On Friday 16th February, England Rugby’s two Community rugby coaches for Leicestershire & Rutland, Phil Milton and Tim Westwood, took 6 valued volunteers from clubs around the County to Twickenham to watch the senior England team open training session.  After an early 6am start, and an alarmingly easy journey to Twickenham, the group arrived in perfect time to see Eddie Jones lead out the players for an intensive 70 minute session.  Once the session had concluded, the volunteers were lucky enough to have the chance to meet some of the players, getting Photos and autographs, before heading off to the Rugby museum and the England Rugby store.  A “cheeky” Nando’s en-route back to the midlands topped of a great day for representatives of Leicester Forest, Melton Mowbray, Vipers, Aylestone Athletic and Coalville rugby clubs.  Below are some comments we have since received from the group:

Thanks for such a great day out on Friday. I’m not sure I learnt a lot about coaching -except that Eddie Jones is clearly a genius and is operating on a different level to the rest of the world!

It was great to see so many legends in action up close and more than anything it was brilliant to spend some time with other volunteers and compare notes on the highs and lows of community rugby. (Clearly the highs massively outweigh the lows!)

Thanks to you and Phil. It was a lot of fun. Back down to earth this weekend MMRFC under 11’s vs Leicester Vipers! – Will Green (Melton Mowbray RFC)

Thank you for the fantastic opportunity to attend the England Training Open Day. It was really interesting to watch the boys train and meet other representatives from Leicestershire clubs. The stadium and the grounds are excellent and the Rugby Museum had some fun, interactive exhibits.  – Craig Edwards (Aylestone Athletic)

 

Just a short note to say thank you for last Friday. It was a really enjoyable day.  To watch the training session & see the players go through a coaching session that you can relate to the courses you have attended as in Whole Part Whole, breaking down into smaller units to practice skills was nice to see

The museum was nice to walk around & look over years gone by.  The Shop well……… money spent enough said all happy at home.  The main highlight, it was nice to meet up with volunteers from other clubs & have a chat not under pressure of a meeting / conference scenario….again a nice day – Noel Devonport (Leicester Forest RFC)

 

Last Friday was a great day and thank you very much for the invite.

It was great to see that coaching the game of Rugby does not have to be made difficult, just being prepared makes a huge difference. Also it was clear that the training session was short, sharp and intense. There were certainly some pointers picked up by myself and following a short training session on Sunday with Leicester Forest U12s, they had a strong game against Hinckley on the new 365 pitch.  Once again, many thanks, Great Day. – Andrew Gamble (Leicester Forest RFC)

 

I really enjoyed the day thank you.  I thought that the training session was excellent and focussed around doing the basics very well, under pressure and in game situations.  I hadn’t necessarily expected this but thought that it was great to see the Senior England team train in exactly the same sort of way that we are asked and taught to coach our teams.  – Jenny Renton (Coalville RFC)

 

It’s a really great way to show how much we value the volunteers in our clubs around the County.  We both work very hard to grow rugby in all areas of the game, but without the countless hours these volunteers give to their respective clubs, we simply wouldn’t be able to achieve anywhere near as much.  Spending the day with the volunteers, driving them down to Twickenham and sharing this experience with them is a really valuable day for us too and just a small gesture of appreciation for the great jobs they all do for rugby in Leicestershire – Tim & Phil (Community Rugby Coaches for Leicestershire & Rutland)