Former Glasgow Warriors captain and current managing director, Al Kellock, has been appointed as Scottish Rugby’s new head of performance pathways.
In a surprise move, Kellock has changed direction in his career as part of a new broom at Murrayfield.
On Wednesday, performance director David Nucifora and chief executive Alex Williamson announced the arrival of five new heads of department in a reimagined pathway system.
Alex Ross is the new head of athletic performance and sports science, joining from Miami Marlins in Major League Baseball where he was director of strength and conditioning.
He was previously involved with USA Rugby, New York Mets and the Argentina Rugby Union and had spells with the Jaguares, the Blues and New Zealand Rugby. He also played for the USA Sevens team for two years.
James Moore, who joins from basketball franchise Brooklyn Nets, is the new head of physiotherapy and rehabilitation.
He was previously head of performance services for Team GB at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and also had a four-year stint as performance director in Andy Murray’s team.
Richard Chessor has become head of nutrition from his current role as head of science and medicine for GB Aquatics, while James McLaren becomes high-performance business analyst, joining from Ernst & Young where he held the position of senior consultant of AI and data.
It was Kellock’s name that stood out, though. “Al went through the process,” said Nucifora. “We had applicants from all around the world for that role. And he definitely won the role on merit. He performed extremely well.
“Al’s got a really wide skill-set. He understands performance rugby. He’s got that experience both as a player and as an administrator, so he understands those components of it really well.
“He’s got a real interest in performance rugby, obviously. And he’s seen this as an opportunity to be able to build his experience base further.”
If Kellock shows up well in the position he would be in the box seat to take over from Nucifora as performance director.