Jerry and Ollie are enjoying the coaching shake-up at high-flying Edinburgh
Team-mates, flatmates and, above all, brothers, Jerry and Ollie Blyth-Lafferty are fast emerging as poster boys for Edinburgh Rugby.
The club talks about “local players becoming legends” and the Blyth-Laffertys are rooted in the city.
Jerry, at 22, is the oldest. The hooker made his Edinburgh debut last season against Glasgow Warriors in the 1872 Cup at Murrayfield. Ollie, 20, may be a couple of years younger but his bow for Edinburgh came a month earlier with a fleeting appearance off the bench against the Ospreys.
The two brothers sat down with The Scotsman this week to discuss Edinburgh’s impressive start to the season and their journey from messing in the garden to locking horns in Europe with French giants Toulon.
Boroughmuir boys
Boroughmuir Rugby Club, in the south-west of Edinburgh, was their proving ground, helping nurture them from an early age. And it didn’t take long for the sibling rivalry to kick in.
Ollie: “I was in primary one, we both started at the same time…”
Jerry: “....so I would have been primary three.”
Ollie: “I remember it because I was annoyed you got to do contact. You only had one year of touch rugby and then you were onto contact. I had to do three years of touch rugby!”
Jerry: “It was all about the fundamentals.”
Ollie: “Passing skills, which I never learnt clearly! But we came through together and then as you get a wee bit older we had things like the Super 6 starting and you had the Bears academy. You were playing for the Bears [in Super 6] and I would have been under-16, so still in the youth section. But sometimes I'd train up [a level] and we'd get a bit of time training together.”
Jerry: “We both came right through the youth system but our dad, Billy, was also at the club before us and some of my earliest memories of Boroughmuir were not only training and the mini stuff but going to watch him play. He played for Boroughmuir thirds when he was in his 50s!
“But watching dad, I don't think we were that interested in the rugby at that age, I think we'd just run into each other at the side of the pitch with pads or sitting there eating bags of sweets.”
Ollie: “Going up to the shops at half-time!”
Family support
The family support network around the boys is strong and Billy tries to get to every game.
Ollie: “He was absolutely gutted because he couldn't get to Georgia [for the Junior World Championship in the summer]. The first three games were in Kutaisi which is such an awkward place to get to because you need to get to Tbilisi and then you're four hours drive in to Catesie.
“But my mum will say the same: if he goes to watch us on a Friday night he'll come home having recorded the game, re-watch it and then he'll watch the instant highlights and then in the morning he'll watch the game again.
Jerry: “So before we've reviewed it on a Monday, he's watched it three times. He genuinely just loves it.
“The family is so supportive, mum, our older sister Kate, our older brother Charlie, all of them are supportive in their own way.”
Jerry: “I mean Charlie's not necessarily interested in rugby but he's interested in us, he wants to know about us and hear about us but not so much the sport. He's a hairdresser so his skills lie elsewhere.”
Does he cut your hair?
Jerry: “Our mum's a hairdresser as well. So it’s mum that cuts our hair.”
Like Ollie, dad Billy was a prop.
Ollie: “He'll definitely give his opinions. He'll always say, ‘nah I don't really get the game anymore but I know scrummaging - I know good scrummaging when I see it!’”
Jerry: “He was mainly a tighthead but he's probably closer to my shape and size. He's a lot smaller [than Ollie].”
Ollie is the youngest in the family but, at 6ft 4in and 135kg, is now the biggest.
Jerry: “He's the baby.”
Ollie: “I definitely get my height from my mum's side. They're all 6ft 2in.”
Jerry: “Our mum's side of the family are taller than my dad's side. So she's quite tall. I got my dad's genes, unfortunately.”
But, Jerry, is the more mobile one?
Ollie: “It's a fair comment!”
Jerry: “I used played centre at Boroughmuir and I came up through the youth system bouncing about in the centre and the back row. I did mess about with prop as well because we were both scrummaging in the garden with my dad when we were younger.
“Although I was enjoying playing centre I was quite happy to go and join in with the forwards. Graeme Beveridge [the former Scotland scrum-half] coached us. And I remember he first time the backs and forwards split into two groups and I had to go with the backs. All we did was passing while the forwards were doing lineouts, mauls and scrums and I was like: that looks more exciting!
“I’d probably attribute that to Graeme helping make me more of a front rower, a hooker.”
Edinburgh's makeover
Both are enjoying the new season, and no wonder. Edinburgh are top of the United Rugby Championship after three wins on the bounce. A coaching overhaul in the summer saw Brad Davis, Tim Sampson and Michael Hodge brought in to support head coach Sean Everitt.
Jerry: “To get a few wins has been class, and to be involved as well over the first few weeks is something that I was quite happy with.”
Ollie: “The new coaches that have come in, Brad, Tim and Michael, all three of them I think just add a lot, like it's definitely different compared to last year.”
Jerry: “I'd say everything's just quite fresh, like we completely changed everything from defensive structures and tactics and attacking as well, and I'm not necessarily saying it was better or worse, it was just different. And I think that allowed a lot of people to have a fresh start and sort of like a clean slate.
“It's kept it exciting. I'd say the coaches that have come in have made a big difference.”
The Blyth-Laffertys are not the only young players helping Edinburgh make a bright start. Liam McConnell, Freddy Douglas, Hector Patterson, Tom Currie, Jamie Stewart and Conor McAlpine have all played their part.
Jerry: “I've played with Liam McConnell since like primary four or five, so like we've all known each other for years and I think we were actually speaking about it the other day. We maybe take it for granted at the minute, but when will this happen again? When will we have this many guys that you're close to from your childhood all playing together? And we've all been getting a good run out so it's cool to do it alongside them.”
Jerry and Ollie have started together for Scotland Under-20s - the first brothers to do so - but they have yet to start a game together for Edinburgh.
Ollie: “This season, I've started a game but literally as he's coming on, I'm going off. So we never had really any time together but I'd say that's definitely the goal.”
Scotland could be next
Gregor Townsend will name his Scotland squad on Monday for the autumn Nations Championship games and Ollie’s impressive start to the season suggests he is knocking on the door. Does he feel ready now for the step up to Test rugby?
Ollie: “I'd like to think so. But at the end of the day, it's not my decision. I want to be confident in myself but it's guys like Gregor who make the call. All I can really do is look at the here and now, and that’s the Lions game this Friday night.”
He is in regular contact with Scotland scrum coach Pieter de Villiers around his set-piece technique.
Ollie: “I work with Pieter quite a lot around my scrummaging. He'll feed back to me on my clips from the weekend from the Toulon game. I'll send him my thoughts and I'll make some clips for him. Then we'll work together over the phone because he's based in Paris. So just on WhatsApp and things like that. Message each other back and forth.”
If the call from Scotland doesn’t come this time, it surely will in the very near future.