News

Posted: Monday 25th January 2021

Youth department hard at work

The national lockdown has not stopped our Youth Department working as hard as ever, take a closer look at an example week of working from home.

youth header.jpg

Due to COVID-19 guidelines, our Scholarship & Academy players have continued to be tasked with keeping up their fitness at home, over the course of the past 10 months they have gone above and beyond. Examples of this include challenging one another to match an exercise regime laid out by a fellow teammate, countless Zoom sessions such as a kettlebell workout and so much more. Our players have kept up with their hard work away from the club facilities throughout the week.

Starting off the week on Monday evening, our Academy (Under 19’s) players faced a different task led by our Media Executive at the club Tom Maguire, a social media and interview training workshop held over Zoom. In summary, Tom laid out what is expected of the players on their own social media accounts. But perhaps more challenging for the youngsters was the interview training, players were challenged to try and correctly conduct an interview as a professional player.

Analysis has become a vital part of a professional rugby league environment and our players were part of an online video analysis session, picking apart a match or a training session because as a professional player is what they would be expected to do. Analysis is not solely about taking a deeper dive into your own team’s performance, it also allows you to opportunities to observe and discover strengths and weaknesses in your opposition.

In his second of a series of parents and guardians’ workshops for both our Scholarship players families, Tony Fretwell, Barclays FA Women’s Super League Academy Manager, discussed how they can continue to support their child as they develop as a rugby league player with the Tigers.

An impressive gathering of coaching minds was brought together on Sunday evening with a Youth Development Coaching Workshop featuring coaches and talent identification scouts from the club’s entire talent pathway. It allowed all our team across the Youth Department and those attached to it, to gain a further understanding of the type of coaching philosophies that are being utilised at the club. This insightful meeting also gave examples of implementation in scenario-based training and a further expansion of how everything on the Youth Department’s pathway feeds into the club.

Speaking about the hard work that continues at the club, Head of Youth Performance Darren Higgins said: “Our young players continue to work hard away from the club and are being supported and guided by a wide range of staff who are doing an outstanding job. The lads continue to work hard at making physical improvements the best way they can, and there is a lot of education going on with mental skills and the analysis side of things.

“Sunday evening was the first time that we have had coaches from all levels of our pathway on one CPD (coaching professional development) event to unpack and further explain our philosophies and how we want to develop our players’’