Coach the coaches session hailed a success
In addition to the match day U9s festival, the Falcons Community Foundation held their second match-day coach the coaches course at Sunday’s LV= Cup fixture against Sale.
Designed to give coaches at grassroots clubs access to Falcons coaches and players, the session on Sunday aimed to deliver an valuable insight into the preparation of the Falcons coaching team to a select group of club coaches to senior county coaches.
In what was an exceptionally well received day, director of rugby Dean Richards started proceedings by discussing the club’s style of play, the impact of the new synthetic playing surface and highlight key statistics to illustrate the improvements being made at Kingston Park since last season.
Graham Steadman, Dave Walder, Micky Ward and John Wells then spoke to the group about what they ask of the team in defence, attack, scrums and line outs respectively, with participants given the task of looking out for these key points during the Newcastle Falcons V Sale fixture.
Following the coaches delivery, players Adam Powell and Mark Wilson gave a players perspective of the week leading up to game and how they prepare for a match as well as reiterating some of the key points outlined by the coaches.
After watching the 39-19 win over Sale, the attendees returned to review the success of the game plan and put forward their thoughts on managing the game including a half time team talk.
Falcons Community Foundation Senior Community Development Officer Gavin Beasley, who leads all of the coach development sessions, said “We relish the opportunity provided by Dean and the team to welcome local coaches into the elite set up. We ran this event for the first time last year and it proved hugely popular with fantastic feedback and it seems to have gone down equally as well this year. The opportunity to discuss tactics and gain an insight like this is invaluable for coach development at any level and it really helps that the coaching team here at the club recognise that and work so closely and positively with us on these events”
The club will be delivering a further four coach the coaches events over the remainder of the season, with the following sessions
16th Feb – Whitley Bay Rockcliff – Defence around a ruck – with Ally Hogg, Will Welch and Kane Thompson.
11th March – Kendal RFC – Back line attack – with Dean Richards, Rory Clegg, Andy Tuilagi and Lee Smith
23rd March – Kingston Park – Kicking with Dave Walder.
13th April – Blyth RFC – Starter moves from Scrums & Lineouts – with Alex Tait, Gonzalo Tiesi, Sinoti Sinoti.
