Rugby: Craig Chalmers may leave Scotland for pro chance

The Melrose coach has made speaking his mind a point of principle, even when he knows he is being self-defeatingly provocative, and it certainly hasn’t always helped his career. Indeed, he says he is now at the point where he believes the only way a Scottish coach can break into the pro ranks is to move to England, a move that he is now willing to make.

There is no denying that Chalmers, who could make a case for being the most successful coach in our club game, has a point. In the week when Edinburgh’s form continued to bump along the bottom under Michael Bradley and Neil Back, and the SRU once again looked outside Scotland for coaching expertise when hiring Dean Ryan as interim forwards coach for the national side, the 44-year-old Borderer’s refrain that Scottish coaches face an impossibly steep bar to joining the ranks of pro coaches once again rang true.

“Scottish coaches aren’t getting a fair look-in,” he says bluntly. “When it comes to the pro teams there seems to be this obsession with looking outside. It’s OK to bring quality coaches in from outside but you also have to give ambitious and successful guys here a chance. I’ve been involved with coaching the under-20s and Scotland A last year, both of which were successful, and progressed and learned during my time at Melrose. Over the past two years we’ve won the cup and league and Melrose Sevens while playing good rugby and producing players for the next level. So I feel like I’m one of a number of guys who, if they were given the chance, could do a job. But it’s the people making the decisions at Murrayfield who’ve got to agree, and they don’t seem to.”

Yet Chalmers also knows that he has at times been his own worst enemy. The night he spent in the cells after passions got out of hand at the Melrose Sevens is, he knows, a handy pretext to keep the leader of the awkward squad at arm’s length.

“Things have happened that might have gone against me,” he says in reference to that day, “and there’s also no denying that I have an opinion on things and that has counted against me. But, as long as I’m not employed by the SRU and I’m coaching Melrose, I’ll speak my mind – I think we need more opinions, not fewer, and I’m big enough and ugly enough to admit when I’m wrong. But I feel that I’ve proved that I know the game pretty well, understand the game, understand players and know how to improve players and to mould teams.

“It’s very frustrating that I’ve never had an opportunity on a full-time basis.

“I had an interview for the Borders job nine years ago when they appointed Steve Bates, but the criteria now includes experience and if they’re not going to give that to coaches like me then how can we ever hope to qualify for these jobs?

“Eventually, I’ll have to go south to get that experience, which I’ll do to get that opportunity, but that’s what it’s come to. It’s sad, but there it is.”

This year seems likely to be a catalyst for that move. With the Edinburgh coaching set-up sure to change over the summer – if not before – the job of Edinburgh head coach, and presumably that of backs coach, seems sure to become vacant. Not that Chalmers is holding his breath.

“My chances at Edinburgh?” he asks, with a snort of laughter. “You’d have to ask someone at the SRU – I’d obviously love the chance to coach Edinburgh full-time but last time I applied I didn’t even get an interview. Of course I’ll apply, but it seems that some players get into coaching quite easily, perhaps because they’ve got the right affiliations, and then there’s me…”

In some ways, being involved with underperforming Edinburgh is a tantalising prospect, especially if you believe, as Chalmers does, that the issue isn’t primarily one of personnel. He has certainly been a vocal critic of the tactic of recruiting journeymen players from overseas rather than blooding young Scots but he still believes the problem is predominantly in the mind.

“Edinburgh seem to be falling away and to really lack confidence,” he says. “They struggled big time in the scrum against Glasgow, where they were destroyed. Last year their backs looked good because they were playing off a solid platform but this year they’re making a lot of basic handling errors, turning the ball over cheaply and missing a lot of first-up tackles, which is always the sign of a side struggling for confidence.”

Chalmers believes passionately that there are plenty of good young players in Scottish club rugby who, if given the chance, could step up to the mark, citing Scotland wing Lee Jones, who was only tried at Edinburgh when coach Rob Moffat was told there was no more money to bring in established players. Under Chalmers, Melrose have produced pro team backs such as Scott Wight, Fraser Thomson, Bruce Dick and James King, while the Scotland under-20 team he coached included players such as Matt Scott, Tom Brown, Dougie Fife, Stuart McInnally, Chris Fusaro, Rob Harley, Ryan Wilson and Richie Gray.

Although a catalogue of injuries and the loss of Thomson and Dick to Glasgow mean this is not a vintage season for Melrose, Chalmers also believes that the ability of Scottish clubs to be competitive in the British & Irish Cup against English teams with vastly greater resources shows that there is still a lot of life left in the Scottish game.

“People here don’t appreciate just how much money is being spent down south,” he says. “The pro teams in Scotland are better funded than many of the other teams they will face but, when we play against the likes of Nottingham, Bristol or Bedford, their playing budgets are over a million pounds whereas our main outlay is on petrol for students in Edinburgh to get back for training. So, when we win a game in the B&I Cup, it’s a great achievement because we’re generally punching far above our weight.”

The heart of Chalmers’ coaching philosophy is about getting players to take responsibility for themselves. He believes the reluctance of some players to do this, allied to a lack of basic understanding of the game’s nuances – many young pro players, he says, play far too little rugby – was behind Andy Robinson’s failure with Scotland.

“I felt very sorry for Andy,” he says. “He was unlucky, and I think he struggled to educate the guys – he got frustrated by the basic errors, silly things like unnecessary  sin-binnings, other foolish mistakes and a lack of good decision-making in key areas. The results meant that he had to go, but it could so easily have been very different.”

Indeed, he believes it could be so different under Johnson. The players are certainly there for Scotland to be successful, says the Melrose coach.

“The change [in coach] will be good for some players, and Johnnie Beattie, who is playing well for Montpellier, will be pleased for a start,” he says.

“Let’s not fool ourselves, we don’t have a massive depth in squad, but there are some things we can do. One of the big problems we have had recently is that there are not many nailed-on guys. In the past we had nine, ten, 12 guys who you pretty much knew would play, but there’s been a remarkable lack of continuity.

“Scott needs to get an idea of his first team and start shaping it as soon as possible. We all want to see the guys play with width but I think, if you do that, you really need to be asking questions of the opposition. For that reason I think that Sean Maitland, who looks a class act, should come straight into the team – if you’ve got a back three of Stuart Hogg, Tim Visser and Sean Maitland, then that’s got a real potency about it. If Nick De Luca is out, you could even move Stuart Hogg to 13 alongside Matt Scott and move Maitland to full-back with either Max Evans or Sean Lamont on the wing.”

Chalmers reckons that winning the three Six Nations home games against Italy, Ireland and Wales is achievable but believes that the key is to evolve a two-speed game more atuned to the demands of international rugby. Given that he is a former Test stand-off with 61 caps to his name for Scotland and the Lions, it is no surprise that he believes that the key to this lies with the half-backs. It would be interesting, however, to hear what Scott Johnson thinks of the identity of Chalmers’ preferred combination at nine and ten.

“You have to be able to play two types of game, to be able to mix it up and to be able to kick and play in the right areas, and I still think that the best No.10 for that is Duncan Weir (picture left), because he has a strong kicking game and can manage a game so that you play in the right areas”, says Chalmers. I think Ruaridh Jackson has had so many chances, far more than anyone else in that slot. My scrum-half would be Greig Laidlaw – I know he’s played No.10 but he’s a bit small and has been targeted by opposition back rows and No.10s, while his kicking game is not as strong as someone like Duncan.”

As ever, Chalmers is forthright, decisive and thought-provoking. You may not always agree with him, but he’s certainly no yes-man and he’s always worth listening to.