Ayrshire Talent Scout & Friends Podcast

What an absolute delight and pleasure to be in the company of Ayrshire and Scottish rugby legend, Gordon Reid.
Gordy gave us some of his earliest memories of his rugby playing background and an insight into his work ethic that made him a professional rugby player. 
We discussed 2014/15 Pro 12 season where Glasgow won the championship at the Kingspan stadium and Gordy gives us the details of the day. We also talk about Gordy's first cap against USA on the 2014 Tour and the emotion surrounding that day. 
The conversation moves onto his professional spells with Glasgow, London Irish, Northampton and Wasps, highlighting the differences in approach with each team. We get to find out who Gordy's toughest opponents are and the effect it can have on you playing against a certain Adam Jones.
There is a great discussion around the transition out of the professional game and the effects this can have on a player and can more be done from the SRU ?
We then move onto his role at Marr as both player and coach, taking scrum schools and taking the U16's. Great chat about a possible tour of a lifetime for the young lads.
We managed to get time to go through a quickfire round before finally talking through the Scotland game at the weekend against Wales and what happens in the changing room at half time. 

In this episode we are joined by Ayr's Director of Rugby John Brown. 
We started the day at Ayr Rugby Club at 10am for a round of walking rugby. I would encourage anyone who is free on a Monday, to pop along and have a go.  Terrific fun which is finished off with a bacon roll and coffee. What's not to like !!
John then takes us through his playing career and brings back some of his favourite memories with many friendships made along the way.
We talk through his role as DoR at Ayr and discuss the future plans and developments for the club.
Was there any rivalry between John and his brothers Davy and Alan ?
We get the chance to remember a star studded game in 1979 where an international select came to Millbrae for the opening of the stand.
Finally we have a review of the Premiership and National leagues follows and we talk through what the targets are for both Marr and Ayr. 

In this episode we have the pleasure to introduce Grant Ruxton, Head Coach of Garnock Rugby Club.
Grant gives us his background into rugby, his playing days with Garnock, his representative days and his transition into coaching with Garnock.
We talk about the current squad and their impressive performance in the league so far and look at the challenges ahead, starting with a home tie against Cumnock this weekend. We also had a chance to get through some quickfire questions.
The conversation then moved onto the Autumn Tests, looking at Scotland getting some retribution for the tour to Argentina earlier in the year. Who would be a Welsh supporter ?
Finally we have a look at the fixtures played in the premiership and National 1. Big wins for both Marr and Ayr. Marr do the return to Heriots this weekend and a massive game for Ayr against Kelso in what promises to be the tie of the weekend for the top of the table clash.

This episode Louise Redpath, (Sports Scientists for Marr Rugby Club), explains all things data related including GPS tracking and video analysis as well as giving an insight to what other technologies are making their way into the modern game.  Louise also explains the opportunities and challenges that lie within the amatuer game for data analysis and gives comparisons to that in the professional game. With the abundance of data that can be obtained through GPS tracking Louise explains the importance of applying context to the results, for example, pitch conditions, weather conditions, style of play etc.

We then move onto discuss the weekends round of Autumn international games and look at Scotland's performance against Fiji and what would need to be done to minimise the All Black threat this saturday. Will Finn Russell start, is the centre combination the one Townsend is looking for, will Price start, has Dempsey done enough for a starting place. Louise also shares some great personal insight on Cameron Redpath.

We then look across all the other games, where Ireland and France  take centre stage. The big question is, who is the best centre in the northern hemisphere. One camp suggests Fickou whilst other suggest Ringrose. 

And finally we look forward to what should be a fascinating match between england and New Zealand in the Women's World Cup Final. 

In this episode we discuss the big game at the weekend, Scotland v Australia. we go through the main talking points which include, not taking points when they are on offer, poor stats percentage for quick ruck ball, what is the Scottish game plan and finally a comparison between Glen Young yellow card and Brodie Retallick red card.

We also have a look ahead to nexts weeks autumn internationals with some predictions on the results...can Scotland beat Fiji ?

The conversation then moves onto Glasgow's great result against Benetton with a virtual second string team fielded. 

Sunday saw a fantastic contest at the Dam Health Stadium between Ayrshire Bulls and Watsonians. We discuss what was one of the best super 6 games of the season, fitting for the final.

We finally go through the club results with an eye cast on the restructuring of the leagues at  the end of this season and the travel impact this will have for teams in the newly created 4th national division. 

In this episode we have a full house on the panel giving their thoughts on the past week's club rugby. 
We discuss the games from the premiership and national leagues with roving reporters giving their thoughts on the matches at Jedforest v Marr, Carrick v Kilmarnock and Garnock v Stewartry. 
We wish The Ayrshire Bulls the best of luck for their final against Watsonians this Sunday 30 October at the Dam Health Stadium.
We then ponder the thoughts of the Scotland head coach and try and work out why a world class stand off has been omitted from the squad and why an international class stand off will play second fiddle to a converted full back at 10. The discussion then moves on to work out why an autumn test has been sanctioned outwith the international window. is it just about the £££'s ?
And finally, we discuss the two famous English premiership teams Worcester and Wasps going into receivership.

This week we were joined by the Head of Youth Development at Marr, Colin Sturgeon. Colin gave us an update of how the youth set up at both the club and at Marr College was coming along. he gives an explanation of how the conference points system work and also the expansion of the girls game at Marr.

We then walk through the results from the weekend across the professional and club game, picking out our key games for the week ahead.

We finally have time at the end to talk about yet another re-structure of the club league set up with the introduction of a National League 4, a proposal that was presented by Orkney RFC and will begin in the 2023/24 season.

In this episode, we review the start of the league campaigns for Glasgow, Edinburgh and take a look at how the first few league games in the club competitions are fairing.

We also have a look at some of the refereeing decisions of late, in particular, the controversial finish to the Aus v NZ game. 

We have a discussion around the various fantastic fund raising activities  activities happening and fast approaching.

Finally a special mention to Jim McNiven on his recovery.

In this special episode both myself and Kevin had the pleasure of interviewing All Black legend Zinzan Brooke. Zinzan kindly gave up some of his time to join us at Tony Peters summer house, thanks Tony and also many thanks to Glenn Davis for organising.

Zinzan gives us some insight to his early rugby days and life on the farm through to working full time as a plumber/gas fitter whilst playing representative rugby.

We get the chance to hear first hand on that drop goal against England and both him and the scout exchange notes on their goal kicking prowess.

He also tells us about the charity work he is involved with "SwimHouse" and also his thoughts on giving back to rugby.

To finish, we challenged Zinzan with some quickfire questions, (Gav does a good job setting these out).

This afternoon, myself, the scout and Steven, had the honour and pleasure of discussing Marr Rugby Club's rags to riches title winning performance against Currie Rugby Club with 1st XV Captains, Fraser Grant and Conor Bickerstaff, 1st XV Forwards Coach Stephen Adair and 2nd XV Head Coach Keith Dunsmuir.

The lads give us some insight into the preparation and build up for the game as well as some of the tactical alterations they made for the game based on their analysis and previous meetings with Currie. 

The lads give a big shout out to the support that went through to Malleny Park, in particular the mini section, where they hope to return the favour at the upcoming mini tournament.

There is some reflection on the journey from languishing and on the brink of collapse in the early 2000's and elaborate on some of the key influencing figures, eg, John Sharkey, Paul Burke, Craig Redpath to name a few.

And finally there was just enough time for a couple of quickfire rounds with Fraser and Keith.

Thanks to Kevin Quinn for allowing us to use the clubhouse, (you may hear the log fire in the background).