This particular exercise, apparently light relief before a 5.30am Saturday alarm call to pound the dunes of nearby Lunan Bay, involved a blindfolded Mather playing the part of a human “sheep” being coralled home to base camp by the whistles, claps and growls of Paddy Crawford, the No8- turned-sheepdog for the day.
The instructors were impressed at how swiftly Mather made it back, but it’s not as if he isn’t used to this scenario. The job of any Scottish club coach these days, pointedly so at Myreside, is a constant unsighted stumble between pillar and post. The single obvious difference Mather might have noted on Friday was that only one man was hollering instructions at him.
The New Zealand-born back-row’s cauliflower ear must have come close to snapping off completely this past year, so long has been the queue of people anxious to bend it since the 34-year-old returned to the Edinburgh club where he first introduced himself to the Scottish game in 1993 before playing professionally for Edinburgh Reivers, Worcester, Leeds and Glasgow and winning 10 international caps.
Watsonians’ posse of backers, who contribute as much as £250,000 each year, shout that the big picture is irrelevant if there aren’t any maroon-ribboned trophies in its foreground.
Mather delivered last year, winning the BT Cup and hanging as doggedly to Glasgow Hawks’ coat-tails in the league as anyone has in the last three seasons. His reward? Four of his best players walking off into the sunset, or rather the brave new dawn of professional contracts, and unsubstantiated criticism of Watsonians’ supposed disdain for native talent delivered by Andy Irvine in his presidential address to the SRU annual meeting seven weeks ago. The club game, battered if not already broken, needs people with Mather’s experience and expertise more than they need it. So what attracts a man with so much to give to an environment that can’t, or, sometimes won’t, go out of its way to reciprocate? “It’s certainly not for the money,” smiles Mather, who feeds himself, his Scottish wife of nine days, and their infant son Findlay through his two other faces, as an importer of furniture from the Czech Republic and an agent for Pinnacle Solutions, the group that this summer organised staging and rigging for T in the Park and Bon Jovi’s Hampden show.
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“For me, there’s a specific emotional attachment to Watsonians that motivated me to come back and put something back in. I like to think that the clubs can still act as a feeder for the professional tier in this country, so there is an incentive there to keep building.”
That construction work has had to start largely afresh this close-season following the en masse evacuation of talent behind the scrum. Jamie Blackwood, the scrum-half mysteriously passed over by Edinburgh and whose valedictory contribution was two tries in the BT Cup final against Currie, has gone to Rotherham along with Bernie Hennessey, the utility back, and Andy Turnbull, the wing. Brian Rennie, the graceful centre sourced from the Natal Sharks academy this time last year, has, meanwhile, been picked up by Border Reivers. Mather wields this last fact with gusto when you remind him of Irvine’s words, believing it makes a pair of decisive incisions into those claims.
“Brian going full-time is an example of us doing the pro-teams a favour. If we hadn’t brought him over, he might never have been unearthed. Secondly, he’s typical of how our so-called “foreigners” have actually made a commitment to Scotland. Three of our guys have married Scottish women, so they will be in a position to contribute to the club long term. To say that we don’t make a contribution to Scottish rugby is simply untrue.”
Indeed, the majority of the cries of encouragement, exasperation and exhaustion at Condor were tinged with a native, youthful twang. Five of the new recruits to Mather’s back division are young and Scottish, most excitingly in the shape of Ben Di Rollo and Matt Coupar, reluctantly surrendered by Edinburgh Accies. Factor in more developed quality like that provided by Andrew Skeen, the incoming former Newcastle Falcons centre, and existing talent like Alan Nash, and something substantial could yet emerge from the nebulous haze that currently hangs over the operation.
“Some of the guys hardly know each other yet, so we’re an unknown quantity to ourselves, as much as anyone else,” admits Mather. “At least this way, with a lot of player turnover, we keep things fresh. It’s about getting the right blend in a team.”
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Mather can’t quite make his mind up as to who will accomplish that most convincingly in Premiership 1 this season. With Hawks having parted company with whole blocks of the pack that drove them to three successive championships, and most other teams also losing players as quickly as they could find them this summer, there is no obvious hierarchy to the league.
The fact that only 10 teams are present in it this year should also add to the intensity, making the annual meeting’s decision to increase capacity back to 12 next season before assessing the effect of reducing it to 10 look even more perverse.
“I reckon this is going to be the most competitive season for a while, and I’m astonished that that decision has been taken by people who have nothing to do with this league — it’s like Preston Grasshoppers telling Leicester how big the Premiership should be,” frowns Mather. “People should get their own house in order before telling others what to do with theirs.”
Mather is slowly tidying up the loose ends of his own rugby involvement. This will be his last season playing, and he has pondered passing his head coach’s pedestal on to Duncan Hodge next year, should his friend (who deals with the Myreside backs) not stay on full-time with Edinburgh.
Mather has already shown an ability to dictate his own timescale, retiring from the professional game at 33 when neither his legs or rugby brain betrayed overt signs of slowing.
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“I’m someone who needs something to work towards,” he says. “Once I retired from the international game, I needed something to play for, and I could see that Glasgow weren’t going to win the Celtic League or Heineken Cup so there wasn’t really anything to keep me. Other people might be happy enough to stick around for mediocrity, but it isn’t for me. I know when to go.”
With the vigour that he brings to it, Mather will never risk outstaying his welcome in a domestic game that needs to somehow preserve a competitive future.