Interview: Graham Lowe, SRU Director of Performance Rugby

Published on Friday 29 July 2011 17:40

SCOTLAND'S World Cup campaign moves into second gear next week with the first EMC warm-up Test against Ireland, Glasgow and Edinburgh are moving from army camps to game tactics and clubs across the country are putting the finishing touches to their squads for critical championships ahead of the league revamp.

All will develop in virtual isolation, but one man watching each tier of the Scottish game is Graham Lowe. His name is one of the lesser-known in Scottish rugby. It should be one of the most well-known.

Gordon McKie, the former SRU Chief Executive, stubbornly refused to appoint any form of rugby director in his first four years at the SRU helm, and when he did give in to a groundswell of opinion that Scottish rugby needed an individual wholly responsible on the board for, ahem, rugby, he gave it the "head of performance rugby" title, and appointed New Zealander Lowe.

The appointment was good, according to many operating at Scottish rugby's coalface, Lowe having shown a sincere willingness to discuss and work with people across the game and develop unique ideas. With McKie gone and Sir Moir Lockhead replacing Allan Munro as chairman, there is a new optimism around Murrayfield, a feeling that Lowe, like others, may now be able to pursue and develop some of the many proposals he has come up with in the past year.

Little, however, is known about Lowe, a quiet-spoken, unassuming, but thoughtful character. Requests for interviews were declined by the SRU during his first year in post. Lowe insists that was unknown to him when we meet, and though reluctant to look backwards he is easy to talk to and clearly passionate about sport in general.

One hour of conversation provides not only a glimpse of the enthusiasm the New Zealander has developed for Scottish rugby, but also into the myriad ideas he has been working on behind the scenes to improve it. From earlier intervention in the training of young rugby talent to improving the standards of club rugby, challenging professionals to improve more quickly by finding them more game-time, notably with better links to clubs and London Scottish, to working with Andy Robinson and improving the quality of players, Lowe has his eye on the big picture.

"At the top of it all is consistency," explained the less-than-typical Kiwi. Lowe grew up as a talented footballer in his native Auckland, before taking up rugby and racquet sports on moving to the South Island.A good enough left midfielder to represent New Zealand in age-grade football and play to a decent level in rugby, he terms himself a "jack of all trades, master of none".

But he knows sport, and knows a player, having developed a deep understanding of what makes top athletes tick, and how they make it. Encouragingly, he likes what he sees here.

"I have been impressed by the standard of young player in Scotland, and the work ethic that exists here," he said. "There are some fantastic players here but when you compare it to other countries it is the level of competition and the depth that challenges us, and costs our teams.

"I've worked in New Zealand, in South Africa and their professional players benefit, for example, from a semi-professional layer that helps to bridge the gap between the grassroots and the pro game. We don't have that luxury here. In New Zealand they have the ITM Cup and there's the Currie Cup in South Africa, and you will have a mixture of players and coaches involved there, from full-time to part-time coming through.

"The big focus for me in Scotland is how we support players to move through the different strands and how these inter-act with each other. So the players come through the school and youth clubs and show themselves, then step into senior club rugby, and they begin to show up well there, but how do we take them on?

"In other countries it is pretty clear what the next level is but we've got to work harder to create something as clear here.

The British and Irish Cup provides an opportunity to create some sort of bridging for a number of clubs, and then you're looking at bringing them into an elite development group with the pro teams and, crucially, give them the opportunity to play pro rugby.

"For me, there are two ways you can look at this development ladder - be focused on the teams, which is the obvious thing to focus on because it's what you see every week, and their results, which is the outcome, or focus on the individual players.

"I believe it's the latter we need to put more of the focus on because if you get better support round the individual players, from the bottom level up, and accelerate them into the teams then you have more players with the requisite skills they need to perform, and so that team will perform better and create a more challenging environment for everyone."

So, it sounds good, but what does that mean in practice? While from a strength and conditioning background, Lowe does not care for an intense focus on gym improvements as an indicator of a player's development, insisting that the more pertinent tell-tale signs are on-field skills and ability under pressure.That explains in part a shift he is driving in Scottish rugby to grasp the potential of players at 14 years, as is common in the southern hemisphere and England, rather than at 17, where the SRU and clubs have tended to begin to step-up in development.

He is quick to state that Scotland cannot afford to lose any players, at any age, and so opportunities must remain for players not picked up in their teens, yet Lowe says that is no reason for a piecemeal or lottery approach to those aged 14 showing skills that could make them an internationalist one day.

Working with SRU and club coaches, sportscotland and the Institute of Sport, he is broadening and deepening the academy system with a new skills focus at 14/15-year-old level and game understanding work from 16-year-old on.

"Different sports can focus at different stages," Lowe said. "In football you can potentially identify and focus earlier because you see speed and skill and there's a good chance that you can convert that into the senior game.

"In rugby you have to add the physical bulk, ability to deal with impact, be tall enough to fit into certain positions, to have the speed and power, all attributes that can change in youngsters up until their late teens. It's important that coaches are aware of that and don't close the door, and so ideally look to work with as many kids as possible, from early teens up, to give them all an opportunity.

"We are seeing development in the 17s and 18s from the approach we've taken over the past year. We are still looking for consistency, but you look at the under-17 and under-18s wins against England this year as a promising gauge of progress.

"But then, going back to what we discussed earlier, it comes down to developing the consistency in a competitive environment.

