year-old Edinburgh openside phenomenon, the landscape is reasonable. Max Williamson, Alex Samuel, Macenzzie Duncan, and Patrick Harrison are only 22. Gregor Brown, Euan Ferrie, Ben Muncaster, Jamie Dobie, Gergor Hiddleston and Harry Paterson are 23.There are excellent young players at Glasgow and Edinburgh. Nucifora's prime job is to deliver a system that produces more of them. More players and better prepared players in a sustainable model.In his reimagining of the pathways and the pursuit of new heads of nutrition, rehab and physio, athletic performance and sports science, performance analysis, operation and logistics and coach development, the SRU are throwing a lot of money at Nucifora's new world.It's a world that will still include non-Scottish qualified players at Glasgow and Edinburgh, but a strong case will need to be made each time. Foreign players getting in the road of young Scots is something that Nucifora railed against in Ireland. His hard-line approach upset a lot of people in the provinces. The flak appeared to be water off a duck's back.
'Players need to be stressed & stretched'
There's a word that Nucifora constantly goes back to when he is talking about how to get the best out of players - stress.Players need to be stressed and stretched, he says. They need to feel pressure, they need to be looking over their shoulder and seeing a hungry rival for their position. He doesn't quite say dog-eat-dog, but that's where he's coming from.But they also need to be given the tools to deal with that stress and that's where this new vision and this SRU investment comes in. It'll take a while to see if it works, but Nucifora probably knows more about making it work than most in the game.Everyone who loves the game in Scotland is fond of telling the SRU how to spend its money. Glasgow fans are upset right now that they didn't spend to keep their talismanic back-row Henco Venter at Scotstoun for another few years.The brutal reality is that wage inflation is a serious issue for financially challenged unions. If Venter was given a new deal at Scotstoun, what's sacrificed elsewhere? There's only so much money to go around.At Murrayfield they have to pick their battles on that front. They're forced to prioritise. They win one with Sione Tuipulotu, who's on a new deal, and they lose one with Tom Jordan, who's on his way to Bristol. It's the way of things in Scotland; a balancing act in an increasingly expensive sport.Glasgow will win or lose on Saturday. Bryan Easson's team will rise or fall at the World Cup. Townsend's players will go forwards or backwards in the spring.Such uncertainty can't exist around Nucifora's plan to improve the talent flow. It has to be a success. The stakes are too high.
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There's also the prospect of further damage at an early stage in his career if he fouls up again. However, it is Liechtenstein. It's a game Scotland should dominate. It's a chance for the bloke to get back on the bike, be part of a winning team and do a bit of damage limitation. Bournemouth's Callan McKenna, at 18, is too young to play and Doohan is surely so far down the pecking order that he is unlikely to have any realistic hope of an international future. If Clarke and his coaching staff really do believe Slicker can develop into someone of worth for the longer-term future — and see the right signs in him over the next 24 hours — maybe thinking the unthinkable and throwing him in again could be the biggest show of support of all.
