In Search of an Edge

Many people travelled from afar to attend the Trans-Tasman Touch Football series ... but none further than Robbie MacKenzie!

MacKenzie travelled from Scotland to watch the best touch players in the world go head-to-head at Mudgee's Glen Willow last weekend.

The Scotland national squad coaching director and mixed opens coach was keeping a close eye on the Australian and New Zealand teams as the Touch World Cup begins this time next year.

But also MacKenzie was here on a fact-finding mission.

"We have built a good relationship with the coaching team and with some of the senior players in the Aussie squads over the last four years, and those sort of connections are very useful for us to develop the game in Scotland and in Europe," he said.

"This is another trip to progress our national squads and the build up to the World Cup in 2015."

Touch football has grown in popularity in Scotland and other European countries over the past decade with many players from rugby backgrounds taking part.

"It is moving at a hell of a pace," MacKenzie said.

"If you look back to 2007 where most of our players picked up their initial experience at that World Cup, we didn't know the game at all.

"We had no defensive structure, we were just a bunch of rugby guys who played touch football and loved it.

"It has gone from strength to strength and in Scotland, we have been European champions in one division or another from 2008 to now."

In August the European Championships will be held in Swansea, Wales, and MacKenzie said it won't be easy for the Scots.

"It is a very good competition, there is strength in Wales, strength in England, they've got bigger player numbers than we do, so we have our work cut out to retain top spot in our divisions," he said.

"But we are looking beyond the European championships, we are implementing things into our game which is designed to help us at World Cup level."

* Article / image courtesy Mudgee Guardian newspaper