So we are working with schools around their competitive structures and the need for more consistent, high-quality games youngsters can play. There are a lot of traditions involved with (Scottish] schools so it's a challenging area, but we have to work with clubs as well to generate those outcomes.

"Is it a quick fix? No, it's not. But when you look across Scotland there is a real opportunity there for us to generate more regular, consistently good-quality games, which would make a significant difference to the quality of our players when they move through from teens into either senior club rugby or the pro game, and an impact on those teams.

"That is a big area that we have been working on for a while now."Lowe punctuates his commentary regularly with the term "professionalism". After his sporting career ended, he started out as a strength and conditioning coach in 1995 at club, then provincial and finally international level, and it was his attention to professional ethics and work-rate that brought him to wider attention.

He was strength and conditioning coach for the All Blacks and national fitness adviser for New Zealand rugby from 2004-8, which also brought a close involvement in all strategic and high performance planning in the game. He was head-hunted by the BMW Oracle Racing sailing team for the Americas Cup and Louis Vuitton Trophy, working with a 100-crew squad in San Diego and Spain, before finding a return to rugby with the SRU appointment in November, 2009.

"What professionalism means is not money," he said, "but the opportunity to train full-time to improve your skills.

"I have taken things from all sports. They all offer something and challenge what you can understand as the norms. For example, Australian rules (football] has a fantastic programme of sports science, with components of rugby and the contact they have to deal with, while (rugby] league has a massive amount of head-on contact and has developed skills around that, which are all relevant to Union."

Again, all good in theory, but how does Lowe envisage transferring that into a greater strength and consistency in Scottish rugby, and ultimately more winning performances for a nation fighting hard to stay with the big boys?

"Scottish players know how to win," he insisted, steely-eyed. "There is a real passion in Scotland for rugby that is harnessed at different times, and on some occasions comes together brilliantly, so it comes back to how to create that consistently.

We have had some good results from the under-17s and under-18s to the clubs in the B&I Cup, to the pro clubs and Scotland under Andy (Robinson], but my primary role is to ensure that the players coming through the system now have the skills to genuinely challenge, to put real pressure on those around them and create a consistency that means these results are not one-offs.

"We have examples of that happening with players like Ruaridh Jackson, Robert Harley and David Denton, and we sometimes forget about the identifying that's done of players like Joe Ansbro with Scottish heritage able to come through and strengthen our depth."And with that talent why should we just accept moments of success in cycles? Consistency comes from competing regularly under pressure, from club to pro and pro to international levels.

"It's not about one team, one level, or one group of players; we need improvements at every level, which is why we can't load up all the funding in one area to try and make it work. That might achieve improvement for one or two years but without the other levels improving with it then there will be a drop-off again, another blip.

"The clubs have been very enthusiastic and we will have more of the elite development players, our young pros, playing every weekend in the club sides this season.

"We will have a professional sevens squad and we're exploring how the professional clubs can connect better with their communities and the clubs around them.

"It's improving, but we need to build on that and ensure that everyone understands what we're trying to achieve and why, working with clubs to discuss what they want and need, and ultimately how it best suits the player."

In discussing the future with Lowe there is an acknowledgment that for all the positive thought and clear enthusiasm, the challenge of turning Scottish teams is not a short-term one.

There is encouragement to be drawn, however, simply from the fact that there is, finally, someone at Murrayfield looking at the entire game from top to bottom, for the first time since Ian McGeechan quit in 2005, and striving to bring some substance to oft-spouted talk of "joined-up thinking".

There has been much work on development and improvement from many dedicated individuals at Murrayfield and across the game's network of development officers and volunteers, but rival nations are improving at a fair rate too.

So how exactly will Lowe's plans knit in with Andy Robinson's push to make Scotland better, with some clubs who still believe they need little help, trenchant independent schools opposed to helping Scottish rugby's young generations by establishing nationwide competitions for fear of affecting their rolls and revenues, and many who demand change yet cannot see beyond their own club fence, never mind into other tiers of the sport?It will begin, Lowe says, with the new, long-awaited strategic plan that Lowe says is now being fine-tuned before publication "in the coming months". The major problems remain - the change at the top has brought no sudden new funding for the game and Scotland still has a population of five million with a small percentage playing rugby regularly.

"We have been reviewing many parts of the game and there are challenges there," said Lowe, insisting he is prepared to provide a fresh lead.

"I have a clear mandate on delivering, and as part of that I will make decisions, some difficult, that impact on the international squad, the professional tier, the club tier and age-grade levels, or elsewhere. But I'll try to make sure they are done with understanding of the bigger picture and support the players and the basic principles that I have outlined to improve Scottish rugby.

"Ultimately, I want to be judged on what we are doing now and in the coming years, the support we give to players and the number and quality of players coming through, and the strength of Scottish teams at all levels as a result.

"My colleagues and I have spent a lot of time going around the country and listening, and these sessions have shaped the new strategic plan.

"I don't expect everything to get everything I want. It's about joint strategic decisions, but I came here to make a difference and it's important for me that I do.

"There are opportunities to improve Scottish rugby within the limitations (finance and player resource] that we've got and I'm focused on that."

The proof will be in the lack of puddings masquerading as professionals and internationalists in the future. But, one would argue that a clear drive across Scottish rugby, not financial but in a rugby sense, has been noticeable by its absence in recent years so at least now, with the change of leadership, rugby may start to rise again in boardroom priorities.