Gloucester have raided Bristol to secure their new head of academy
Gloucester have announced that Peter Walton has been appointed as the club’s new head of academy. The former Scotland back row forward is currently academy forwards and transitions coach at Bristol Bears.
After a playing career that saw him play top-flight club rugby with Newcastle and Northampton and win 24 caps for Scotland, Walton started his coaching career at Newcastle.
However, he has spent the majority of his time in a coaching capacity as part of the England age-group set-up, spending 10 years working with the England Under-18 squad. During that time, Walton and his coaching team oversaw three consecutive Grand Slams and had a sequence of 19 victories from mid-2008 until July 2010.
That experience working with age-group players made him the ideal candidate for the head of academy role at Gloucester. "For Gloucester to compete successfully at the highest level, we need our academy to produce a constant supply of talent who are capable of making the grade at first-team level,” explained director of rugby David Humphreys.
"As such, the head of academy role is a key one at the club and we’re delighted to have secured the services of someone with the experience that Peter possesses.
“He spent 10 very successful years with England Under-18s and the number of players who transitioned through to the Under-20s and then senior level speaks for itself. We hope he will have the same impact on our academy and continue the production line of players."
Walton confirmed that he’s very much looking forward to starting his new role. "I’m very happy to have the privilege of being named head of academy at Gloucester.
"I’ve been involved with the Premiership for many years, as a player and a coach, and feel that I have a good understanding of how much it means to the Gloucester fans to have local players wearing the Cherry and White shirt, but also how important it is for the club to develop its own talent.
"There are good foundations in place and the club has a real willingness to give youth a chance. It’s an exciting role and I can’t wait to get started and help to start bringing through the next generation of Gloucester talent. In the meantime, I’d like to thank the Bristol Bears for the opportunity they’ve given me over the past 12 months."
WATCH: The latest RugbyPass documentary, Foden – Stateside, looks at how ex-England international Ben Foden is settling into Major League Rugby in New York
Latest Comments
Dont know if the Irish players said it or not, but lets all be honest with ourselves, and hopefully both the Irish and French have healed by now, the Media did jump the gun, be realistic, according to 90% of the media it was a France and Ireland final, and the media had 1 of them winning the world cup, not even mentioning the All blacks? Just remember world cups are different, Australia was not the most in form cricket tean in the last cricket world cup, but they have a nack of winning when it matters. I wont go into whether what Etzabeth is saying is true, all I am saying is that its very easy for a team to get ahead of themselves due to the media. Nothing wrong with it, the media got the springboks over confident against England and we nearly lost that one.
Go to commentsHey Finn, Well done to the Junior Wallabies…a win is a win but it was a wet and scrappy game. Would be interesting to hear your opinion on two things from watching the game at the Not So Sunny Coast Stadium. Firstly, what is your opinion on the rule change of being able to call The Mark from a kick off and what is the reason for the change? Secondly, your thoughts on the lack of action for the high tackle on the SA fullback. I understand the TMO ruled that he had fallen into the tackle and the tackler didn’t have time to adjust but it was clearly shoulder on head and the Aussie 11 had not made any attempt to adjust his tackle height leading into the tackle. In my opinion he was never going to get his tackle technique correct to complete a safe tackle. If that tackle was made at a more senior and more scrutinised level would we have seen the same result?
Go to comments