Former IRFU director Nucifora joins Scotland set-up

Thomson Reuters

Scottish rugby will be hoping that performance guru David Nucifora can do for them what he did for Ireland after he agreed a part-time role with the country's union to oversee their player development programme.

Nucifora, a former test hooker for his native Australia, spent more than a decade as performance director of the Irish Rugby Union and is credited with overseeing a structural rebuild that helped them become one of the strongest teams in world rugby.

He has now accepted an advisory role with Scottish Rugby to oversee the next stage of their player development programme.

The 62-year-old will not be full-time, operating on a consultancy basis over the next two years.

"To ensure we can compete at the highest level we need someone of David’s experience to design and implement, at pace, a structure that supports our best talent," Scottish Rugby chairman John McGuigan said in a statement on Tuesday.

Rugby Australia announced in December that Nucifora would return home to work as an advisor for them after completing his duties with Ireland’s sevens teams at the Olympics.

"I’m well aware of the ambition Scotland has as a rugby nation and the desire to nurture talent to ensure we can compete at the highest level over the long term. To ensure this ambition can be realised we will design and implement a structure which supports high performance outcomes," Nucifora said.

Scottish rugby has long struggled with a limited playing pool although they have beaten England in their last four Calcutta Cup meetings, as well as Australia and France over the last five years.

They did not make it out of the pool stages at last year’s World Cup in France and finished fourth in this year’s Six Nations Championship.