Today's rugby news as game united in sadness after tragic news and Dai Young gets new job with Wales stars

These are your rugby headlines on Wednesday, December 11.

Game united in sadness after tragic news

The world of rugby has rallied around the family of England international Tom Voyce, who is feared dead after being swept away by a river.

On Tuesday evening, Northumbria Police said they received a report on Sunday that the 43-year-old had not returned home after being out with friends. The nine-cap international is suspected to have attempted to cross Abberwick Ford in Northumberland in his car before it was "pulled along with the current" of the River Aln.

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The car has since been recovered but Voyce is still missing and, following "extensive enquiries", presumed by police to have been "swept away and tragically died".

Following the tragic news, tributes have poured in from around the rugby world for Voyce, who represented Bath, Wasps, Gloucester and London Welsh during his club career.

A message from Gloucester read: "Gloucester Rugby is desperately sad to hear the distressing news regarding our former player and friend, Tom Voyce. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Tom’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time."

Bath Rugby wrote: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Tom Voyce at this incredibly distressing time," while London Welsh shared a statement that read: " Our thoughts are with the family of our friend Tom Voyce at this horrific time. All at @LondonWelshRFC have nothing but fond memories of Tom’s short time with us. A lovely man."

Premiership Rugby said: "Everyone at Premiership Rugby is devastated by the news regarding Tom Voyce. We send our thoughts and prayers to his family and friends," while a post from England Rugby read: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Tom Voyce at this extremely challenging time."

Wales star suffers injury blow

Wales prop Archie Griffin has suffered a fresh blow after injuring his shoulder during Bath's defeat to La Rochelle on Friday night.

The 23-year-old was named amongst the replacements for the Champions Cup clash and was brought on with less than quarter of an hour remaining. However, he suffered an injury in that time, with Bath coach Johaan van Graan telling the BBC that the club needed to do "more research" to determine the extent of it.

It comes after a difficult start to the season for Griffin, who missed weeks of rugby earlier in the campaign after being diagnosed with pericarditis, a condition where the protective sac around the heart becomes inflamed.

He recovered to feature in all three of Wales' autumn internationals, but was replaced before half-time in the defeat to South Africa after being given a tough time at the scrum by Bath team-mate Thomas du Toit.

Warren Gatland will be hoping Griffin's new injury blow will not be serious, with Wales' Six Nations campaign getting under way with a trip to Paris in just over seven weeks' time.

Dai Young joins Wales internationals in new role

Former Wales hooker Scott Baldwin has revealed that ex-Cardiff coach Dai Young has joined his coaching team at Bridgend Ravens.

Baldwin left his role as a defence coach at Newcastle Falcons in the summer to take over as head coach at Bridgend, with Wales internationals Matthew Jones, Matthew Morgan and Bradley Davies all part of his coaching staff. His side are currently in eighth place in the new Super Rygbi Cymru league.

But appearing on the Ollie Olds Podcast, Baldwin revealed that he had boosted his staff with the addition of Young, who has been working with Bridgend as a scrum coach. The 57-year-old left Cardiff last summer and was announced as the new head of rugby at Cardiff and Vale College's Rugby Academy in March this year.

"We've got a mixture of experience and inexperience in our coaching group," Baldwin told Welsh rugby league star Olds. "We've obviously got myself as head coach and coaching defence, we've got Matthew Jones who is attack coach, Matthew Morgan who is skills and assistant backs coach, Bradley Davies who is lineout and forwards coach and recently, over the last two months, we've now got Dai Young as scrum coach.

"He's brilliant for me as a young coach, I've got someone like that who I can chat to regularly about stuff, which is brilliant. His passion for scrums is my passion for defence. Naturally, people thought when I retired, I'd want to be a scrum coach. No. I loved scrums when I was playing but the thought of having to coach it for the next 30 years, that one area, that doesn't get me excited!

"The big thing is trust," he added. "You can work with people that aren't great - I'm not saying they are not - but you have to be able to trust them. At some point, s*** is going to hit the fan and you want people who you know you haven't got to look over your shoulder to. I know with that group, I can sleep well at night, even if it doesn't go right. I know they'll have my back and I'll have theirs."

Scottish rugby has 'very high ceiling' says new chief

By Anthony Brown, PA

David Nucifora believes the raw material is in place for him to establish a grassroots structure that will allow Scotland to enjoy long-term prosperity.

The 62-year-old Australian recently started work as Scottish Rugby's performance director, charged with "providing a roadmap for Scotland's next decade of player development".

Nucifora took on his new role on the back of 10 years as the Irish Rugby Football Union's high performance director, in which his ideas helped underpin the rise of the national team as one of the game's leading lights. The former Australia hooker is "encouraged" by what he has seen at Murrayfield.

"The temptation of being able to help reshape something that I believe has a very high ceiling was attractive to me, hence I took up the opportunity to get involved," said Nucifora. "The last five weeks I've been here on the ground and I've been really encouraged by what I've seen.

"I think there is lots of potential and a number of things that can be attacked very early on to try and make some reasonably quick improvements. I don't see it as being something that's going to materialise overnight. I certainly don't have a magic wand, but I do see that the structures and the raw material is here to work with so I look at it in a very positive light that we can achieve some really good things."

Nucifora's focus will be on trying to create a conveyor belt of talent for national team head coach Gregor Townsend.

"I think Gregor has done a really good job with the team," he said. "Coming from the other side, you know you're going to be in for a really difficult match when you play Scotland. But it's about being able to be consistent, and you've got to have a system underneath you that allows sustainable success.

"While you're working hard on keeping that national team doing well, you've got to be driving hard from underneath. I don't want to be referring back to Ireland too often, but the engine of the Irish system is the pathway. It's the thing that drives it. It does that because a lot of work was put into it over a long period of time to create a system that allowed quality to come through and created a competitive environment."

Scotland are widely deemed to have their best team in a generation, although many of their key men are in their late 20s or 30s.

"The challenge is trying to keep the pointier ends of the game as successful as possible while you're building something underneath that is solid," said Nucifora. "So that's an ongoing challenge, how do you keep those teams being successful at the same time as you're constructing something underneath that hopefully is going to give you the longevity you're looking for?"