Thorburn takes up the reins as Shoguns' head coach

Man in charge
By Duncan Wood
June 24 2002

After a very brief holiday back in New Zealand, Peter Thorburn is now starting to get to grips with his new role. He has taken over from Dean Ryan as the new head coach of the Bristol Shoguns and has to hit the ground running!

Peter Thorburn officially takes over as head coach from the recently departed Dean Ryan today and he can't really afford to ease himself into the role gently!

Preseason training starts in 2 weeks time although some of the players currently on international duty will probably be reporting back a little later. Bear in mind that Bristol played their last match on June 8th and you get begin to wonder how the players keep going!

Thorburn himself has had to return early from New Zealand due to the sudden departure of Ryan to Gloucester. He admits in today's Western Daily Press that he was aware than Dean was set to move and had already started the forward planning with Malcolm Pearce.

He's aware that he has a challenge on his hands to maintain the momentum from the tail end of last season but sees it as an "exciting job". He says that his first job is to sort out the player issues such as finalising contracts for some of the existing players and looking to add to the squad which "may include bringing some of the academy players through into the senior squad."

There is no mention of the 'phenomenal' new signing that Malcolm Pearce referred to a couple of weeks ago but he does expect to have his squad complete well before the start of the new season. Perhaps because the recruitment is not yet complete, he is keeping an open mind regarding the captaincy which is now vacant following Jason Little's retirement.

Thorburn echoes something that Dean said on many occasions over the last couple of seasons i.e. that it is more important to have a number of 'leaders' on the pitch than it is to have someone with (c) after their name in the programme.

It's good to get confirmation that Peter is in situ and getting to grips with the job. After the Twickenham final, the sudden departures left you with a feeling that the ship was slightly rudderless.

However, I now feel that the team is in the right hands. It's no coincidence that performances started to pick up when he became involved back in March. Only a short while beforehand, people had been crying out for Dean Ryan's head.

Given a decemt preseason and a couple of astute additions to the squad, we could well be going places.