“A serious injury gave me freedom” – Fraser Brown

Former Scottish hooker Fraser Brown says the end of his playing career helped him become a coach.

Brown, who made 141 appearances for Glasgow and won 61 caps for Scotland during his career, suffered a serious knee injury in May 2023 and did not play again before retiring at the end of last season.

The 35-year-old works as forwards coach for Scotland women after playing for the Glasgow Warriors and Watsonians women's team, and he is excited about where his coaching career could take him.

“It's not easy to retire. It's especially hard to retire because of an injury,” Brown said.

“The advantage for me was that I had a long-term injury and probably knew from a long time ago. I had a lot of time, a year, to train in different environments – Glasgow in the Celtic Challenge, head coach at Watsonians.

“Such a serious injury gave me the freedom to gain experience as a coach.

“It's not nice to stop, but there's always the next part of the journey. It was hard right at the beginning and the more I knew where I wanted to go after my active time, the more exciting it became.”

“It wasn't an 'end of the world' type thing, it was just 'How can I use this for what I want to do next?'”