Gregor Townsend's Trusted Lieutenant Lands New Role with Newcastle Red Bulls

Both of them were part of Warren Gatland’s backroom team on the British & Irish Lions tour of South Africa four years later, and will now work together on driving progress at the big-spending Prem outfit, who joined the Red Bull sporting stable last August. Two months later, it was announced that Townsend — who had only just agreed an extension to his Scotland deal which takes him until the end of the 2027 World Cup — had been appointed by Red Bull as a part-time “strategic advisor and consultant”. With the explicit approval of his Scottish Rugby Union bosses, the 52-year-old can spend 30 days a year on Red Bull business and while Murrayfield chiefs tried to claim he would not be directly involved with Newcastle, the fact that the club represent the only rugby venture in the Red Bull portfolio made an immediate mockery of this stance. Indeed, Alan Dickens, the Kingston Park head coach, confirmed days later that Townsend had already spent time at the club and that he was “looking forward to tapping into his wealth of experience”. Newcastle have already been active in the transfer market, confirming the signings of high-profile southern hemisphere talents such as Hoskins Sotutu, Fehi Fineanganofo and Franco Molina while raiding fellow Prem clubs for Raffi Quirke, Rusi Tuima, Josh Hodge and Elliot Millar Mills, the Scotland prop. Vaughan will now head up their recruitment drive in a role that was advertised last November and which reports to Neil McIlroy, the former Jed-Forest prop who spent many years as general manager with Clermont Auvergne and Catalans Dragons, the rugby league side. Although Vaughan’s sole focus at Glasgow was initially on performance analysis, his role quickly expanded to encompass scouting and recruitment, particularly around Scottish qualified-players based abroad. All parties have paid testimony to the role he played in acquiring Tuipulotu and Jones — now star players for club and country who toured with the Lions last year — and such is the breadth of work Vaughan has overseen for both Townsend and the SRU that Murrayfield will be doing well to find a similarly qualified and respected like-for-like replacement. In further Scottish links at Kingston Park, Jonny Petrie, the former Scotland back-rower and senior executive with Edinburgh and Ulster, is now Newcastle’s managing director, while John Fletcher, who previously headed up the pathways system at the SRU, is the club’s academy and pathways director. Scott Macleod, the former Scotland lock who is the uncle of current star Darcy Graham, has spent many years as Newcastle’s lineout coach.