Laidlaw ‘excited and massively honoured’ as he focuses on Olympic gold in Japan after turning around All Blacks fortunes with victory in Gold Coast
Scottish coach Clark Laidlaw admitted he was bursting with pride after he led New Zealand to their triumph in the men’s rugby sevens as they clinched the gold medal on the final day of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games yesterday.
While Scotland were finishing in sixth place under the guidance of John Dalziel, his former team-mate and fellow Borderer was making sure that the Kiwis would be on top of the world after a final victory over Fiji in the Robina Stadium.
Laidlaw, the cousin of Greig and son of Roy, took up the head coach post with the All Blacks in the abbreviated game during the summer of 2017 with the aim of turning their fortunes around after they failed to win a tournament on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in 2016-17.
It was the first time in the professional era that New Zealand Rugby had appointed a foreigner to such a post with the national team.
As a result the 40-year-old from Jedburgh knew he had a big job on his hands when accepting the role, so he could not be happier after this most recent triumph.
Laidlaw, pictured right, said: “It’s satisfying, but I’m more proud that everyone could be involved. We are trying to build a foundation that grows the team, so that when we leave the team it’ll be in a better place.
“It’s a credit to the way we’ve trained, physically, technically and tactically. The goal was about winning here and we knew that. You could see going into the game how more cohesive our structures are now and it all paid off.
“I said when I took up the post that it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become
head coach of the All Blacks Sevens team and I’m excited at and massively honoured to be coaching a team I have always considered very special.
“My goal is to develop a world-class programme that sees players peak at pinnacle events. Everything is going to be geared towards bringing home gold from the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.”
Laidlaw played sevens for Scotland for many years and in coaching terms has previously been the All Blacks Sevens skills coach and video analyst, the programme lead for both Taranaki and Wellington Sevens, the Hurricanes assistant coach and the assistant coach of London Irish.
The Kiwis won the final 14-0 while England took bronze and New Zealand won the women’s event. Meanwhile, Scotland finished sixth after a 26-0 loss to Australia in their placing match.
Scotland skipper Scott Riddell, playing in his third Games, said: “Australia played well. We were very inaccurate in the things we looked to impose on our opposition. There were a couple of big calls in there [from the referee] and we just fell on the wrong side of our inaccuracies.
“We will take a look at the video to identify what we can control and what we can do better.
“There are loads of positives to take away from this tournament. We put some really good phases together which showed our ability to sustain that kind of play for long periods and helped build pressure and keep our opponents under pressure.
“If we are going to be successful we have to be able to impose things on our opposition going forward for the rest of the season.”