When David Nucifora begins work at Murrayfield in late October, early November it won't be with the grand title of performance director, but then again he won't need it. Fancy job description or not - he will be announced as advisor or consultant on a part-time deal for the next two years - there is no doubt about who is going to be running the rugby show in Scotland.
Nucifora, a former Test hooker with Australia who went on to achieve excellence in high performance coaching, most notably in 10 remarkable years with Ireland, will be the boss, the one calling the shots and making all the big strategic decisions. The SRU have had dialogue with Nucifora for close to a year. Upon his exit from Ireland, they approached him as a possible successor to Jim Mallinder as performance director at Murrayfield.
Nucifora wasn't keen. He wanted to return home to Australia, where he became part-time advisor to the Australian Rugby Union. SRU chairman John McGuigan kept in touch with Nucifora and valued his input on various contenders for the performance role. None really cut the mustard. Another bid was made to lure Nucifora and a deal was struck. All parties believe that his advisory work in Australia would not get in the way of his new position in Scotland.
Nucifora will spend chunks of the year in Scotland and will first be seen at the autumn internationals. He is currently on holiday in Colombia but has already, unofficially, started the preparation work for his new role. He is not full-time, but he is effectively the performance director for the next two years and is charged with putting a system in place that will plot the course for the next decade, at least. Nucifora will be a key player in appointing his own successor when the time comes.
He is known for his capacity to "get stuff done", although he would use another word in place of stuff. He compromises on nothing. When he first took over in Dublin he said it was a matter of "looking at what's under the bonnet." He fought many battles, some with the provinces as he engineered the movement of players around the country, while serving as the final decision-maker on signings from overseas. Nothing substantial happened without Nucifora's approval.
He is focused, driven, confrontational. He is in charge of reimagining Scotland's desperately failing underage coaching and player pathway system. He will be the go-to man for any recruitment at Glasgow and Edinburgh. He is going to be the overseer of the national team. His ultimate task is to knock the entire organisation into shape and his track record tells you that he will be unsparing in his work. "High performance is about tension," he has said. "If you don't have tensions you don't have performance, you are not pushing and driving hard enough."
His era in Ireland was success-laden. On his watch as the all-powerful high performance director, Ireland won two Grand Slams and had a couple of stints as world number one. They beat the All Blacks for the first time, won a Test series in New Zealand for the first time, won a Test in South Africa for the first time, won three Under-20 Six Nations Grand Slams, made the final of the World Junior Championship while making strides in the men's and women's Sevens circuit. The men's team have qualified for back-to-back appearances at the Olympics.
Nucifora says that the thing he is proudest about in his years in Ireland was the shifting of the mindset of the game. "I couldn't believe that when I got here in 2014 Ireland had never beaten the All Blacks," he said. "I couldn't get my head around that 2016 (Ireland's historic victory over New Zealand in Chicago) was the start of the unravelling of that (mental) block that Ireland had about how good they could be." Ireland have won five of their past nine meetings with the All Blacks.
"The effect it has had (regular victories against the biggest nations) through the system, be it in our underage programmes, Sevens, in everything we do, young kids now coming into our programmes have the expectation that they can be the best in the world, that they can beat anyone," he said earlier this year. "Just having the confidence to realise how good they could be and to have a swagger in what we do, in an Irish way."
From the autumn, Nucifora will be working on the Scottish swagger. He may not be ever-present, but those who are going to be working with him will feel that he is watching and planning every second of the day.
