Dundee High Rugby’s push for the BT Premiership will involve upwards of 20 new players at Mayfield and a strengthened club structure.
After narrowly falling short of a promotion play-off last year, the club have held on to the majority of that mix of youth and experience for the forthcoming season and tightened the club’s internal organisation aiming at a more professional operation.
Head coach Colin Sangster will lead a four-strong backroom team which has added former Scotland half-back Phil Godman, now Director of Rugby at the High School of Dundee, as backs coach.
Long-time club stalwart and captain for the last three seasons Alan Brown will now have a player/coach brief supporting JJ Van der Esch with the forwards.
Former Scotland Under-20 prop Gavin Robertson has been forced to quit playing due to recurring injuries but will become the firsts’ team manager, one of two new posts at the club.
The club’s second team, the Titans, have been overhauled with the club’s longest servant Dougie Gray – still not officially retired – as head coach assisted by Clinton Davie. Jim Michie, a popular figure in Midlands rugby and a former coach of the Titans, returns as team manager of the second team.
Sangster missed the last few weeks of the last campaign – his first as head coach – due to a routine heart procedure, but the club ended the season as arguably the strongest in BT National League One, beating both champions Watsonians and play-off team Marr in the final few weeks, but falling just short of second place.
“I think everyone at the club realised that but for a few silly results at the start of the season we probably would have made the promotion play-off at least, and we managed to beat Watsonians home and away,” pointed out the coach.
“It took the players a while to come to terms with new systems I introduced and that was maybe to be expected, but by the end of the season it began to take shape and the results followed. We want really to hit the ground running this year.”
Captain of the club this year with Brown moving to his new post will be scrum-half Andy Dymock, the third Dymock after father Tom and brother Neil to skipper Dundee.
There’s been a concerted effort at recruitment this summer with 20 new players at the club, more expected once the universities return and several players from the Dundee Eagles junior club now graduating into senior rugby. But it’s the more professional operation of the club that Sangster expects to particularly bear fruit.
“It’s more common sense than anything else, but we needed to be more organised, specifically with the Titans,” he said. “I spoke to a lot of players at the club after the first season and what was coming through was that the link between the Titans and the first team wasn’t strong enough.
“So this seasons they’re going to have a stronger structure and hopefully the Titans players will feel more valued, particularly as they feed into the first team.
“The ambition I suppose is to make the Titans the second best team in Dundee. That might rub a few people up the wrong way, but if we have aspirations to get back to the Premiership and stay there we’re going to need strong resources across the club, and having a presence in the top league can only be good for rugby in the city.”
Those at Mayfield are still keen to work with other clubs in the city, with dual registration agreements and coaching links. Sangster has also been working on establishing the new Dundee Rugby junior team with the city’s Development Officer Josh Gabriel-Clarke.
“We were hearing of promising players from this area that were going to play their rugby at Perthshire or Howe,” he said. “Those are great clubs with super junior sections, but there should be something that good here in the city for them and that’s what we’re trying to build.”
