Interview: Mark Dodson, Scottish Rugby Union chief executive

In the short few months since Mark Dodson was introduced as the new chief executive of the SRU, the bluff but jovial northerner has seen Scotland slip three places in the IRB rankings as the team bowed out of the World Cup earlier than ever before. Now the poster boy of Scottish rugby has upped sticks and joined Sale Sharks, a club based in Manchester, the city where Dodson made his name with the Guardian Media Group. Didn’t he warn Richie Gray about the weather?

Toulouse might have been forgiveable, but swapping Glasgow for Sale, a team that was flirting with relegation just two seasons ago and are only occasional participants in the Heineken Cup, must have been a real kick in the crotch.

“It’s not about going to Sale but why choose the English Premiership over Scottish rugby?” says Dodson. “Clearly people have voted with their feet in the past and continue to do so now. What we have to do is make it so attractive here that the players don’t want to leave. You can’t blame the players for wanting to leave until we get our act together and make our pro teams the place where they want to play their rugby.”

Is there a danger of throwing money at the next man – Chris Cusiter and John Barclay are out of contract at the end of the season – simply because Murrayfield needs a win after the Gray humiliation?

“Anyone who knows me knows that I think money’s not everything,” replies Dodson. “We have a sensible head on us regarding pay rates and, don’t forget, we will be benchmarking ourselves against the market. Richie was an exceptional case, a category all on his own. I’d hate anyone to think that the next cab in the rank is going to get showered with cash.”

After the tumultuous start he’s had Dodson could be forgiven for being a little downcast, or so you’d think. Instead the SRU’s top dog is wagging his tail, relentlessly positive and exuding an air of confidence which even a cynical old hack finds difficult to resist. He calls himself a natural optimist and, against all odds, insists that he is markedly more upbeat now than he was when he started the job five weeks ago.

He may not look much like Barack Obama but Dodson is promising exactly the same irresistible commodity... change. Not just any old change and certainly not the slow, cautious incremental type but a sea-change in the way business is done at Murrayfield and there is no doubt he makes an utterly convincing salesman, despite the odd lapse into what looks like hyperbole.

At one point Dodson recounts a recent conversation where he’d claimed, “we might be on the cusp of a golden era of Scottish rugby” pointing to the youngsters emerging from the pro-teams such as David Denton, Rob Harley, Harry Leonard and Matt Scott as evidence. If you are a little circumspect over these claims you are not alone.

“There have been comments like, ‘this guy’s OK but a bit naive. Is he really mad and taking prohibited substances?’” says Dodson. “The bottom line is, no, I’m not, but I believe that we need to believe in ourselves more. The Scots nation needs to believe in itself more. Being an underdog is fine but it’s exhausting. What we need to do is be competent and confident of winning.”

Offered a fairy godmother and granted one wish, Dodson scratches his chin for a few minutes before requesting two successful pro teams, arguing that their success will feed into the national team which, in turn, is the shop window for Scottish rugby. The professional pyramid is to be built from the bottom up as the new man places at the top of his agenda the two teams that were treated a little like Cinderella by the ugly sisters of the previous regime.

There have already been welcome signs of a change of tack. Gray might have gone but a host of others players have signed on with the pro teams after central funding was made available in good time. The Murrayfield hospitality suite is now open for business again after Edinburgh fans were shunned last season and took the SRU to court as a result. All in all, the customer experience more resembles Cathay Pacific than Ryanair, although that’s not to say the odd drink won’t be spilled before arrival.

When talking about the undoubted potential of the Scottish pro teams, Dodson likes to draw a parallel between Leinster and Edinburgh. While the Dublin side was playing in front of a few thousand fans just seven or eight years ago, they can now fill the 55,000-seat Aviva Stadium when Munster or any of the bigger European cheeses come to town. It’s just a pity that the Scots don’t share the same tax break which is the principal reason that Irish sports stars stay in the republic. They get a 40 per cent rebate when they eventually retire.

“You must see the parallels there,” says Dodson. “Ireland had their ‘never again’ moment in 1999 when they failed to qualify for the World Cup quarter-finals and we have just had ours. They repatriated their best players after that and we are trying to do the same. We are trying to build something here. Take the tax break away and you have a lot more in common between the two clubs than you have differences.

“From 2012 to 2015 is the next phase and we are taking this four-year period very, very seriously and we intend to be in a completely different place in 2015 than we are now. We might not be winning World Cups in that time but we will be a true power in rugby.”

In order to achieve this, Dodson wants the pro teams to have a budget equivalent to those in the English Premiership although that covers a pretty wide band in itself. He promises to skew investment towards the field of play while maintaining the financial prudence that marked his predecessor Gordon McKie. The additional money will also come from growing revenues and, if that sounds tricky with Europe teetering on the edge of the economic abyss, Dodson argues that long-term strategic partnerships with businesses will pay dividends.

“We will give the pro teams what they need to win silverware and be successful. They have to have improved budgets so they can compete at the level of the [English] Premiership clubs.” That is the money quote – in more ways than one.

“We also have to make sure that they have the best coaching talent and, if that means supplementing the existing pool, then that’s what we’re going to do. What I’m trying to build in a broader sense is a ‘no excuses’ culture in our pro teams.”

The plan sounds promising but the planets are not aligning themselves in Scotland’s favour. Rugby sevens is entering the Brazilian Olympics in 2016 for the first time so previously peripheral countries such as Russia and China are throwing money at the sport as never before. The IRB is going through a period of navel gazing in which Scotland’s two votes (as a founder member) will come under increasing scrutiny. One insider gives it ten years before a two-tier Six Nations emerges in Europe, including promotion and relegation, with all the implications that carries for Scotland’s increasingly-precarious place at the top table. Dodson does not deny that the vultures are circling.

“We’re under threat across the board,” he says. “The reason we are under threat is because we’re underperforming. We’re underperforming in the RadoDirect Pro 12 and we’re not punching our weight at international level. Economically we’re not the richest of unions and we’re finding it difficult to attract supporters back.

“So, historically speaking, it’s easy to see why there are red lights out there. But, if you write two lists on a whiteboard, the self-inflicted issues far outweigh the structural issues. So, if we stop shooting ourselves in the foot, and get our act together you’ll find that these issues will disappear.”