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'I literally said to him, 'whatever money you have left in the budget, give me an offer''
When Matt Scott told his wife that Leicester Tigers had offered him a contract, bringing four months of gnawing uncertainty to an end, she burst into tears. With their first child on the way and his Edinburgh deal expiring, Tigers’ intervention was merciful deliverance.
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Scott is happy with his lot now. He feels deeply fortunate to have signed for one of the game’s storied old giants when so many of his friends are scrabbling around with nothing in a market smithereened by coronavirus. He doesn’t look back with bitterness at the way he left – or was forced to leave – Edinburgh, but there is a significant degree of disappointment in how the whole episode unfolded.
In November, the centre was verbally offered a new three-year deal. He and his agent were given several weeks to mull over the terms, and tell the club whether he wanted to sign. When he went back to answer in the affirmative, he was told the offer no longer existed.
“It wasn’t like I’d been offered something and then threw it in the bin and was taking ages,” Scott tells RugbyPass. “I came back within their deadline and said we’d take it. They said there wasn’t an offer in the first place, the picture had changed and the pieces of the jigsaw just wouldn’t fit with me in it. Financially, they couldn’t afford to keep me on.
“I was really perplexed; I didn’t understand why it was happening. They said they thought I didn’t want to stay. There was just a complete breakdown in communication.
“I just felt a bit let down because I’d been at the club for a long time and if they were getting the impression that I maybe didn’t want to stay, or that the offer wasn’t going to be on the table, I would have liked them to have said so. I felt like I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“My wife was really looking forward to staying for another three years and we were looking to start a family. It was just gutting, to be honest.”
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Richard Cockerill, the pugnacious little coach who has transformed Edinburgh with an iron fist, does not want for centres. Still, losing Scott is a brutal blow. For much of the truncated season, he was one of the PRO14’s most effective and canny midfielders. At 29, he is in the shape of his life, svelte and swaggering and free from the injuries that dogged him when he returned for a second spell from Gloucester two years ago.
When it became clear the new offer had evaporated, he was nonplussed. Immediately, he picked up the phone to Cockerill, but it was too late. Edinburgh needed a fly-half to replace Simon Hickey and the money earmarked for Scott was hoovered up elsewhere.
“I literally said to him, ‘whatever money you have left in the budget, give me an offer. I’m happy to take a pay cut and stay’,” Scott reveals.
“I’m leaving all my best mates at the club and after being told certain things like they’re not looking at anyone else and then they sign two other centres [Jordan Venter and Matt Gordon].
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“I know they’re not established internationals, and I get that I would demand a higher salary, and I was injured a fair bit – I understand that’s rugby at the moment, it’s very much a business, you’re a commodity as a player, you’re not really a person.
“It’s easy to look at a stats sheet and say he’s played x number of minutes, but it doesn’t give you the whole picture of that guy and the value he brings to a squad.
“I understand that they don’t have an endless budget, but guys that are on the periphery of the Scotland team and playing well, they really should try and keep them. It was disappointing.”
Rugby is cutthroat and Scott’s predicament is far from uncommon, but it stung him that after almost 100 games and seven seasons across two stints this was how things ended at his boyhood club.
He worried too that people would see him as a mercenary, chasing a fat paycheque in England when Edinburgh made it plain that they didn’t have the cash to keep him. The reality is starkly different.
“I don’t want people to think I’ve come to Leicester for the money because that is certainly not the case,” he says.
‘A lot of American guys don’t know how to be a professional rugby player’
. @SDLegion head coach Scott Murray on:
– @maavelous first weeks in SD ?
– @ChrisRobshaw signing ?
– Why he left France ?? ? & more… with @JLyall93 https://t.co/6fzVX2mZI3— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) June 27, 2020
“The money that Leicester were able to offer initially wasn’t good at all, but I didn’t have anything, and I just was really taken by what they had to say about me and the club, how they have been underachieving but have recruited really well off the pitch with [former Springbok strength and conditioning coach] Aled Walters, Mike Ford, and Steve Borthwick, whose view I really liked.
“I just said, ‘look, I want to make this work’, and we managed to work out the finer details. When I told my wife, she started crying – ‘Oh my god, we’ve actually got something!’
“I’ve come out of it ok, I’ve managed to get a contract – imagine I hadn’t, with a baby on the way. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve played international rugby and got a bit of a reputation, but there are guys who really toil, who have to move a lot, who don’t make much money, don’t get much appreciation from coaches.
“I just feel really happy and incredibly fortunate. I spoke to a lot of really good players who had nothing, and I managed to sign for one of the biggest clubs in Europe.”
This feels like a seminal summer for the Tigers, a juggernaut of English rugby who have been on their knees for far too long. In Borthwick, they have a hugely respected operator starting out as a head coach, and they are tooling up in a serious way with Nemani Nadolo, Cyle Brink, Blake Enever and Scott himself joining the playing staff.
A premier Leicester backline come August might feature Ben Youngs and George Ford at half-back, Scott and Manu Tuilagi in the centres and a back-three of Nadolo, Telusa Veainu and Jordan Olowofela. It’s a riveting prospect.
“Steve said it’s exciting we both get to be there at the start of rebuilding one of the biggest clubs in Europe and getting them back to where they belong – really exciting,” Scott says.“There’s a part of you that’s like, jees, these rebuilding phases at clubs, I’ve done it a number of times, but there’s just a really good feeling about these coaches and these players, looking at the team we can put out on paper is phenomenal.
“Everything is there to succeed and I’d love to be at a club that wins consistently. We were getting there with Edinburgh for sure, every player wants to win a major trophy before they hang up their boots, and hopefully after a lot of hard work we can do something at Leicester.”
