TRUSTED contacts will always be more important to Gloucester than a hatful of scouts, believes new rugby operations manager Alex Brown.
Gloucester do not employ official scouts, and that is not going to change.
Clubs like Leicester and Northampton have regular scouts doing the rounds across Europe.
The Tigers unearthed Fijian powerhouse wing Vereniki Goneva through that route, bringing him on board from Pro D2 French outfit Tarbes.
Not every gamble pays off though, with imposing South African lock Rob Andrew, signed from Pau at the same juncture, having left Leicester this summer without breaking into the first team.
Every club has different methods for recruiting potential top talent, but former Kingsholm lock Brown said Gloucester will put their faith in well-known contacts.
Brown's wide-ranging remit takes in everything from scouting, to lineout coaching, analysis and team management.
The 34-year-old will not have the time to be scouting every week – but believes he has a strong and wide enough contacts book to dig out future gems for the Cherry and Whites.
He explained: "It's very difficult to get out at weekends, because I'll be at Gloucester matches.
"And you've got to try to have a bit of time with the family too!
"I've built up quite a lot of connections across my rugby career, people I trust, and that's really important.
"That network will be vital.
"It will hopefully allow me to call people up and ask their opinion on certain players and other issues.
"The ultimate way to do it is to have a team of scouts, who watch games, you trust implicitly and that you can send to games here, there and everywhere.
"But it's only football money that would allow that, and that's just unrealistic for rugby – and rightly so.
"And hopefully the calibre of peers and people we trust means they will be more experienced potentially than people we might be able to employ as scouts."
Forced into premature retirement last season, in his benefit year at the club, Brown faced an early crossroads on life after rugby.
But rugby director Nigel Davies removed any quandary, offering Brown a route straight into Gloucester's backroom set-up.
Relishing his new job, Brown continued: "I'm very lucky in my role and the opportunity Nigel has given me.
"It's allowed me a seamless transition from rugby to moving on to the next chapter.
"I'm massively grateful and I'm really enjoying it so far.
"It's a huge role, you can very, very easily concentrate on one area and that will take up all your time, when you've got five or six you need to be handling.
"So how I approach it and manage my time will be vital.
"The operations side, the recruitment in itself is a huge role.
"You can do as much as you want on that, there's so many games to watch and people to speak to.
"And then there's all the other stuff, the team manager stuff, looking after the players, player welfare and all the rest of it.
"It's a massively wide remit, but a thoroughly exciting and enjoyable one as well."
