JOHN DALZIEL will join Glasgow Warriors as an assistant coach with immediate effect, while former Scotland 7s captain Scott Forrest will replace him as the man in charge of the national 7s squad for the two remaining legs of this season’s World Rugby Sevens Series in London and Paris at the end of May and start of June.
Forrest has confirmed he will not be pursuing the Scotland Men’s 7s role beyond the conclusion of this season, reverting back to his current role as Scottish Rugby Women’s High Performance Manager. Former Scotland centre Ben Cairns, who was appointed head coach of the Stirling County Super 6 side in December, has been linked with the 7s role, but sources have indicated that this is not a route the SRU are actively pursuing.
Dalziel has been Scotland 7s coach since summer 2017 having previously led Melrose to three Premiership titles, as well as coaching Scotland Under-20s, and spending a season on sabbatical with London Scottish.
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“I have always been clear in my ambition to coach at a professional level and my experiences so far at Melrose, London Scottish, age-grades and 7s have all led to that goal,” said Dalziel.
“I think the hard work starts now, but I am impressed with the set-up Dave Rennie has in place, there is a team approach among the coaches and I’ve worked with many of the Glasgow players through the age-grade system or 7s, so I’m very much looking forward to this new stage of my career.”
Forrest, who recently led the Scotland Women’s 7s team to the final of the World Series Qualifier in Hong Kong, has been working with the men’s squad in recent weeks.
“Scott will have a great opportunity to further his own development through the final two rounds of the World Sevens Series and we are now actively looking for an ambitious new Scotland 7s head coach, as part of our coaching pathway, as we head into the Olympic 7s season,” said Scottish Rugby’s Technical Director Stevie Gemmell.
Forrest added: “As a former player on the World Series this was an opportunity I didn’t want to turn down. I’m still developing as a coach and very much enjoying my current role working with Scotland Women so it isn’t the right time for me to do this full time just now.
“While the current sevens squad are a young group from the time I’ve spent with them they are good professionals and self reliant, who know what they want to achieve.
“We have England and New Zealand in our pool for the London round and as is the way with sevens there are no easy games, but they are all one-off matches so I’ve seen a real focus from the boys already.”
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I find it really irritating that John Dalziel is described in this article as a former Melrose and Borders Reiver player, where were his informative years spent ?. Then again in this modern world everybody seems happy to forget their roots ! .
John will never forget his grass roots. He will always be eternally grateful for all the inspiration he got from John Gray Mike Gray and everyone else fir their dedication and hard work they put onto bringing through our youngsters here in Galashiels and in Johns case from the age of six. It’s thanks to those dedicated men that he is where he is today.
John will never forget hiss grass roots start in Galashiels where at the age of 6 he began his rugby with John Gray Mike Gray and others to whom he will be eternally grateful for getting him to where he is now. John rose up through the ranks at Gala RFC. He then moved to Melrose back to Gala then the Reivers and the rest is history. He is a Braw Lad and proud of it.