Coaches’ conference gets 2014 rugby season rolling
Jake White believes rugby conferences like the SharkSmart Programme benefit everybody.
THE newly appointed director of rugby at the Cell C Sharks, Jake White, provided hundreds of school and club coaches from around the province with hives of information at the 2014 Discovery SharkSmart Coaches Conference held at a hot and humid Growthpoint Kings Park on Friday 10 January.
The 2007 World Cup winning coach led the coaches through a number of drills that the Sharks can be expected to use this coming Super Rugby season and explained the intricacies of how they benefit the team by breaking down the various elements of play. As a former school master himself, White has been in similar shoes to those in attendance of the hugely successful 2014 edition of the annual coaching attraction and seamlessly related to his coaching colleagues on numerous levels.
“Conferences like this benefit everybody,” White mentioned. “I used to come to these coaching conferences when Mac (Ian McIntosh) used to run them. Guys used to line up to come and see what the coaches had to say and I know just what it meant to me as a coach back then.”
While having an appeal to coaches far beyond the KZN borders, White hopes the majority of the benefit of the Discovery SharkSmart Coaches Conference, will be seen by locally based coaches and aid in developing a key relationship between the local rugby giant and those responsible for the development of rugby at amateur level.
“For me as a coach I always used to ask, where can I go to get some new knowledge? Where can I go to ask questions and where can I go to get the new trends in the game? I said to Smitty (The Sharks new CEO John Smit) that this is one thing that I want to try and bring to the schools in Natal!
“Any guy from anywhere is welcome to come but the Natal schools need to feel that there is a head office where they can come and ask those sorts of questions,” said a passionate White.
Coaches also received a short address from international referee Stuart Berry, who gave an insightful look at how referees around the globe interpret particularly the scrum laws. His succinct address provided coaches with the opportunity to understand and question various aspects of the scrum, a regularly contentious issue particularly at school level.
Visit www.sharksmart.co.za
Well Done Jake, Although it was a lot to take in and was taught a vast amount in short time frame, we feel that we still would like more of this type of interaction and need more of this training to instill skills into players at a early age. Northwood Crusaders coaches from Jnr Rugby enjoyed this session tremendously and would recommend this to all coaches.
Regards,
Paul Pretorius
Vice Chairman
NorthWood Crusaders Jnr Rugby.