Jenkins and McBryde pass on skills

Welsh Rugby Union | Wales & Regions Published 3:59 pm 5th Jul 2006 News

After returning from a tour to Argentina with Gareth Jenkins’s Wales squad, Jenkins and McBryde are ideally placed to pass on the skills used at the very top end of the international rugby scale to the youngsters who are on the first rungs of the ladder. The pair already work with players in the four WRU Regional Academies but this move will give the WRU’s 23 development officers and junior age grade coaches working with younger players – aged 12 to 16 – the tools to prepare these youngsters for the high performance game.

Jenkins and McBryde, along with the WRU’s three other full time skills coaches Gruff Rees, Wayne Jones and Danny Wilson and will take sessions on passing, tackling, kicking and defensive techniques, along with the scrum and line-out.

Leighton Morgan, WRU Elite Coach Development Manager said, “Our aim for the day is to highlight to our development officers and junior coaches the areas we would like them to work on with 12 to 16 year olds.

“We hope to collectively achieve a better understanding of the requirements and focus that we need to bring to our early development work with junior association players and by doing so make it easier for them to move on to more advanced work as 17 year olds when they reach the high performance end of the game. We want to share as many ideas as possible and provide material for the development officers to take back to the community game.”