Dale “The Chief” McIntosh is to take up the role of Director of Rugby and Head Coach at ambitious Brecon RFC from this summer. The Pontypridd legend is stepping down from Merthyr RFC at the end of this season after six highly successful years at the coaching helm. You can read all about his reasons for leaving here.
He will then turn his attention to his latest venture with National League Division 1 East side Brecon who are looking for him to guide them into the Championship. The former Welsh international, now 52, has signed a three-year deal with the club.
He will be joined by his long-time coaching assistant Gavin Dacey and will take up the reins on July 1. McIntosh is the latest high-profile appointment by the club, who previously had another ex-Wales back row man and real character at the helm in Andy Powell.
READ MORE: The new rugby adventure of Andy Powell, whose passion for the game still burns brightly
Club director Phil Buck said: “This is a fantastic coup for us. Bringing one of the best coaches in Wales to Brecon will send out a message that we mean to successfully compete at the highest possible level. All of our stakeholders are tremendously excited about the future.”
Buck, the chairman of club sponsor Sunnybarn Investments Ltd, explained how the eye-catching recruitment of McIntosh came about: "After Andy left for family reasons and moved to Nottingham, we promoted his defence coach Matthew Lewis, who has been with the club for a number of years. Matthew said to the board a month ago that the step up had been too big for him.
“Our chairman got a call from somebody at Merthyr to alert us that Dale was on his way out. We had two meetings with Dale and were massively impressed with him as a man. He is a great guy and his rugby knowledge is obvious. We basically said do you fancy a project of getting us up into the Championship and he said yes. So we put something together and he’s accepted. He’s a fantastic individual and we enjoyed meeting him. He’s been great and he very much buys into our rugby philosophy.”
Brecon, a founding member club of the WRU, finished top of Division 1 East in 2019, but missed out on a place in the Championship after losing a two-legged play-off to Glamorgan Wanderers. Since then, promotion has been on hold due to the Covid pandemic. The club currently lie seventh in their league, but have a number of games in hand.
Buck said: “We will be back to promotion and relegation next season, so we really want to push on and get promotion. We are determined to get up to the Championship and I think with Dale with us we will.”
Chairman Paul Amphlett added: “Brecon is an ambitious club and with the success we have enjoyed to date we are hungry for more. Bringing the Chief to Brecon demonstrates our determination to achieve greater success in the future.”
Matthew Lewis will be staying on at the club as defence coach.
