After retiring from the professional game to take up the role as defence coach at Newcastle Falcons, former Wales international, Scott Baldwin is now the head coach of the team where he began his semi-professional career, Bridgend Ravens. On becoming head coach, Baldwin said: “It’s been a really good learning curve.
“Been a bit different doing the overviewing of it and then the defence and scrums at the moment so trying to get a scrum coach in pretty sharply because I’ve been running from scrums to backline units and I’ve enjoyed going out and saying this is how I want us to play the game and we are going to hang our hat on this.
“Also one thing I don’t like is micromanaging coaches because ultimately I’ve hired you to do a job and you have full autonomy of that job, so Brad has full autonomy of the lineout and breakdown, Matthew Jones and Matthew Morgan have full say on the attack and if it works, brilliant you’ll get the accolades but if it doesn’t we’ll have a conversation on why it isn’t working.
“It’ll be the same with me in defence, but obviously I’ve got to answer to myself but that’s been a breath of freshair for me is having the ability on the whole squad opposed to one side of the ball,” he added.
Bridgend finished the Indigo Premiership last season on 47 points having only won nine of their 24 games. On last season, he added: “I thought they started really well, they lost Luke Price which was a big loss for them and probably relied on him more than we will this year. Couple of losses came and it probably rolled on after that.
“We finished the season not the way we would’ve liked, but there is a lot of talent there and Tom Smith has made some brilliant signings this year so hopefully we can ride off the back of that and take it into the start of this season,”
The Ravens have had three pre-season games where they kicked started with a win against away to Bournville (55-15) and then hosted Plymouth Albion a week later and won (15-7) in a tightly contested game with Harvey Nash, Jordan Collier and McCauley Rowley all crossing the whitewash.
This was followed by a visit to the Swansea.com stadium where Baldwin faced his former team in the Origin Series alongside Aberavon and Swansea, that day saw them lose 33-0 in a 30-minute contest.
On pre-season Baldwin continued: “I can’t wait, it’s been a very long off-season now so really looking forward to it.
“The work-rate has been brilliant, we have really challenged them and I spoked to a couple of the boys who have been here before when I was here and they’ve said how hard it’s been, the toughest.
“We also encouraged them to play a really high tempo game both sides of the ball and we don’t want to be keeping the ball for long phases as ultimately it’s going to drain our juice and defensively we don’t want to be defending for long periods, I would like to say you’ll see an aggressive attack and a aggressive defence.”
A lot of the main reasons for this new Super Rygbi Cymru competition is for the development of youth players, on that Baldwin concluded: “It’s massive, the biggest thing we need to put into these players in Wales, is I promise you I’ve coached here, I’ve played here, I’ve coached in England and I’ve played in England, the talent is no different but the mindset is night and day,
“In terms of, let’s not throw the pass in case it’s goes to the ground, whereas they are like let’s throw the pass for the opportunity it’s going to create.
“Defensively let’s make a decision, if we get it right brilliant but if we get it wrong it’s a great learning opportunity and it also shows what your coaching is getting across to the players and ultimately that is our job to make them better decision makers and make them better rugby players not just tell them what we want them to do.”
The Ravens kickoff of the new Super Rygbi Cymru league with a trip to Newport Stadium a week Saturday where they face runners-up from last year’s Indigo Premiership Newport RFC.
Words By Harry Tovey
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