Tumua Manu was one of @ChiefsRugby‘s most reliable performers in 2019. Not a bad buy for @SectionPaloise. #SuperRugbyAotearoa #Top14https://t.co/gODPAURuWc
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) June 27, 2020
After breaking back into Gregor Townsend’s Six Nations squad this season, Scott yearns to add to his 39 Scotland caps, the last of which came almost exactly three years ago in a sensational toppling of the Wallabies in Sydney.
Borthwick is getting his mitts on him at a time when he has never been better equipped to bloom. Last term, he spent many dark and near-ruinous months out with concussion symptoms that would not abate. The headaches made him irritable; the medication to ease the pain turned him into a zombie. But coming through the torment taught him about himself and his body and he attacked this campaign with a ferocious vigour.
“I had that same sort of feeling whenever I stepped onto the pitch that first season at Gloucester where I felt, I’m definitely going to score today, I’m going to make breaks today, I’m going to get turnovers today,” he says.
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A preview of what we can look forward to from @MattScott_10 ahead of him lining up in the green, red and white of Leicester Tigers next season! pic.twitter.com/AugzgMLukR
— Leicester Tigers (@LeicesterTigers) April 29, 2020
“It’s an amazing bunch at Edinburgh, so tight off the field, and I guess that comes when you have a coach who is demanding on the players. Sometimes the atmosphere can be difficult to be positive all the time and it really brought us together.
“The squad they’ve got is ridiculous, the depth they’ve got in some positions with young guys coming through, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see them reaching semi-finals and finals more often. I’ll miss them a lot.”
On 1st July, Scott is free to start training with Leicester. He moved south last week and is busy preparing his new home for its third and precious occupant, due to arrive in October. There is no animosity now towards Edinburgh, the club he loves, far less the great friends that are left behind, only a deep sense of gratitude for the new beginnings he is ready to seize.
Comments on RugbyPass
You probably read that parling is going to coach the wallaby lineout but if not before now you have.
12 Go to commentsIf someone like Leo Cullen was in O’Gara’s place I don’t hear Boo-ing. It’s not just that La Rochelle has hurt Leinster and O’Gara is their Irish boss. It’s the needle that he brings and the pantomime activity before the game around pretending that Munster were supporting LaRochelle just because O’Gara is from Cork. That’s dividing Irish provinces just to get an advantage for his French Team. He can F*ck right off with that. BOOOOO! (but not while someone is lying injured)
1 Go to commentsDid the highlanders party too hard before the game? They were the pits.
1 Go to commentsWhat a player! Not long until he’s in the England side, surely?
1 Go to commentsHe seems to have the same aura as Marcus Smith - by which I mean he’s consistently judged as if he’s several years younger than he actually is. Mngomezulu has played 24 times for the Stormers. When Pollard was his age he had played 24 times for South Africa! He has more time to develop, but he has also had time to do some developing already, and he hasn’t demonstrated nearly as much talent in that time as one would expect. If he is a generational talent, then it must be a pretty poor generation.
4 Go to commentsThe greatest Springbok coach of all time is entirely on the money. Rassie and Jacques have given the south african public a great few years, but the success of the springbok selection policy will need to be judged in light of what comes next. The poor condition that the provincial system is currently in doesn’t bode well for the next few years of international rugby, and the insane 2026 schedule that the Boks have lined up could also really harm both provincial and international consistency.
16 Go to commentsJake White is a brilliant coach and a master in the press. This is another masterclass in media relations and PR but its also a very narrow view with arguments that dont always hold water. White wants his team to win, he wants the best players in SA and wants his team competitive. You however have to face up to the reality of a poor exchange rate and big clubs with big budgets. SA Rugby cant compete and unless it can find more money SA players will keep leaving regardless of Springbok eligibility and this happened in 2015 - 2017. Also rugby is not cricket. Cricket has 3 formats and T20 cricket is where the money is at. When it comes to club vs country the IPL is king but that wont happen because the international calendar does not clash with the club calendar in rugby. So the argument about rugby going down the same path as cricket is really a non-starter
16 Go to commentsNZ rugby seem not to have learnt anything from professional rugby. Super rugby was dying and SA left before they died with the competition. SA rugby did a u turn on their approach to international players playing overseas and such players are now selected for Bok teams. As much as each country would love to retain their players playing in local competitions, this is the way the world is evolving my friends. Move with it or stay 20 years behind the times. One more thing. NZ rugby hierarchy think they are the big cheese. Take a more humble approach guys. You do not seem to have your players best interests at heart.
3 Go to commentsBeaches? In Cardiff? Where?
1 Go to commentsHe is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
3 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to commentsMake what step up? Manie has a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck and changed the way the Springboks can play. He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. The win record of the Boks with him in the team is tremendous. Sacha can be wonderful and I hope he has a very succesful Bok career, but comparing him to Manie in terms of the next Bok flyhalf is very strange. Manie is the incumbent (not the next) and doing pretty incredibly.
4 Go to comments00 😍 U
1 Go to commentsSabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.
3 Go to commentsJake White talks more sense than anything I've read in the last 5 years. Hope someone's listening.
16 Go to commentsThe Springboks tried going down the road of only picking home-based players and it was an unmitigated disaster in 2016 and 2017. Picking overseas-based players has been one of the main reason the Boks have done so well since 2018, not only because of the quality Rassie could call on, but because of the knowledge and experience those players brought into camp from England, France and Japan. With some of the big names playing abroad it also gave younger players in SA the chance to break through at franchise level. Would we have seen the emergence of a Ruan Nortje if RG and Lood were still at the Bulls? Not so sure. I understand why Jake would want to block players leaving since his job depends on good results but it’s an approach that would take Bok rugby back to the bad old days and no South African wants to see that.
16 Go to comments