Alan Solomons expects to be leaving Worcester on a high

Worcester director of rugby Alan Solomons tells PAUL REES why next season will be his last at Warriors

Alan Solomons is 70 going on 20. Worcester’s director of rugby may be the oldest head of a club in Britain, but he still gets up at 5am to travel to work and be the first to arrive at Sixways. A lawyer for the first 20 years of his career, rugby has always been at his core and he continues to relish every moment of living his dream.

“I never intended going into rugby after a knee injury ended my playing career when I was 26,” said Solomons who has worked in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as in his native South Africa and the United States. “I have enjoyed every part of my career in different ways, starting with Western Province, the Stormers and the Springboks to Worcester now where I have another year on my contract.”

At the end of next season, Solomons intends on retiring to his home on the coast of Northern Ireland having fallen in love with the area when he coached Ulster between 2001 and 2004, a period when they won the Celtic Cup and lost only one home match in three seasons.

“I loved Ravenhill and the atmosphere generated there on a Friday night,” said Solomons. “We played the likes of Caerphilly, Bridgend, Swansea, Ebbw Vale and Pontypridd and as a South African I liked the idea of clubs. They played in grounds you do not experience any more. Like New Zealand and South Africa, Wales is a rugby country and we have a few of their coaches at Worcester.”

Solomons stepped back at Sixways halfway through the season to allow the head coach Jonathan Thomas to have a higher profile. It has not been the most notable of seasons for the Warriors who are destined to finish at the bottom of the table in a campaign when relegation has been taken off the menu, but Solomons expects to be leaving next summer on a high.

“I want to see us in the top six because it would be the fruition of the vision I had when I arrived here in 2017,” he said. “It would be the perfect time to go. We have a strong core of English players who are from our area and are under 23, we have an excellent group of coaches and we have signed a number of experienced players who will arrive this summer.

“Our aim is to become a sustainable top six club through our academy and I hope the young guys stay here for up to ten years. We have owners who have a development project for the club and when I retire, I will always be available from afar. I would think this will be my last job because I will be on the cusp of 72, although I may stay involved through consultancy.”

Solomons has always been a keen student of the game, on and off the field. After his time with Ulster was followed by a short-lived stint at Northampton, he became the International Rugby Board’s (as World Rugby was called then) high performance consultant and in 2006 was seconded to the United States where he became director of rugby. After that, he returned to South Africa with the Kings before spending three years with Edinburgh and taking them to the final of the Challenge Cup.

“The game is advancing rapidly,” he said. “Technology has made a difference and you now have really well conditioned athletes backed up by detailed analysis. That will continue, but the big thing I think will happen in the next five to ten years is the commercialisation of the game.

“Private equity companies are becoming involved and I think the effect will be to broaden rugby globally, something Sevens has helped with. Japan have done incredibly well and if we can get it going in the United States, it will have an impact on the way the game is governed. It will become more about money and that will mean global competitions and an aligned calendar.”

Solomons described the Premiership as the best domestic competition in the world. “The Super 12 was unreliable because every team you played had so many Test players, but in England everyone plays unless they are on international duty and you have to be up for it every week.

“We need a global season to ensure that the demands on players are not excessive and I think it will come because it will be a win-win for everybody. Less will amount to more and there will be good commercial spin-offs. Professional sport has to be commercialised to generate the income it needs, but while you want backsides on seats, television money is where it is at. Just look at football.”

New Zealand and South Africa have been the most successful international sides in the history of the game, but both lack the financial resources of Unions in Europe and have seen players and coaches leave for Europe and Japan in increasing numbers.

“South Africa produces fantastic players, but the number who are playing outside the country is a concern,” said Solomons. “Some experienced players have returned home and added value and I think that if the involvement of the franchises in the PRO14 works, we will be alright.

“South Africa has a style of rugby unlike any other country and the game needs the Springboks to be strong. What the game needs is for the World Cup to be a genuinely global competition in which it is not a foregone conclusion to reach the play-offs. Japan were a real force in 2019 and we need more of them.”

Solomons will follow the Lions tour to South Africa keenly. When they were there in 1997, he had just given up his career in law to become an assistant coach with Western Province and in 2009 he was in charge of the Southern Kings when they played the tourists in Port Elizabeth.

“It is a huge pity there will be no crowds at the matches,” he said. “That gives an advantage to the Lions in what I expect to be a tightly contested series. It will be physical and brutal. Rugby is a collision sport, but physique is still not the be-all-and-end all. Cheslin Kolbe proves that.”