Barnard Castle Residential Camp Goes Down A Storm
Another successful year for Newcastle Falcons Residential Camp at Barnard Castle School came to a close last week after a fun-filled five days of high intensity rugby training.
Over the course of the camp, run in conjunction with Yorkshire Carnegie, participants benefited from coaching by Falcons Community Foundation coaches as well as Yorkshire Carnegie Foundation coaches to improve all aspects of their rugby performances.
Monday afternoon was a crash course in the format of the week upcoming, with fitness tests and explanation by the coaches of expectations for the week ahead.
An unbelievable treat was scheduled in for Monday night when the boys had the chance to see the Rugby World Cup close up as part of the Trophy Tour in Barnard Castle, everyone got their photo taken and several people secured their trophy selfie!
Tuesday saw the arrival of Newcastle Falcons academy coaches James Ponton and Aiden McNulty to put the boys through their paces. With skills and fitness stations, the participants rotated between the Falcons Academy coaching staff and Jonathan Pendelbury of the Yorkshire Carnegie Foundation. After this session, the boys had a chance to put their questions to the Academy coaches, learning more about access routes to professional rugby, expectations and how to achieve their personal goals.
Wednesday was a jam-packed day of defensive and contact drills throughout the morning. The afternoon session was dominated by the arrival of some of the Newcastle Falcons playing squad. Dan Temm, Tom Penny, Chris Harris, Craig Willis, Will Witty, Sean Robinson, Scott Wilson,Tom Catterick, David Nelson and Simon Hammersley were all on hand to guide the participants through their afternoon of position specific coaching. After coaching the boys had another chance to grill the professionals about the reality of professional rugby life, training, diet, lifestyle and how they got to be where they are.
Thursday was another intense day of rugby with a morning of contact drills in age groups, and an afternoon of slightly more light-hearted obstacle courses and games for rest and recovery. Camp closed out with games on Friday morning. Some fantastic skills were on show and the boys demonstrated fantastic progression from day one of camp.
Friday also saw the awarding of our “Star of the Camp” and “Spirit of Rugby” awards. Given for outstanding performance and fantastic attitude throughout camp respectively.
This year Newcastle Falcons awarded Giorgio Spaventa with the Star award and Farai Chikumbirike with the Spirit award, for being such a character all week!
The residential camp was a resounding success and is sure to be back next year, watch this space on the [rugby camps website][1] for announcements of new dates.
The Falcons Community Foundation also has a jam-packed non-residential summer camp schedule for the remaining weeks of the holiday with our Forwards specific, Backs specific and Kicking Camps taking place next week as well as our Pre-season Camp the week after. Please visit the [rugby camps website][2] for dates and prices.
[1]: http://www.rugbycamps.co.uk/newcastle-falcons
[2]: http://www.rugbycamps.co.uk/newcastle-falcons
