The Journey of a Grassroots Rugby Coach (More Tracksuits less Business Suits)

This episode is with Andrew Fraser. Andrew has been the Assistant Coach at Hunter Wildfires in the Shute Shield and has recently been appointed as Assistant Coach at Bond University in the Hospital Cup. He has also held positions as both Assistant and Head Coach at many NSW Country Championship teams. During our chat we spoke about how you must be prepared as a coach, learning the skill of communication and being ruthlessly curious. Andrew spoke about as a coach you must making an effort to make connections by speaking with other coaches as well as being engaged with training and having high energy in your sessions and making them quick and as efficient and it’s all about preparing our players for 3 o’clock on Saturday. His advice to any new coaches or coaches in general is “Don’t let fear hold you back” Andrew is also the founder of Rugby Palooza, a two-day coaching forum to be held in Lennox Head on the New South Wales north coast on the weekend of 29-30 January 2022. There is an amazing line up of quality coaches attending to share their knowledge and talk about rugby. The theme for the weekend is Collaboration is Cool. Some of the coaches that will be in attendance and sharing their knowledge Scott Wisemantel (Wallabies Assistant Coach) Jay Tregonning (Wallaroos Head Coach) Nick Stiles (Melbourne Rebels General Manager) Dan Hooper (Brumbies Skills Coach) Sam Needs (Scrum Strong) and many more. Tickets available through Eventbrite Also follow RugbyPalooza on Instagram and Facebook @rugbypalooza

This is part 1 of a 2 part sepisode In this episode I speak with Merlin Gape O'Donnell. Merlin works in sports development and has previously worked for England Rugby as a Community Rugby Coach. He is currently one of the U15 DPP lead coaches for Harlequins in the UK and is currently in his sixth season for the club. In his former Director of Rugby role at Weybridge Vandals, Merlin established a player pathway to transition young players into senior rugby and created the club’s first U21 side. He has previous coaching roles that include being a lead coach for Surrey Rugby’s developing player programme and Head of Varsity Rugby at an American school based in England. He has also worked as a performance analyst for London Welsh and for Wales Women whilst studying Sports Coaching & Performance at the University of South Wales. In part one we spoke about having a blend between player led and coach led training and what gives your team energy and what takes it away. Adapting training games to suit player ability and also how a lot of coaches are not designing sessions to develop players but to just prepare them for the next game.