Stirling County men’s first XV head coach Craig Jackson admits it’s been a whirlwind start to life in the coaching box.
The former fly-half has settled into a new role after Super Series winning coach Eddie Pollock moved upstairs to a director of rugby role and has been getting his teeth into coaching as County navigate life in National One.
It has been a strong start for promotion-chasing County, who have won six out of their opening seven games – scoring a league-leading 377 points in the process, with that margin added to with last weekend’s 55-5 win over Boroughmuir.
But Jackson acknowledges a bruising defeat to unbeaten leaders GHA offered a necessary “reality check” for his charges, who have returned key names from the successful Stirling Wolves side of recent seasons.
Ahead of a clash with bottom side Dundee, Jackson reflected on his debut months in the role.
He said: “It’s been a positive start to the season overall and I’m lucky to have a strong coaching group behind me who have been there since the Super Series days.
“Defensively, things are a little different at this level so it’s about finding the right solutions in these early weeks.
“It’s been completely different coming from playing last year and I wasn’t really involved too much in the background of things, so every day has been a revolving door and trying to fix things that can be done a little better.
“There was always going to be a big shift, whether it’s the assistant coaches trying to get used to someone different to Eddie and I’ve had my head set on things I’ve wanted to do, so it’s about getting that alignment, especially at a big club like this.”
County’s sparkling early form has seen them break through the fifty-point mark in all but one of their matches so far, but that blemish in Glasgow against unbeaten GHA – where they were turned over 60-22 – still stings for Jackson.
But the new coach is confident the consistency at both ends of the pitch will come as everything continues to bed in at Bridgehaugh.
“GHA was a reality check that I think we needed, it got us back on the bandwagon”, Jackson added.
“We’ve done a quarterly review of things after this first block and there have been a lot of positives with the attack and some of our counters, so it’s just about fixing up a few of our core values.
“There have been real glimpses of being effective in attack and defence like we want to be, but we want that to be a common theme for all 80 minutes rather than for 5-10 minutes in a game; we are getting there as a group.”