{"id":112124,"date":"2025-09-03T18:28:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/112124\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:28:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:28:06","slug":"gregor-townsend-contract-extension-confirmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/112124\/","title":{"rendered":"Gregor Townsend contract extension confirmed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be an exciting build up period to the World Cup with the potential of a new competition for our summer and autumn fixtures in 2026 as well as two Six Nations Championships for us to attack. And, this November we have a cracking run of home fixtures, which will include celebrating the centenary of our national stadium when we take on New Zealand. This occasion will underline the importance we place on connection to our supporters and our history.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI understand tickets have been selling well and that shows how much the nation are behind the players. There is a real belief within the squad that they can achieve special things and I can\u2019t wait to work with them again to help make this happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Scottish Rugby Performance Director, David Nucifora,\u00a0said: \u201cGregor is one of the most well-respected coaches in world rugby. The strength that this continuity of appointment brings in addition to the increased high-performance resources being made available places Scottish Rugby in a strong position leading into the next Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has built an impressive squad with increased depth across a number of positions that is now coming into its prime regarding international experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are excited about what is to come from the men\u2019s national team in the coming years and Gregor is the best person to take them forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scottish Rugby CEO, Alex Williamson, said: \u201cHaving toured with the Scotland squad this summer I witnessed first hand the impressive culture that Gregor has developed and saw how connected and motivated the playing group is. That cohesion will be vitally important for the national team to be successful in the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have an exciting group of players which Gregor has nurtured, and I believe he is the right man to drive us forward, with full support of the Scottish Rugby Limited Board.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe strong ticket sales for our matches at Scottish Gas Murrayfield demonstrate how engaged the nation are with Gregor\u2019s team and the way they play rugby. We are excited to see the relationship with the fans continue to develop this autumn, where the team have the opportunity to achieve results that will propel them into next year\u2019s Guinness Six Nations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have talked in the past about the importance of continuity in our men\u2019s coaching environments, both because we believe we have excellent individuals in our structure and because it allows us to embed our high-performance reorganisation with coaches who are already fully committed to this critically important and substantial investment. I look forward to seeing Gregor and the men\u2019s national team being early beneficiaries of the changes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s going to be an exciting build up period to the World Cup with the potential of a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[54026,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-112124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-divi","9":"tag-rugby","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}