'There wasn't even a hesitation': Butcher ready to lead Scotland at WXV Global Series

Dave Butcher says there “wasn’t even a hesitation” when he was asked if he would take up the role as Scotland women’s interim head coach ahead of the WXV Global Series.

There is never a dull day in Scottish rugby and, on Monday morning, the governing body announced that head coach Sione Fukofuka was leaving his post after eight months and was returning home to Australia for family and personal reasons.

At that time it was explained that Butcher, who had been an assistant under Fukofuka, was to become interim head coach.

Later in the day, Scottish Rugby announced that senior assistant coach Ioan Cunningham was leaving too and that Chris Laidlaw from Harlequins and Tom Luke from Bristol Bears were joining as assistants for the upcoming quintet of Test matches.

With former Scotland and GB Sevens men’s cap Robbie Fergusson having been announced as an assistant last week alongside his role as Glasgow Warriors’ women’s head coach, it suddenly meant that a coaching team of Butcher, Laidlaw, Luke and Fergusson would be leading Scotland into the WXV Global Series.

“It has all been very quick, but there’s been conversations happening for a couple of weeks now,” Butcher, who joined Scotland from his Canada women assistant coach role in February, explained on Tuesday.

“Sione was clear and open with us about what’s going on with his family and I really appreciate that and have massive sympathy with him. I understand this is a tough job when you’re away from your family.

“As soon as we knew that there might be changes coming, we started putting small things in place and Andy Rhys Jones [Scottish Rugby head of women’s performance and pathways] was outstanding in working behind the scenes to ensure that if something did change then we were ready for it.

“We had really good discussions and because Sione was really open with us we managed to put things in place to help us move forward without too much disruption.

“And to be asked to be interim head coach is amazing, it’s awesome. As soon as I got asked to do it, there wasn’t even a hesitation, it’s an honour.”

Butcher may have spent a lot of his youth in Middlesbrough and played and coached in various places throughout the world during a globetrotting career in rugby so far, but he played in the front-row for Scotland men at age-grade level in the 1990s and is a proud Scot with strong family links in and around the Loch Lomond area.

“My family are all originally from Balloch and some of the family still live up there,” he explained.

“I grew up there for the first few years of my life and then we moved to Middlesbrough, but I spent holidays back in Scotland with grandparents and things like that.

“There was only really one direction I was going to go in when representative rugby became a thing for me. I went into the Exiles programme, which is called the SQ programme now, and then represented Scotland at under-18, 19 and 21s levels. Then, along with time with Jed-Forest, I went on my merry journeys to play pro rugby all around Europe.

“I retired through injury just before I was 30 and coaching came onto my radar. I had a full-time role with Scottish Rugby, which was my first coaching role, for eight years and I was working with age group teams and the pathways.

“An opportunity then came up to move to Canada and I was keen to give it a go. It was meant to be for two years, but I was involved in rugby in Canada for 10 years and my family still live there.

“I had a number of different coaching roles in Canada from working at Queen’s University to working with the men’s and women’s national teams and, over the years, I’ve been really lucky to meet so many great people over there.

“But when a job with Scotland came up after the World Cup last year I spoke to Sione and David Nucifora [Scottish Rugby performance director] and was interested.

“I wouldn’t have moved out of Canada for another role, but coming back to Scotland was a big thing for me.

“The pull of coming back to Scotland and coaching within the Scottish system again was the bit that pushed me to say yes.”

Since he said yes to that assistant coaching role just a few months ago a lot of water has gone under the bridge, but now as interim head coach Butcher has named his 32-strong squad for the September home matches in the WXV Global Series and he cannot wait to get working with the players from next Monday onwards at their Oriam base in Edinburgh.

And, after a frustrating one-win Guinness Women’s Six Nations, there is a lot of work to be done in the lead up to big Tests at Hive Stadium versus Canada on Saturday 12 September, New Zealand on Saturday 19 September and Australia on Saturday 26 September.

Scotland’s away WXV Global Series fixtures will take place against Australia on Saturday 17 October and Friday 23 October, but for now it is the trio of home matches that are the main focus.

“We can’t wait to get started,” Butcher concluded.

“The energy that I’ve already felt from the new coaches coming in and the ideas that they’ve then put across to me without any prompting have got me excited.

“There’s been a lot of movement and change and I do recognise that, but the plan doesn’t change in terms of where we want to go and what we want to do.

“I think having me stay here allows continuity coming out of the Six Nations and since then we have taken a really good, hard look at ourselves and there were some very challenging conversations.

“We went through a really robust review process – probably the most robust process I’ve been a part of as a coach – to look at what were the reasons [that the Women’s Six Nations campaign did not go as planned] and we know how we want to move forward during the WXV Global Series.”