Staffordshire Rugby Union 2007 Annual Coaching Conference

Neil Back, former England and British Lions International player is pictured observing and instructing the coaches.

Staffordshire’s policy is to invite high quality expert coaches to deliver practical coaching sessions, using the county under 18 and under 20 players as demonstrators. This gives local coaches from all levels of clubs and teams the opportunity to improve their coaching knowledge and both the young players and coaches benefit from the sessions.Over 50 club coaches from 20 local clubs attended

The topics covered were:

• Pre-match warm-up and active recovery for the modern player
• Defence patterns and techniques
• Developing handling and decision making
• Game sense coaching
• Attacking from depth and set pieces
• Securing the ball in contact situations

Guest coaches were:

• Neil Back Leicester Tigers and former England World Cup winner and British Lion
• Mike Umaga Nuneaton and former Samoan international
• Tosh Askew former England A XV coach
• John Widdowson Nottingham Academy coach and Warwickshire senior XV coach

Staffordshire Rugby Union Coaching Society is committed to running a variety of formal and informal coach education sessions throughout the year with the aim to progressively improve the quality of rugby union coaching in Staffordshire.