Gregor Townsend tackles Red Bull critics - will job-share clip Scotland wings or make them soar?

After agreeing a 30-day-per-year consultancy role with global energy drink firm Red Bull, who are based in Salzburg, Townsend is flying over on Sunday to meet key players, such as head of global soccer Jurgen Klopp. He is quickly embracing his new role after being approached to advise Red Bull’s newly-formed rugby department.

They have taken over Gallagher Prem side Newcastle – perennial strugglers in the English top flight. There is a lot of growth potential on Tyneside when it comes to rugby and Townsend, based nearby in the Scottish borders and with vast experience of rugby, ticked many of Red Bull’s boxes.

His job-share agreement has vexed many onlookers, though. How dare the Scotland national head coach give time to another company, they wondered. How will it benefit Scottish rugby was another question fired out in the wake of the news.

Townsend has tried to get ahead of the curve by speaking to the BBC’s chief Scottish sports writer Tom English to get his side of the story across. It was a cute PR move given that the 52-year-old is due to name his Scotland squad for the Autumn Nations Series matches in the next fortnight. He does not want that moment to be hijacked by journalists probing his Red Bull arrangement. Wishful thinking, one suspects.

Townsend trying to safeguard long-term future

Townsend committed himself to Scotland last month until the end of the 2027 World Cup. That will neatly take him to a decade at the helm of Scottish rugby. He has a chance to exorcise some of the demons that haunt his premiership, most notably failing to progress past the group stages of the past two editions of the global tournament. Regardless of how Scotland fare in Australia in two years time, his tenure will surely stop there.

It is therefore understandable that Townsend is wanting to improve his skill set and enhance his employment prospects. He should be lauded for the amount of extra-curricular work he does to broaden his horizons, visiting other nations to learn not just about rugby but other sports. He is adamant such ventures improve him as a coach.

And they probably do. Townsend is a scholar of the game and knows rugby inside out. That’s partly on the back of speaking to others.

With Red Bull, though, he will be remunerated. That’s a sticking point for critics. Some feel there is a conflict of interest with Scottish rugby. Townsend refuted that in his BBC interview and also emphasised he remains “all-in” with Scotland.

Townsend knows the landscape, though. He admits he is aware of what he has let himself in for. Opinions will largely hinge on results. Should the head coach bag victories over New Zealand and Argentina – the two big games in the November quartet – then he goes into next year’s Six Nations with few people batting an eyelid about his Red Bull gig. Scotland have never beaten the All Blacks before. Now would be a fine time for Townsend to do it.

More broadly, Scotland have never won more than three matches in the Six Nations under Townsend. They have never been on the premises when it comes to the title. Contractually, Townsend has two more bites at the cherry with a group of players largely perceived as this nation’s golden generation.

The job-share question amid ‘downtime’

Townsend put his side of the coin across pretty well in his chat with the BBC. His point is that international coaches have down-time, working in short, sharp bursts. The maximum time Scotland are in camp annually is two-and-a-half months outside of World Cup years, usually three stints – Six Nations, summer internationals and Autumn Tests. He wants to use the remainder of the year wisely.

One wonders what the reaction would be if Scotland football team head coach Steve Clarke took on a 30-day role with a club. What would the Tartan Army say if, for example, an ambitious MLS outfit approached Clarke for some assistance in between international matches? He has periods of inactivity too, and with modern-day video technology, the need to constantly travel and watch players in the flesh is not as pressing as it once was.

One of Clarke’s former lieutenants John Carver recently had a spell as his No.2 and in charge of Lechia Gdansk in Poland, although he has since severed ties completely with the national team. It was a six-month co-share, and the optics of the main man doing it differ from one of the assistants.

Scottish Rugby has also set a precedent. Performance director David Nucifora and forwards coach John Dalziel were part of the British & Irish Lions set-up for the summer tour of Australia – at the same time as Scotland were playing Fiji, Samoa and the Maori All Blacks. There was no flak from Townsend’s superiors in announcing the Red Bull arrangement.

And it is worth remembering that Andy Farrell took the best part of a year’s sabbatical from being in charge of Ireland to be Lions head coach, with Simon Easterby holding the fort. Perhaps we need to have a fluid mindset when it comes to how the time of international coaches is now spent.

Should Scotland mess up in the November internationals, or indeed flounder in the Six Nations, then Red Bull will be used as a stick to beat Townsend with. But is the agreement really clipping Scotland’s wings? Townsend clearly thinks it can help the national team soar. Ultimately, results will define the narrative.