BOTH coaches of Scotland’s age-group teams seem likely to join the battle to take over from Todd Blackadder as the head coach at Edinburgh. In a manner that is typical of both men, Peter Wright, who is in charge of the Under-19s, bluntly stated that he was dusting off his CV and would submit it by Friday, while Iain Paxton, who runs the Under-21s, is being more circumspect but all the signs are that he is equally determined to lay down a marker to his employers in the Scottish Rugby Union.
In both cases, the prospect of a full time post with one of the professional teams, is an obvious step up the career ladder and while Sean Lineen, the assistant at Glasgow, remains the favourite to win the post, there could be other posts as head coach coming up and both feel the need to lay down a marker.
In the meantime, Wright has appealed for an end to the confusion and muddle that is surrounding the Exiles and making it harder to attract English-based players as they start off in high-level rugby careers.
The London academy was set up at the start of the season but quickly ran into problems and is now operating without a manager. The position of Exiles coach is about to be advertised, but until it is filled, finding and retaining Scottish-qualified players from south of the Borders is proving to be a problem.
He has named five Exiles in the Under-19 side that will play France in Dalziel on Thursday, but he has worries that without proper supervision and expert training, some of them could slip through the system.
Advertisement
“A lot of these guys are supposed to be in English academies at quite a high level but I have serious doubts about their strength and conditioning,” he said. “We had one session down there and a few of them were going down even though it was not that hard a session. These things are up to the individual, and I’m sure these academies have given them programmes to follow, but they need to be supervised.” That training problem is also the biggest headache for Paxton, who knows the opposition will probably all be on the books of leading clubs and that fitness could be an issue.
SCOTLAND UNDER-21: I Kennedy (Glasgow Warriors, Glasgow Hawks); B Addison (Stirling County), B Cairns (Edinburgh Gunners, Currie), G Law (Borders), L Kibble (Borders, Biggar); D Blair (Sale, captain) , G Laidlaw (Jed-Forest); R Grant (Army), S Crombie (Aberdeen), D Young (Leicester), J Eddie (Glasgow Warriors, Ayr), I Nimmo (Leicester), S Newlands (Heriots), A MacDonald (Edinburgh), J Barclay (Glasgow). Replacements: I Brown (Stirling County), K Traynor (Edinburgh, Boroughmuir), M Robertson (Hawick), J Taggart (Currie), S Biggart (Glasgow Hawks), J King (Borders, Melrose), D Whiteford (Melrose).