AUSTRALIA’S RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP campaign so far could scarcely have been more disastrous.
Back-to-back home tonkings by South Africa only emphasised the gap between the Wallabies and the world’s top sides and now the man tasked with closing it has upped and left for a competitor.
Rugby Australia insist that David Nucifora’s switch to Scotland is no surprise — “we were under no illusions that he was going to engage with other unions,” RA chief executive Phil Waugh told The Roar — and that he was hired back in December only on a “project” basis.
Nucifora had been working two days a week as an advisor for RA since detaching entirely from his 10-year gig as the IRFU’s high performance director. He was instrumental to the hiring of his old partner-in-crime Joe Schmidt back in January and, working alongside Peter Horne, it was presumed that he would help steer his native country into a crucial juncture in its rugby history with a Lions tour and a home World Cup on the horizon.
But less than 10 months after his recruitment by RA, Nucifora will again depart for Europe, this time for Scotland as ostensibly their high performance director.
While it’ll be a part-time gig officially, the Brisbane native will sign a two-year deal and fill the post vacated by Jim Mallinder back in December.
Beginning with this year’s November tests, Nucifora will spend parts of his year in Edinburgh where the buck will ultimately stop with him as it did in Dublin.
The 62-year-old will call the shots from grassroots to test rugby. Among his primary goals will be to improve Scotland’s development pathways, which have dried up to an extremely concerning extent.
He’ll also be partly responsible for recruiting his replacement in a couple of years’ time.
Nucifora’s arrival is an early coup for new SRU chairman John McGuigan. Ireland won four Six Nations under Nucifora’s watch — Scotland last won the title when it was still the Five Nations in 1999.
The union, meanwhile, still needs to add a chief executive to its new leadership regime following the departure of the long-serving Mark Dodson.
The SRU recently announced a ‘financial reset’, confirming that it would cut jobs in its efforts to bring the sport back into the black after recording a £10.5m deficit in the last financial year.
Nucifora will work closely with men’s senior head coach Gregor Townsend in pursuit of on-field success.
The former Wallaby hooker will hope to shift the mentality of Scottish rugby to the extent that he did with Ireland, who earned first ever test victories over New Zealand, a first test win in South Africa, and a series win in Australia during his tenure as high performance director.
There were also three U20 Grand Slams and a World Junior Championship final, and Nucifora’s new superiors will hope that he can set Scottish rugby back on a path towards becoming competitive at age-grade level.
The country’s player pathway is already in the midst of an overhaul to which Nucifora will now contribute.
The Scots believe the uncompromising Nucifora will set them up for the future in so far as is possible on a two-year, part-time deal.
Scotland will host Fiji, South Africa, Portugal and Nucifora’s native Australia in November before beginning their 2025 Six Nations campaign with a trip to Twickenham to face England.
I expect there are a lot of very unhappy people in the IRFU.
@kieran horgan: Why?
@kieran horgan: don’t think so, he served us well and handed over to a very highly regarded David Humphries
@kieran horgan: A stronger Scotland is good for Irish and International rugb overall. He achieved alot of his goals for the IRFU, if also polarising some sections of the rugby community along the way.
Very different landscape for Nucifora in Scotland compared to when he arrived in Ireland first. Most of the ingredients were already there, he honed in on the areas that needed focus for ultimate success at international level. Scotland do not have a schools pathway and tbeir youth development will take a generation or more to bear fruit. I hope that his performance won’t be judged over 2 years, because if that’s going to be the case, he is likely to enhance the SQ Pathway moreso than the development of structures at home to eventually produce international quality players. Maybe that is what SRU will be asking for… he did a pretty decent job of it in Ireland but I’m not sure Ireland would field a competitive team of IQ Pathway only players.
@Paul Ennis: one of the things he brought in or reinforced in Ireland was the the unwritten rule of playing in Ireland to represent Ireland. It’ll be interesting to see if he goes down a similar road with Scotland. Maybe we je fact that they’ve only 2 teams will mitigate against that.
@Paul Ennis: Well said, Ireland’s success has many factors.
@Michael Corkery: Pretty sure the rule already existed already with a caveat for established international such as Tommy Bowe and Johnny Sexton. I don’t think any other exceptions were made. Nucifora arrived in 2013 and I think the IRFU had already decided that 1. They wouldn’t cock up the contract negotiations for their most important player ever again and 2. JS would be the last player to play for Ireland whilst contracted abroad. Scotland cannot play international rugby without their Prem or Top 14 players. The upside for them is that someone else pays their wages. The Irish system works for Ireland but will not necessarily work for Scotland… just like we vannot try to copy SA, France or England. Nucifora’s needs to identify the route to Scotland’s (relative) success.
How did he do 10 months for Rugby Australia, his IRFU contracts ran untill the Olympics were over?
@Kingshu: I seem to remember that the IRFU give him permission to work part time for the ARU after the world cup? I might be wrong.
RA must be some outfit? To get a guy of this calibre go was a monumental f up. They’re a complete mess and JS ain’t going to fix it.
@Noel Lynn: that was my first thought. What a screw up by RA. His work was done in Ireland and there is no regrets on either side how that worked out.
@Noel Lynn: From the BBC site it mentions both positions (Scotland and RA) are part-time. For such an important role you’d think it would be permanent for either country, especially RA as he wanted to return to Australia?
@Con Cussed: He finishes with Australia in November.
Can we get a few pre season run downs/analysis etc? It’s like a barren landscape out here.
@Thesaltyurchin: Murray hibernates in the summer every two years.
@Justin Robinson: I’m refreshing every day in the hope of some preseason coverage from teh team!