Page 6 - BRFC NEWS SPRING 2018

06
BRFC News SPRING 2018
BRECON RFC
CLUB WELL REPRESENTED IN NEW MID WALES YOUTH XV.
Recently a Mid District Youth team comprising predominantly players from Buith, Brecon and Gwernyfed has been established. They played their first game on Monday 29th January at the Llandarcy Academy of Sport against a Swansea District Youth side.
There were 5 Brecon RFC players selected for the squad, Josh Pritchard, Rhys Evans, Tom Witcomb, Geraint Workman and Ben Griffin.
The try scorers were Josh Pritchard, Kyle Hopkins, Rhys Evans, Ben Griffin, Thomas Witcomb
The full time score wales Swansea District Youth 24 – Mid District Youth 38. Congratulations to all the Brecon players involved.
Photos kindly supplied by Mark Griffin.
ANDY POWELL
FROM PLAYER TO COACH
Drills or games?
Both have their place as part of training. You need to work hard on both, firstly to develop your skills with various drills, you can then test those skills under pressure in a high intensity controlled game environment.
What changes in the past 10 years
do you believe have benefited coaching the most?
Obviously being full time professional athletes at the elite and semi-pro end of the game has helped, this gives more time for training. Better qualified coaches with knowledge of sports science, nutrition, injury management, man management skills weight training and analysis of self-performance and the opposition have obviously helped too. Even at our level coaches and players are more aware and willing to try new training, fitness techniques that helps us immensely.
There is also a defined pathway for talented youngsters to get to play representative rugby these days. We may be removed from the main centres in Brecon but the opportunities today are better than in the past with many boys being exposed to coaching from the regional coaches at different ages.
What changes to coaching the sport would you like to see in the next 10 years?
Thinking about the game for children it is the poor weather and pitch conditions we face in this area are a major issue. I would really like to see a purpose built indoor training area in Brecon which can be used by all mini and junior teams in wet weather to get inside and spend quality time in the dry and warm focussing on developing skills.
Another option to overcome the weather problem might be to consider making rugby a
Summer sport for mini and juniors. Developing skills has to be the focus for Welsh rugby as we move forward.
I think we need to look at perhaps splitting children in weight / size categories rather than age. This is done in other parts of the world and is successful.
I think we need to be really careful as children grow not to pigeon hole them too early in terms of their position and give them every opportunity to try playing in different positions.
As children grow and develop and in the senior game I would like to see less emphasis on size and getting players to bulk up and put on weight. I don’t think this helps if our goal is developing skilful players.
Reflections on your first experience
as a coach and in particular with your home town club.
I am thoroughly enjoying the experience this season and I couldn’t wish to be coaching better bunch of lads who are all willing to work hard and learn at every training session when we put them under pressure. It is great to see a talented bunch of lads improving every week. I also find it pretty exciting because I know that the boys have the ability to get even better next season.
One of the most significant differences I have seen which is fantastic is they all have greater self-belief. You can see now that the boys don’t panic when they are put under pressure on the pitch they carry on playing, they trust in the plan and each other, go back to basics if they have to and never give up.
There is also a good buzz around the Club at the moment and the support for the boys on match day has been fantastic, thanks to everyone who comes to support and sponsors the games.
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