Stars of the future put to the test at National Talent Pathway Combine Day

The day is designed to show athletic performance coaches areas that individuals or the overall group have made, or areas that need specific attention.

Some of the NTP players missed the testing to take part in wider Scotland U20 training sessions ahead of the 2026 Junior World Championship in Georgia this summer, showcasing their ability by being selected to play above their age-grade.

The NTP comprises 59 of the best young players in Scotland, who are supported heavily across athletic performance, nutrition, physio and their rugby skills.

Head of Athletic Performance and Sports Science Alex Ross explained: “The combine day gives us a regular touchpoint to get a comprehensive set of profiling data. It serves two purposes really, to see where we’re at just now and also to tailor individual plans.

“We’ve been able to put a lot of individual attention into the NTP players, so we’ve seen some really nice changes. You can see a lot of the players have made some pretty substantial growth from when they started to where they are now.

“With any new programme, there’s a bit of learning as you’re going through, but it’s been great to work collaboratively with the schools and clubs and we’re starting to see the fruit of our labour, and I’m sure as we continue we’ll see even more.”

One of those NTP players is Angus Robson, who recently captained Scotland Men U18 at the U18 Six Nations Festival in Vichy, France.

Robson also captained George Watson’s College to the 2025 U18 Scottish Schools Cup this season, and has played some sevens as well, most notably at Melrose Sevens in May.

Angus Robson at the Combine Day.

He said: “Being in the NTP has been brilliant as you get so much support to help develop you as an athlete and a rugby player. The testing days are very helpful, as you can compare your scores from previous testing days to see where you have improved and what needs the most work, and the coaches help you plan for the next block on what you want to work on physically.

“On Saturday I hit personal bests in chin ups and my max speed, and in the bronco I managed to significantly lower my time which I am happy about as these are all areas I have been looking to improve.

“It’s been great to get to experience different environments this season. Each environment is different across my school, the NTP and playing sevens, but especially as this age, experiencing the different environments is really important and fun. Melrose Sevens was a great experience, getting to play with professionals was great as I learnt a lot of them. Also making that transition into playing men’s rugby was important as it’s a lot more physical, but I think the NTP training put me in good shape for it.”

Head of Player Transition Kenny Murray added: “For guys like Angus, it’s about how we continue to stretch them. He’s obviously doing really well at his school, but for us to support and develop him we’ve got him playing sevens, and he’s in here at Oriam training with some of the best young players in the country. He’ll go into his NTP3 year as an U19 next year, and now it’s about how we continue to stretch him with things like club rugby, the Scotland U19 programme, GB Sevens or whatever it might be for him.

“This has been quite a transformation in approach to player development for us, a real mindset around focusing more of our resource on a smaller group of players, and the players and staff have really bought into it. We’ve had a lot of really good support from the clubs and schools as well.

“Another example we can use is Daniel Kelly. He was in the NTP3 group in Edinburgh, he has played Scotland U19 this year, he’s now in training with Scotland U20, he’s played a tournament for Scotland Sevens this year, and a couple of weeks ago he broke the fastest 10m time for any player in Scotland, and then got the highest countermovement jump (CMJ) of any player at Edinburgh. It just shows you what guys like that at 19 years old. We just need to make sure we’re continuing to bring players through and helping them achieve those kind of targets.