{"id":927251,"date":"2026-04-29T22:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/927251\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T22:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:27:17","slug":"edinburgh-accies-appoint-michael-todd-as-head-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/927251\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh Accies appoint Michael Todd as head coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cOur first contact with Michael came via Stevie Lawrie [Edinburgh Rugby\u2019s forwards coach] who told us that Michael was interested to stay in Edinburgh for a wee while longer, and that he wanted to keep involved in coaching rugby, so I\u00a0got in touch with him through Steve,\u00a0and it all happened pretty quickly from there, to be honest,\u201d explained Accies director of rugby <strong>Graham Bonner.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Michael has some other irons in the fire with the SRU and other coaching assignments so he\u2019ll be doing other stuff, but he\u2019s really excited about working with us and helping us not just survive but continue to push forward in the Premiership next season. We\u2019re just delighted to get a guy of that experience and calibre.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy rationale [for appointing him] was pretty straightforward,\u201d Bonner added. \u201cHe\u2019s got the pro experience, he\u2019s young and he\u2019s ambitious as a coach. Plus he brings something that the Premiership probably hasn\u2019t had a lot of before, which is he\u2019s new and he\u2019s from outside Scotland, and it just brings a vibrancy along with\u00a0a determination to succeed,\u00a0which I think will hopefully rub off on the players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot that we didn\u2019t have that anyway,\u00a0because with Charlie Shiel and Simon Berghan,\u00a0you\u2019ve got two pros or ex-pros there, so there\u2019s already that kind of hard edge to them as well\u00a0as the rugby knowledge. For these guys, it\u2019s about winning, and that\u2019s what you\u2019ve got to have.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said when I took over as director of rugby last year that the goal was to win National One and get back to the Premiership, so we have achieved that. And I\u2019ve said this year to people around the club that we need to target winning the Premiership, and they kind of look at me as if I\u2019ve got horns on my head,\u00a0but if we\u2019re not ambitious like that then there\u2019s no point in doing it \u2026 and this is appointment is part of that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty strong coaching team we\u2019ve put together now, who are all young, ambitious guys who want to get involved in coaching\u00a0at a higher level,\u00a0so the whole drive there is to be successful,\u00a0and it\u2019s going to help recruit players as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bonner said that there has been lots of positive conversations with players considering a move to Edinburgh Accies and while the club is not in a position to announce anything at this stage, he is confident that the squad will be bolstered ahead of returning to the top flight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPart of that is not just the fact we\u2019ve got these guys coaching,\u00a0but the whole environment is positive, and that\u2019s the best way to recruit,\u201d he reasoned. \u201cThe players are talking to other players\u00a0about how much fun they\u2019re having,\u00a0and the enjoyment and positivity about the place.\u00a0 Of course, once you\u2019ve won a league and get promoted,\u00a0you kind of attract people as well, so it\u2019s going pretty well so far, but still early days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, the focus is on Sevens, with Accies\u2019 win at Langholm last weekend moving them back to second in the Kings of the Sevens table, 11 points behind pace-setters Melrose.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said to the boys at training last night that we\u2019re right in the mix with six tournaments to go, because that\u2019s 60 points on offer and we\u2019ve demonstrated already\u00a0that we\u2019re capable of beating Melrose and anybody else on our day,\u201d said Bonner. \u201cSo, it\u2019s just about believing in ourselves\u00a0and how we can do what we did at Gala and Langholm on a weekly basis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOur first contact with Michael came via Stevie Lawrie [Edinburgh Rugby\u2019s forwards coach] who told us that Michael&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":927252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,85185,1102,220591,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-927251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-divi","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-edinburgh-academical-football-club","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116490354577844314","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}