Fraser Brown embraces Scotland women's coaching role after pain of retirement

Fraser Brown admits it wasn’t easy to retire from playing but is relishing his new role as a coach with the Scotland women’s team.

The former Glasgow Warriors hooker, who earned 61 caps for Scotland, called time on his playing career in the summer.

He’s since been appointed as a forwards coach assisting Bryan Easson with the women’s national team and is looking forward to the challenges the new role will bring.

His first task is to help Easson with preparing the team to face Wales and Fiji in two Autumn Tests before heading to Cape Town in September for WXV 2.

Brown is embracing the change after ending his own playing career and says that opportunities to coach during a long spell out injured had helped him look to the future as he grappled with the reality of stopping playing.

“Retiring is not easy,” he said. “Retiring injured is particularly difficult.

“I think the benefit for me was having such a long-term injury and probably knowing from quite a way out.

“The type of injury that I had meant that I had a year, effectively, to go and coach in different environments. I did Glasgow in the Celtic Challenge and was head coach at Watsonians.

“Having such a serious injury gave me the freedom to go and get experience.

“It’s not nice retiring but there’s always the next part of your journey. It was tough right at the start and the more I knew where I wanted to go post-playing, the more exciting it became.

“It didn’t turn into one of those ‘end of the road’ type of things, it was just ‘How can I use this for what I want to do next?’.”

The 35-year-old was a Glasgow Warriors centurion and played around the world in a Scotland jersey and brings a wealth of experience to the role. But he says that his brief work as a coach with Warriors and then Watsonians is key to what he is doing now.

“Everything has its different challenges,” he said. “In most things, not just coaching, there’s lots of shared experiences that go across everything.

“Watsonians was excellent for me. There’s different things you pick up, and different challenges you never thought about until you’re in the moment.

“The experience I had with Glasgow in the Celtic Challenge was brilliant and when Brian first spoke to me about this opportunity, then had I not had that experience with Glasgow then I don’t know whether I would have been offered this, or if I would have wanted to jump in.”

With women’s rugby enjoying a spell of growth, the next couple of years could be hugely important for the national team both in taking their own opportunities and in helping to inspire more players and Brown believes a successful side can deliver and improve things for everyone.

“You need to win,” he said. “Whether you like it or not, when you win in sport it generates momentum, it generates public interest and participation.

“We need to grow as individuals, both coaches and players. You can’t put a ceiling on your own performance. You can’t get comfortable. You have to keep growing and learning.

“I think as a union as well, we have to grow and invest.

“It’s not easy. Women’s and girls’ rugby has seen a huge amount of growth but you have to keep capitalising on that momentum.”