Plenty more Steven Shinglers, says manager of Exiles’ search for talent

While the SRU now must pursue their claim on Shingler through an IRB committee, the encouraging news for the Scottish game is that the London Irish centre is just one of a growing number of young talents being discovered by a burgeoning Exiles system.

In 2005, The Scotsman led ultimately futile calls for the SRU and Scottish clubs to abandon their bid to drop the exiles representative on the SRU, which led, as forecast, to the demise of a network encompassing around 2,000 Scottish-qualified players and volunteers.

Realising the folly of the decision 18 months later, the SRU appointed Rob Brierley as a new ‘Performance Development Manager’ and Dave Butcher followed as ‘Performance Development Coach’. Brierley had been a leading figure in coach education and development with the RFU, working closely with coaches across the British Isles, and he leapt at the chance to return from an increasingly administrative role to one working with players.

He now runs five Exiles squads from U16 to U20 and spearheads a network covering eight areas in England – south-west, London, east midlands, west midlands, eastern counties, Yorkshire, north-west and north-east. The number of Scottish-qualified players unearthed through them, as well as Wales, Ireland and further afield – two Australian Scots have pitched up this year – currently totals more than 1,200.

Only a small percentage will be good enough to make it all the way to international level but, with the SRU preparing this year to welcome an Exiles representative back on to the Union and the development of the players identified much improved, real potential is being re-awakened.

Brierley, who is based in Yorkshire, told The Scotsman: “The Exiles Under-18s team we will put out this year will be the strongest yet and the potential over the next five to ten years for the Exiles to play a crucial role in strengthening Scottish rugby is absolutely huge.

“We have gone from six areas to eight covering England, with around 40 Scottish-qualified kids maybe at each session we put on – we’ve brought more than 200 through from the Worcester sessions alone so far – but in truth we are only scratching the surface. We must have lost masses of potential internationalists over the years.

“There are Scottish families and Scots youngsters everywhere down here. Look at the top schools, for instance. The Sedbergh 1st XV has six Scots in it, including the entire front row; Milfield have five Scots-qualified boys in their 1st XV. Now, there is only myself and Dave working full-time for Scottish rugby down here, with a growing army of volunteers I must add, so we can only get around so many schools. But we had nothing to start with five years ago so I’m very encouraged by where we are now and with the Exiles rep coming back on the union it can only add to the strength we have.”

It is intriguing listening to Brierley talk about “working under the radar” in England, while gaining the trust of the Aviva Premiership and Championship academies and accepting that he works at odds with those clubs’ desire is to develop players for England.

Not only is it a patriotic desire, but a financial one which creates a challenge that did not exist when Damian Cronin, Chris Gray, Peter Walton and even Budge Pountney headed north.

“The English clubs receive a lot of funding from the RFU for bringing through English-qualified players,” explained Brierley, “so there is pressure on these lads to throw in their lot with England. We have lost a few.

“David Sisi, the London Irish forward, opted for the English route [he scored against Scotland U18s last year], there are a couple of boys at Northampton not committing themselves yet and Ben Ransom at Saracens [England U20 full-back] we were tracking for four years.

“But Alex Allan, a prop at Sedbergh, and Loughborough, Will Burdell (Sale), Scott Steele (Leicester), Mitch Eadie (Bristol), Ally Price (Bedford), a lad at the Ospreys, a couple of Australians and Tommy Allan, from Western Province [nephew of Scotland and Springbok cap John] are examples of promising talents that have come to Scotland.

“There are lots of quality players who get missed in England and abroad because they have so many, and international rugby is not the biggest thing on a young player’s horizon these days. Getting a professional contract is and when you get that chance in England you can also get the pressure to make yourself English-qualified.

“We were aware of Steven [Shingler] coming through the ranks at Llanelli and knew the family was from Langholm. We spoke to Steven but he was in the Welsh system so it made sense for him to play for Wales at age-grade level.

“He secured a contract at London Irish, but maintained that he wanted to keep the Scotland door open so would not commit to Wales. We’ll have to wait for the IRB now, but we have known for a while what country he wanted to play for.”

In a country possessing just seven per cent of the rugby players, England have registered the biggest challenge has always been a numbers one for Scotland. From Ian McGeechan in the 1970s and before to the title-winning days of Cronin, Gray, Pountney and Eric Peters through recent caps Hugo Southwell, Simon Danielli, Rory and Sean Lamont, Thom and Max Evans and Jim Hamilton and on to the emerging fly-half Harry Leonard, and Glasgow pair Henry Pyrgos and Ryan Wilson, Scotland relies on ex-pats to compete.

Brierley believes the support Scots from around the globe offer could become significantly greater over the next decade. He added: “There are proud Scots everywhere. We’ve encouraged young exiles like Harry Leonard (Boroughmuir before Edinburgh), Harry Duthie (Dundee) and Duncan Morrison (Edinburgh Accies) to play for Scottish clubs as a route to the pro game in Scotland, so an expanding exiles network should benefit the whole Scottish game in the future. As I’ve said, we’re talking about 1200 youngsters now, but we’re only scratching the surface.”