The former Welsh Premiership and National One player joins the University after previously holding the position of Attack Coach at the Hong Kong Rugby Union national men’s programme.
Initially starting his coaching career as a specialist kicking coach, Sneddon honed his skills and gained valuable experience as a player and coach with Rosslyn Park, where he worked closely with partner clubs Harlequins and Saracens.
Since moving to Hong Kong, Sneddon has seen great success having coached in the Rugby World Cup Repechage 2018. He also won the Asia Rugby Championships in 2018 & 2019 and saw early success with the South China Tigers in global rapid rugby in 2020.
Alongside this, Scott is also Head Coach of Kowloon RFC and is currently working to complete his high-performance coach program (Level 4) through the Welsh Rugby Union.
On his appointment, Scott said:
“º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ being the top sporting University in the UK offered an exciting opportunity to work with some of the UK’s most talented young players, developing them into rounded people and outstanding players.
“In addition, I was drawn to the challenge of developing the program to deliver success and excellence, to align with º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ’s world-class facilities and reputation.
“º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ has the team, affiliations and structured support to truly deliver excellence across the board.”
Speaking about what he wants to achieve with the men’s programme Scott added:
“I have big aspirations for the programme to become a world-renowned rugby pathway for developing the most rounded people and delivering a positive life-changing experience, with the aim to deliver excellence both on and off the field.
“On the field, this means delivering BUCs success and national league performance, through this building a world-renowned reputation for excellence.
“Off the field, this is further developing pathways for players looking for a professional, semi-professional and/or social route following university. Day-to-day, this is delivering opportunity to challenge, test, support and develop our young players into better and impactful people.”
Director of Rugby Rhys Edwards said of the appointment:
“Replacing Gerard was always going to be a challenge as he had been at º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ for such a long time and made a great contribution to the game.
The recruitment process was pretty thorough and the number of people that applied for the role was incredible, with over 100 applicants. The calibre of candidates was very phenomenal and the process to get down to a final shortlist of three very tough.
However, we are thrilled to have appointed Scott into the role and are excited to see what he can achieve with the men's program.
The programme plays such a pivotal role in the development of players at the university level, looking to get into the professional game and we are lucky to have somebody of Scott's quality in the role. His background and experience at national and international levels with Cardiff Blues, Rosslyn Park and Hong Kong is amazing and, in his interview, he showed his vision for the program - we are very excited to see what he can achieve.
We know he will challenge the players and staff to push themselves to provide the best program possible in February when he starts in the role. We are excited to see the programme back to being one of the best performance development centres in the world.”