Money-man Fitzpatrick can build Scarlets
SEAN Fitzpatrick is confident the Scarlets can turn their fortunes around under new head coach Dwayne Peel, but has warned it won’t be a quick fix.
The men from Llanelli endured a difficult time last season with former boss Glenn Delaney parting ways with the club after failing to get results despite having a strong squad at his disposal.
The appointment of a new-look coaching team headed up by Peel, with Irish defence coach Hugh Hogan, and highly rated head of performance Nigel Ashley-Jones the other new additions, excites Scarlets board member and New Zealand legend Fitzpatrick, but he has urged fans to be patient.
“Our job as custodians of the club is to make sure we do everything we can to give the players and coaches the best opportunity to deliver results,” he told TRP.
“We were really disappointed with the performance last year and it’s no reflection on Glenn because of what Covid-19 threw at us. We’ve looked at that and it won’t be a quick fix.
“We’ve got to support Dwayne and build the club back to what it should be. Dwayne has come in which is a change and there have been a number of changes with his coaching group.
“I was down there last week, sat through the meetings with the coaches, and saw some of the players. There seems to be a real buzz around the club and we’ve got the United Rugby Championship to look forward to.”
All Blacks legend Fitzpatrick, below, who won 92 caps and the 1987 World Cup, has been a Scarlets board member for the last year and while he also works with Harlequins, is hugely committed to getting the Welsh club firing again.
Ex-hooker Fitzpatrick is now at the epicentre of a group of private equity firms who are looking to change the world of rugby. Silver Lake have agreed to buy a 12.5 per cent stake in New Zealand Rugby’s commercial operations for $387.5m, while CVC have bought stakes in the Six Nations, Gallagher Premiership, and United Rugby Championship respectively.
Institutional investors are also buying shares in clubs with the best example being South African franchise the Sharks with New York lawyer Marco Masotti securing a deal with American consortium MVM Holdings and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation.
This has led to other clubs looking to seek similar institutional investment partners. The Scarlets are of that exact mindset and one of Fitzpatrick’s primary roles is to attract new sponsorship and investment to the club. So, just how attractive is the Scarlets to institutional investors?
“They are attractive without question and that is one of the reasons I joined the Scarlets because they are a very ambitious club,” Fitzpatrick said.
“Private equity is going to happen and to be able to compete with the best in Europe financially, you need money and you need revenue.
“I give a different view than a lot of the other Scarlets board members purely because I come from the outside.
“Commercially I’m helping them grow the brand globally and looking for sponsors which is difficult in the Covid environment. Then I’m also involved with our relationship with New Zealand Rugby which is really important to the club. If we are going to grow and want to be one of the best club teams in the world, we’ve got to keep learning and realise it won’t happen overnight.”
One of the main challenges facing the Welsh regions is the number of games they play without their international players. The Scarlets provided 13 players to Wales last season while Harlequins didn’t lose a single player to Test rugby during the season. Two of their star players – Marcus Smith and Alex Dombrandt – were called up by England only at the end of the Premiership campaign. Fitzpatrick insists if the Scarlets and the other Welsh sides are to attract big investment, they need to find a way of fielding their best players more regularly.
From the point of view of the Scarlets, that means their
Wales stars in Liam Williams, Jonathan Davies, Ken Owens and many others being available more often. Fitzpatrick knows a solution is needed quickly. “We just can’t continue the way we are with our best players being unavailable for a lot of games. We need the best players playing,” he said.
“If you look at New Zealand last year with Super Rugby Aotearoa, they had the All Blacks available every game and it was fantastic. I appreciate the All Black windows fit around the global calendar. They’ve got Super Rugby, summer internationals and then the autumn.
“That works but we are not getting the best use of our international players in Wales. Until that changes the Welsh regions are not going to be competitive at the top table.”
Fitzpatrick, 58, is also passionate about growing the community game in west Wales and recently cycled to all 53 clubs in the Scarlets region. He insists there is a responsibility to ensure the grassroots level thrives. He said: “The one thing that really stood out to me is that our community game needs money. We need people to do what I did by going back into the clubs.
“Go and stand by the bar and talk to the local people because they are so important not only to rugby, but the community. That’s what rugby was built on; the community game and the kids going down to the rugby club for the day.
“We can’t lose that. If they disappear that’s the heartbeat of rugby gone.”