Former Scotland captain Kelly Brown will play his final home game for club side Saracens this weekend but the flanker is excited at taking up an academy coaching role at the club next season.
Brown won 64 caps for Scotland and made 31 appearances in the RBS 6 Nations – the last of which was in the 2014 campaign.
And the 34-year-old, a member of the Saracens squad that won their maiden European Champions Cup title last season, has decided to hang up his boots at the end of the season after a storied career for both club and country.
This season, he has settled for a squad role at the club and has captained the Saracens Storm, coached by Ian Vass, allowing him to see the next group of young players in the heat of battle.
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And Brown believes his experience playing with the side will serve him well when he moves into his new role next season.
“This season I have had a split Saracens role – I am a player and also an academy coach,” said Brown.
“It has been done with a view to me becoming a full-time academy coach and so playing for the Storm is really important. I can see things in a game that as a coach you won’t see from the touchline.
“I was thinking about my future and about three years ago I sat down and asked myself what was my passion and it was rugby. Therefore, it makes sense to go into coaching when I finish playing.
“I do have the knowledge from playing, but coaching is also about how you speak to players and the emotional side of the role.
“That is something that I feel I am strong at and in the summer, I did my level two coaching and next summer it will be level three because with the playing and the coaching it is incredibly full-on at the moment. I won’t have time until next summer.”
