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How is coaching talent developed in Australia?

Roar Guru
1st June, 2016
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Michael Cheika and Stephen Moore will not win the grand slam this time around.
Roar Guru
1st June, 2016
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Far be it from me to pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I feel coaching is kept out of the spotlight in our sports media. So let’s see if this article can get a few ideas spit-balling around the place?

The pathways as a player are well mapped out, if we take the flowchart provided on the Melbourne Rebels’ website.

We can see that from grassroots, talented players are put into development programs, eventually into NRC, Super Rugby and finally onto the national team.

(I am not ignoring premier grade club rugby, so please don’t derail the article with comments about Shute Shield’s place in developing players, that is a discussion worthy of its own article.)

But how does an ambitious coach climb the ladder? What development opportunities are provided to ensure that talented coaches show continuous improvement?

A quick google search shows that the ARU provides several courses:
• Smart Rugby
• Coaching Kids Rugby
• Foundation Coach Course – Level 1
• Foundation Coach Course – Level 2
• Emerging Coach Course
• Performance Coach Course – Level 3
• Junior Sevens
• Senior Sevens
• National Coaching Conference
• Workshops/Seminars

The Performance Coach Course (for example) looks like a reasonably comprehensive program, but it comes with a hefty fee of $1795.

Where comparatively, a talented player would have those costs covered (correct me if I’m wrong here) for a similar development course they might be placed in. So this puts a financial road block in the way of developing coaching talent.

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Anecdotally, it seems as though the elite coaching jobs all go to former players. Presumably, they take what they’ve been taught, add in some of their own experiences on the field and repackage that for their charges.

The high profile that is afforded to a former player gives them a significant leg up in getting the elite gigs (such as George Smith popping in to help out at England, despite no coaching background).

What does that mean for coaches that haven’t got that profile, but show a natural aptitude? How do we pluck them from obscurity and develop them?

Right now I assume the most common pathway would go something like this: lower division club rugby, first division club rugby, NRC, Super rugby and then Wallabies.

But it’s probably more like this: former player, club rugby, northern hemisphere pro rugby and then Super Rugby.

For the sake of brevity, I won’t explore this too much, so let’s assume that’s the pathway, and it works, and everyone is happy with former players taking the majority of the coaching jobs. (After all, they are exposed to high-performance programs over the course of their careers, and this is a free education of sorts.)

Once they are in that job, though, how do we show continuous professional development? Pundits love to talk about how valuable the exposure to a Wallabies (or All Blacks, Springboks et al.) camp is for the players’ development.

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For example, not many would expect Reece Hodge to get capped for this June series, but are glad he is being exposed to the Wallabies’ systems, as it will develop him further as a player.

What are we doing for our coaches? Can they start getting involved in Michael Cheika’s morning-after catch-ups after local derbies? Can they spend a week in camp observing how Mario Ledesma gets our guys to improve their scrummaging technique?

What are the Kiwis doing? What does the NFL and other elite sports do to help their promising coaches?

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