I wrote a piece on this subject a couple of years ago now for Scrum Magazine
and whilst some mentioned in it have moved on its worth re-publishing here now that Scrum is sadly no more so you can read about the depth of this particular conveyor belt
If you want to see the piece on the clubwebsite about Hutchison. Click here-
Scrum Magazine piece about Edinburgh Rugby and North Berwick
What does Scotland 7’s, Edinburgh Rugby, The Bolivian National Rugby side, Scotland Women’s Rugby and the Scotland Rugby League team all have in common?
The short answer is North Berwick.
The East Lothian seaside town is home to only around 6500 people yet can claim players for all these teams who started their rugby life in the town.
Edinburgh Rugby have benefited greatly from this pipeline of talent. Current established squad members Chris Dean and Lewis Carmichael have been joined on full contract at the club by Rory Darge. Roan Frostwick and Ben Muncaster have joined in the last month on Stage 3 Contracts. Recent departees from Edinburgh, Tom Brown and Callum Hunter-Hill who are off to Scotland 7’s and Saracens respectively are also products of North Berwick RFC.
There are many different routes into a professional contract with Edinburgh Rugby but for all of the players mentioned above it has started with North Berwick RFC Minis.
Head of Rugby at North Berwick RFC, Keith Hogg played down these achievements and insisted that they were no different from many other rugby clubs and were merely trying to instil a joy of playing within the right environment.
Despite those protestations it’s clear to see that there is a sense of pride in the success achieved by these players but it’s a pride that comes from more than individual achievement as he talked about the character of these players and their strong connection to the club more than their playing ability.
On their Facebook page recently they applauded Rory Darge’s new Edinburgh contract but made note that as he progressed through age grade rugby he was always keen to represent North Berwick.
Known in in the town as just ‘Darge’, the Scotland U20’s captain said in in Edinburgh’s match day programme against Connacht in February of his time at North Berwick, “it was just fun and just a really good environment”.
It was clear from talking to Keith that there was no division between school rugby and club rugby in North Berwick it’s just all North Berwick Rugby. In fact Roan Frostwick and Rory Darge are from Aberlady and Gullane but despite having moved on in their professional rugby careers still consider their rugby home to be North Berwick.
Lewis Carmichael’s route to Edinburgh was all North Berwick having played all the way through to Under 18 level within the town.
Chris Dean and Tom Brown made the move to Heriots and Edinburgh Academy to finish their schoolboy rugby but like others were always keen to return to play for the town in North Berwick 10’s at the end of the regular season.
Ben Muncaster’s route also started with North Berwick minis before he earned a scholarship to Rugby School which eventually led to a place in Leicester Tigers Academy before Edinburgh came calling. It was those early years that left an impression and he said recently of his North Berwick origins, “I started playing when I was 4 or 5, I joined my local rugby club and loved every minute of it.”
Sometimes these links to the early rugby formative years get lost in player profiles the lengthier those profiles get and when you see, ‘A product of’ it very rarely touches on where a player has picked up a rugby ball for the first time. Those are important steps for rugby in the same way that your abc’s are for learning to read.
If the foundations are unstable then it’s hard to build anything significant. It is clear that North Berwick Rugby has some good builders.
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