Ross Sutherland’s new development officer Vaughan Rossouw reveals what he wants to achieve in Invergordon – ‘It’s a club where you can make a difference’
Ross Sutherland’s new development officer says he wants to continue the club’s upwards trajectory in their community.
The Stags have appointed Vaughan Rossouw, who played for Highland’s third team and Inverness Craig Dunain Rugby club last season, to the role.
In his native South Africa, he coached athletics, basketball and rugby at the prestigious King Edward VII school – which produced the likes of Springboks Malcolm Marx and Bryan Habana.
They also had five or six teams at every youth age group, so the landscape of rugby in the Scottish Highlands will produce a different challenge for Rossouw.
It is a challenge, though, that Rossouw is keen to throw himself headfirst into in Invergordon.
“It is different, but also now being exposed to the Scottish Rugby Union and their blueprint, with a lot of gameplay and skill zones, I really like the set-up,” he explained.
“It’s interesting. I think it’s more geared towards making the game fun, and it’s also not just for rugby – it can be applied to any sport. It’s creating well-rounded individuals, and that’s what I like.
“I think the club is going in the right direction, and that presents an opportunity. It’s a club where you can make a difference.
“It’s a community club at the end of the day, so I want to stay true to its values and not lose that. We don’t want to be professional and all about rugby – we’re here for the community.
“We are completely inclusive, we want to be welcoming to everyone, and at the end of the day as long as we’re growing the game of rugby and making sure that the youth from the ages of 5-18 are being more active, and creating well-rounded individuals, we’ve done well.
“That’s what I see for the club. There is definitely a good base for that here already.
“Quite a lot of players are getting the Stag tattoo on their leg, so the club has firmly imprinted on their lives and made a positive impact, and hopefully we can continue doing that for more generations.”
Previous development officers at the club have embarked on different projects to try and grow the sport across Ross-shire and Sutherland, such as focusing on school rugby, women’s rugby or walking rugby.
From Rossouw’s point of view, he intends on working with the different coaches at the club to empower them to continue developing those sections and help players become the best they can possibly be.
However, he is also not afraid to look outside the box for potential ways to bring people into the rugby fold at Ross Sutherland.
“Growing numbers is always a challenge, so we have to look to try new things,” he reasoned.
“That’s what’s nice about being an outsider and not having grown up in this club, or even in Scotland. I might come up with different ideas, and all together we can create something great.
“It’s not just about the development officer, it’s all the volunteers, it’s the chairman and the board. Everyone has to work together with their ideas.
“We do want to keep the Tartan Touch going, the walking rugby, sevens, and we would like to focus more on how we can accommodate autistic children or the LGBTQ+ community, and partner with organisations that deal with that to get more involvement and different perspectives.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to add more people that way. Ross-shire and Sutherland is quite a big area, it’s the size of Montenegro or something like that, so it does have its own challenges with travel but with kids having free bus passes now we’ll see how we can create a space here.
“Maybe on a specific day of the week kids can come and do their homework before training, and have a safe space. It’s about more than just rugby, it’s schoolwork and everything else too, and our number one priority is to make it fun for people.”
