By Graham Bean

Copyright scotsman

Jade Konkel has been described as “a legend of the Scottish game” by Murrayfield chiefs who insist they handled the decision not to give her a new deal in the correct manner. The back-row forward is not among the 35 players to be awarded professional contracts by Scottish Rugby for next season and has now stepped away from the national side. Konkel, 29, learned of the news before the Rugby World Cup and decided to retire from international rugby following Scotland’s defeat by England in the quarter-finals earlier this month. She was critical of the way the decision was conveyed to her but David Nucifora, Scottish Rugby’s consultant performance director, said she was treated “with a level of respect”. Konkel, who became Scotland’s first full-time professional women’s rugby player in 2016 and won 74 caps, said she was still searching for answers as to why she wasn’t given a new contract, having won the player of the year award at her club, Harlequins. She said that a short conversation with “people higher up” confirmed the end of her time as a Scotland contracted player. “It is a business at the end of the day,” she said after the defeat by England in Bristol. “It is the fact that it was a six-minute conversation, after 13 years of service.” Alex Williamson, Scottish Rugby’s chief executive, acknowledged that it had been a “challenging conversation” but praised Konkel’s contribution. “Obviously Jade is a legend of the Scottish game and I’m sure a future Hall of Famer,” said Williamson. “Clearly the conversations when you’re telling someone something they don’t want or hope to hear is challenging.” Nucifora said the brevity of the discussion was no reflection on her abilities. “When the players are told whether they have contracts or not, they’re not long conversations,” he said. “Once you hear there is a negative response there’s not a lot of value in trying to have any type of long conversation about why. “I don’t know what the right length of time is to tell someone they’re not receiving a contract, whether it’s seven minutes or 10 minutes. There’s a way of doing it and we felt it was handled the best way possible.” When it was put to him that Konkel clearly thought otherwise, Nucifora said: “That’s professional sport. There’s disappointment all the time. There’s 17 [non-Scotland based] players who have received contracts that wouldn’t have got them otherwise so there’s a lot of positives in the fact we’ve been able to bring other players into the fold and those players will be the future of Scottish Rugby. There should be a lot of excitement around that.” Scottish Rugby’s blueprint for the 2025-26 women’s season was revealed on Thursday and sees an increase in contracted players from the previous year from 32 to 35. Of those 35, 28 will be full-time. Twenty-two players from the World Cup squad have had their contracts renewed. The governing body has described it as a “mixed model” in that 17 of the contracted players are based in England and France while 18 are in Scotland. The home-based group, split between 11 full-time and seven development players, will be supported through a new centralised programme at Oriam sports complex in Edinburgh where they will have access to Scottish Rugby’s new team of high performance experts in sports science, performance, physiotherapy and nutrition. An additional 15 “emerging” players will also have access to the high-performance programme but will not be paid. “I think it is a really exciting evolution of the Scottish women’s rugby programme,” said Williamson. Scottish Rugby will also make two new appointments: a head of women’s high performance pathways and a managing director of women’s rugby. The governing body hope to appoint a new Scotland Women head coach within the next two months to replace Bryan Easson who stepped down after the World Cup, plus two assistants.