As athletics performance manager, Drawer will be responsible for the coordination and delivery of sports science and medicine programmes across all of the men's and women's international performance teams except the England senior elite player squad.

This will include the under-20 and second string Saxons team, as well as the England sevens squad ahead of the sport's Olympic debut at Rio 2016.

To perform this successfully Drawer will have to incorporate all of the performance orientated knowledge he has gained over his last 13 years at UK Sport.

As the head of a research and innovation team this experience has included a vast array of projects ranging from design, development and manufacture of high-end competition equipment through to projects to minimise the risk of injury and illness to athletes.

In his EIS role over recent months Drawer's remit has been widened to include the development of more effective performance planning on offer to Olympic and Paralympic sports to enable "the wider benefit of the unique science, medicine and technology capabilities within the UK."

In these roles he has been considered a key component of Britain's success at recent Olympic and Paralympic Games.  

The England Saxons team, pictured ahead of a match against Scotland A, will be among the teams benefiting from Drawer's expertise ©Getty Images



"After 12 years in the GB high performance Olympic and Paralympic system, which is one of the world's leading research and innovation programmes, I am excited about the opportunity to bring these skills to the RFU," said Drawer.

"In the past decade I have been fortunate to have been surrounded by world class people in UK Sport, the British Olympic Association and Paralympics GB in support of our athletes.

"I feel blessed to have been given the opportunity to grow a programme from nothing to something and to have been a small cog in a historic Games in London.

"The chance to take these experiences and insights into the RFU in a new domain is an exciting one and I look forward to working with the clubs as we seek to build a sustainable high performance pathway that will be the envy of the world across the sporting world."

These positive sentiment were echoed by England head coach Stuart Lancaster who claimed Drawer's appointment is the latest addition to the building of a "world class performance team".

"Matt Parker [RFU head of athletic performance] has made a big impact with the senior team in the 12 months he has been with us and Scott will likewise make a significant difference with players and teams in the age grade programmes," Lancaster said

"He has a massive amount of experience and expertise in a wide range of Olympic sports and we are delighted to have him on board as we build towards 2015 and beyond."