Reading Week Interview with Club Captain David Macrae
As St Andrews empties of its students during reading week, I sat down with the current Men’s Club Captain David Macrae, a fourth year student studying economics. The 1st XV had a bye week last week and are currently preparing to play Birmingham at home on Wednesday. In this interview David gives us a great insight into how a rugby club is actually run, showing us what life is like around this historic club off the pitch and how he manages his important role.
Q – First off, tell me a bit about your rugby career at St Andrews.
A – I turned up to uni having played a few different sports at school, not entirely sure whether uni rugby would be for me. I was probably just trying to meet lots of new people and so got stuck in over the first couple of weeks and ended up meeting some of my closest friends, so that is what has led to me being so involved over the last couple of years. I started off in the 3rd XV, got moved into the 2nd XV quite quickly – I think they were short of a fly-half. I was pretty luck really because I was nowhere near ready to play 1st XV, but CP gave me a lot of responsibility in the 2s which helped me develop. We ended up having a great season, getting promoted, and for me coming out of school that was the perfect step into adult rugby. I got a couple games in the 1s that year, playing in the game that got us promoted up a league. Since second year I have been playing in the 1st XV, moving between fullback, winger and now I am in the centres. I’ve been on 2 tours, which are a highlight of my uni rugby career. We went to South Africa in 2023 and Prague in 2024.
You are the Men’s Club Captain this year, what does this role involve?
My role is to chair the men’s committee, which oversees all club activity. Essentially I’ll work with committee members on whatever their aspect of the club is. One day I might be working with club treasurer Maher to discuss the finances, or meeting with Archie McCusker to talk about sponsorships, or talking with Ferg Cato about training time and kit orders. I also work closely with Dave Morris, who is in charge of the performance elements of Saints rugby, which leaves the committee to organise the social side, the events and all the charity work.
What are your visions and goals for this rugby club?
Firstly being on committee is a massive privilege. The club, as I always bang on about, is so old, it’s got such great traditions. It has been around since 1858, so I see it as my duty to maintain the core values of the club and the memorable rugby experience for all club members. We have been lucky to have more funding over the last few years, which has allowed the club to take a more performance mindset as shown by most of our teams having been promoted. I would like to continue pushing that performance mindset, continue to elevate the quality of Saints Rugby, but also keep the tight social culture that we have as well. We can see how far the performance side has come that we are getting players who have played in regional rugby academies coming to St Andrews to further progress their game, with a view on a future career in rugby.
How have you seen the club change during your time at St Andrews?
When I was a fresher, that was the beginning of bringing in scholars on post-grads and really driving that performance aspect of the club. We’ve gone from a club that was pretty social orientated to one that competes at a higher level. Another thing that has changed a lot is our relationship with the women’s club. In 2015 the men and women’s clubs merged and since then the clubs have really become one club, we now do mixed touch rugby all under one club. It’s great to see how much the women’s club has grown, greatly benefitting the club as a whole. The way the club is run also doesn’t change in some ways, which is good, because people value the club for what it stands for, for its core values that have enabled it to thrive for so long. People are very keen to preserve all the good aspects of the club even when things do change.
What is the most enjoyable thing about being Club Captain?
As I mentioned before I end up being involved in lots of different aspects of club life. On the one hand that is really time consuming and sometimes the work piles up, but at the same time I love it because it keeps me involved in the club to make everyones rugby experience at St Andrews as good as mine has been. One of the most rewarding things is when you speak to someone in the club who wants to do something, who has a great vision, and you are able to help them make it a reality. For example at the end of last year, one of our first years Kerry Otieno decided he wanted to make a big kit donation to the place he is from in Kenya and the club was able to help him do that. We ended up sending a huge amount of sports kit to Kenya through the Mathare foundation which could then support people in a significantly less privileged environment to us and help them play the game of rugby. It was immensely rewarding.
Looking forward, are there any big events run by the club that people should look out for?
We are one week away from November, which for the rugby club means a complete Movember focus. Its going to be pretty exciting, everyone in the club makes a big effort to raise money for this good cause and then at the end of the month we do our annual charity ball, with all the money going towards the Movember charity. That is one of the best events of the year, so do look out for that.
Who can grow the best moustache in the team?
Definitely not me! Maybe John Patterson in his fifth year at the club, his will just be getting better and better, so I would definitely watch out for him.
Now a rugby question to wrap things up: next semester what do you think the team needs to do to get back to winning ways?
It’s always difficult at the beginning of the year with all the focus on Varsity, you have that massive high of playing in the Hive Stadium in the biggest game of the year, probably one of the biggest games of rugby you’ll play. Coming off that high into the beginning of the season can make it difficult to adjust. We also lost Sam Wright after varsity and had an injury to one of our key senior players in John Patterson which means that you’re going into the season without some of your more experienced guys. I think nothing drastic needs to change. The squad is in a really good place and we have learned a lot in our first two games against two pretty good teams, so I am confident we will start getting into our stride and the results will start going our way.
