Graham Lowe, the New Zealander who has been in charge of the restructuring of the top level of Scottish rugby for the past three years, has announced that he is leaving Murrayfield to take up a post with Western Bulldogs, the Australia Rules team, after Scotland have completed their autumn Test programme in November.
The move is understood to be primarily for personal reasons as Lowe, 41, has young children and wants to be closer to his extended family in the southern hemisphere.
Confirming his departure, the SRU announced that "a worldwide recruitment search" will now begin, with the aim of having a successor in place in time for next year's RBS 6 Nations Championship campaign.
Lowe, who holds the title Director of Performance Rugby, was a surprise appointment when he was brought to Scotland by Gordon McKie, the former chief executive of Scottish Rugby. His cv at that point suggested that the bulk of his work had been in fitness and conditioning – he had held such positions with the All Blacks and with the BMW Oracle yachting team – but his role at the SRU had a far more strategic dimension.
However, Lowe overcame scepticism and impressed many as a powerful advocate for closer ties between the amateur and professional games in Scotland.
Lowe said: "I have hugely enjoyed this opportunity to work with Scottish Rugby over the past three years and it is with some regret that I will be leaving now as much has been put in place to ensure Scotland retains and builds on its place and heritage in world rugby.
"However, after five years on the road, it is a good time to take my young family back south and the opportunity of moving into Aussie Rules with the Western Bulldogs will be both exciting and challenging.
"I want to thank all those people whom I have had the pleasure to both work and interact with in the rugby community in Scotland as a whole. I particularly wish to thank the staff at Scottish Rugby for all their hard work. I wish them every success in the future."
Andy Robinson, the Scotland head coach, paid tribute to the departing Lowe. "I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Lowie over these last three years," said Robinson. "He is a fierce competitor and knows what is required to be the best. He has inspired high standards and has set Scotland on the right path. It's now vital that we build on the foundations that he has laid through his leadership."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article