TONY Stanger is still best remembered by many Scots for scoring the try against England in 1990 which clinched Scotland's last Grand Slam triumph, but the former Hawick winger is re-entering the wider sports consciousness with a new role to help identify talent for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Stanger, now 40, has been in England for eight years, finishing his career as a professional rugby player and then coach at Leeds before moving to London Irish as speed and skills coach. For the past four years he has been helping to mould such
rising stars as Shane Geraghty and Topsy Ojo and indeed Irish themselves into a force to be reckoned with.
The club has reached a new peak this season of the Heineken Cup semi-finals, where they lost to Toulouse, but Stanger had already decided it was time for a fresh challenge. What tempted him back north was a new post with the Scottish Institute of Sport as talent manager, a role he starts in a fortnight.
He explained: "I'm sure the job will evolve over time, but in simple terms it's about leaving no stones unturned in trying to identify talent and develop it. It's an exciting opportunity to use skills I have from a sports science background, but maybe haven't needed so much recently. I still love rugby, and hope to still have involvement in the sport, but this gives me the chance to look wider across Scottish sport.
"The main driver is the Commonwealth Games having been awarded to Glasgow in 2014, and the aim is to have as many people as possible in positions to represent Scotland when they come around, and the right people in the right sport.
"There's no use a year or so before the Games saying 'this athlete needs to change this or that to become world-class or be in with a chance of a medal'; it's got to start much earlier. I like the whole concept of looking more widely than we tend to at athletes and which sports they are maybe suited to.
"We have tended to look at someone purely in physical terms and say, for example, 'he's really tall so he should go for basketball'; 'he's quite stocky so he's a rugby player', when, in fact, there are many more aspects to world-class performers, and psychology plays a huge part. I think this is one of the toughest challenges in sport – identifying and ensuring the development paths are there to allow that talent to maximise their potential. You can't have effective talent identification without effective talent development."
Stanger has been settled in the south of England with his wife Bid and three children, all under ten, but his mother and two brothers still live in Hawick, another brother is in Edinburgh while the fourth one lives in New Zealand.
With London Irish having just missed out on the Guinness Premiership play-offs, by five points, the season is over and he is turning his attention to finding a house around the Institute's base in Stirling and new schools. It's not about coming back to Scotland," he added, "It was the job that attracted me, but the fact we will be closer to family again will be a nice bonus.
"Experienced coaches have said that a coach's lifespan at one club is around five years, plus or minus a year, and I've been at Irish for four and felt it was time for a change.
"It has been a fantastic time at Irish and I've really enjoyed the job, and watching talents come through, and I know the club is just beginning to achieve its potential. I wish them all the best, but for me it's time to move on.
"It was a big decision, but I'm really excited about this opportunity. We have produced some fantastic talent and some great teams in Scotland, and we undoubtedly have the quality to push for medals and trophies. But in a country as small as ours we have to work hard to make the most of that talent."
Mike Whittingham, executive director of the SIS, said: "This is a very exciting initiative and one of the reasons we felt Tony was right for the job was that since he was a British Lion he has completed a PhD in sports science and so as well as working in the game with identifying and developing talent, crucially he has excellent scientific qualifications.
"This is about trying to be proactive, finding new talent and fast-tracking it to ensure the right people are working in the right environment to give us chances of success, possibly in London 2012 but definitely at the Commonwealth Games in 2014."
The full article contains 800 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
