John Steele, who will replace Francis Baron as the Rugby Football Union's chief executive in September, said his priority will be to ensure that England capitalise on hosting the 2015 World Cup by attracting new players and volunteers to the sport.
Steele, who played for Northampton and later coached the Saints, winning the Heineken Cup in 2000, has been the chief executive of UK Sport since 2005. Baron stands down on 4 July after 12 years in the post and Steele's appointment is markedly different in nature to the one the RFU made in 1998.
Baron, whose background was in business rather than rugby, was brought in to stem growing financial losses and swiftly turned the RFU into a profit-making organisation; it is now the richest union in the world. The 45-year-old Steele, a chartered surveyor, has spent most of his working career in sport and will be able to start operating immediately from a strong commercial base.
"I am very passionate about rugby and I am going back to my first love," Steele, who will not be giving any interviews until he starts work at Twickenham, told the RFU's podcast. "My immediate priority will be to get out and experience the game again. The World Cup is about capturing the hearts and minds of those who not just play the game but who might aspire to taking it up and there is a real opportunity around that.
"I want to talk to people in the community game where we have a huge number of volunteers who the sport relies on. How are they being supported and their numbers grown. The community game is the lifeblood of all levels of rugby: it is where England players start and I have seen in the Olympic movement just how much high-profile role models can help people take up sport.
"The 2015 World Cup can provide a focus and an inspiration and I would love to see more and more people playing rugby because the values of the sport and what you can get out of it are immense in terms of lifestyle and developing young and old alike. I am passionate about ensuring that everything that is good in the game is developed properly."
Wales left for their two-Test tour to New Zealand today with their Kiwi head coach, Warren Gatland, concerned that too much of what is good about the game in the country is down to the influence of foreign players in the four regions that underpinned the national side.
Gatland was ruminating on Wales's defeat to South Africa last Saturday when his players turned a 16-3 lead into a 12-point deficit before rallying at the end against a team that contained only three regulars.
"We lacked a bit of composure and leadership, and by that I do not mean captaincy," Gatland said. "Most weekends when our regions play, big decisions are made by southern hemisphere players. They often control and dominate games and we are trying to get the Welsh players to understand that and put them in situations they are not familiar with. It is difficult for them coming into this environment in terms of overall management."
