Former cap Rowen Shepherd believes players will benefit from longer tours

RESTORING longer rugby tours will bring more positives to Scottish players than negatives according to former internationalist and now players' agent Rowen Shepherd.

The ex-Edinburgh Accies and Scotland full-back won 20 caps between 1995 and 1998, but now runs Red Sky Management, an agency that handles the affairs of players including Chris Cusiter, Jason White, Nick de Luca and Ross Rennie. He can see the issue of touring – and the extra demands it places on players – from both sides of the fence.

Shepherd acknowledges that the IRB's enthusiasm for a return to more traditional June tours, with midweek games, will cause some angst for players concerned at the ever-lengthening season, but insists it will prove beneficial if managed properly to minimise the physical and mental effects on the players.

He said: "I toured with Scotland from 1994 to 1998, and went to Argentina, New Zealand and Australia, and they were great tours for a whole lot of reasons. For many players now a tour is just in and out, one or two Tests and home again, and they don't experience the same culture experiences we did travelling the world, and I think they miss out.

"The obvious concern is that the game has changed hugely in the past ten years and is more demanding of the players now, and their families. The game itself is brutal now, particularly for the guys regularly in the collision zone, and while the experts say they really should be given ten days for their bodies to recover after a game, the demands are such that they sometimes have five-day turnarounds from Sundays to Fridays. Players can't be expected to cope with that and play 12-month seasons without reducing the lifespan of their career significantly.

"So, the answer is to look at how you manage them through the season. I agree with what Jim Telfer said in yesterday's Scotsman – that you can't send weakened squads on these tours, so that means the top players are asked for more.

"But if players get some chance to have some down-time during the season, where they have a week or ten days' holiday even, time to just get away from the job or to spend with their family, then it could make the tours achievable. Gone are the days when players could be off for five or six weeks anyway – they don't expect that any more – but shorter breaks maybe more often would compensate for these longer tours."

Shepherd believes there will be a greater onus on club coaches and players to agree to more breaks during the season and, while acknowledging the disappointment it would cause to paying fans, he insisted this was crucial to enabling tours to go ahead without player strife.

"We talk about moving to a 12-month season, but we're already at that stage; there aren't any months that players do not have mapped out for them that doesn't involve a lot of rugby, so it's much like any other job.

"The benefit I see for players of this IRB decision is that they will now have a clearer idea of what they're signing up to because they will know the tours that are coming at the end of this season, the next season and so on, and know what they need to cope with that.

"Tours are good for developing players, senior players and fringe players, and they're great fun. I think players used to handling the intensity and mental pressures of modern rugby will find a return to traditional tours quite refreshing.

"There will definitely be players saying 'I don't fancy that', but if they're shown the calendar for a year where they can have time off with their family at times through it, then it won't seem as daunting a sojourn as they might think."