Around 60 senior academy players from Cardiff Rugby, Dragons RFC, Ospreys, RGC and Scarlets attended the second of a series of this season’s WRU skills sessions at the National Centre of Excellence on Monday evening.
“It’s an opportunity to get all the players attached to the regions and RCG all together,” said Wales U20 head coach Richard Whiffin who created the concept for the sessions, fully supported by the clubs, which are now in their third season.
“We’re looking at improving players, aligning players to our game model, but ultimately have them competing against each other. The more times we get best v best, the more we’re going to get players come out the top end.”
The players, ranging from U19 to U22, were put through their paces during a four-hour session looking at core skills and technical detail. Players started with some gym work then there were kicking and throwing workshops before rotations around various skills stations focusing on areas including scrummaging, ball carrying, offloading, tackle technique and attacking shape.
Whiffin plus WRU pathway coaches Marc Breeze, Neil Jenkins, Richie Pugh and Josh Turnbull were joined by club academy coaches, including Leigh Halfpenny, Tom Hancock, James Hook, Scott Sneddon and Gareth Williams, as well as men’s national squad coach Dan Lydiate to deliver the activity.
“I think we had 15 coaches [here in total] from within the senior set up, the regions and obviously the national 20s with all eyes on players,” said Whiffin.
“We had a kicking session early with Neil Jenkins, James Hook, Leigh Halfpenny and Scott Sneddon taking all 30 of the backs and going through their different positional skill sets.
“Marc Breeze was with the hookers and then we had all 60 players together looking at different parts of the game that we want them to be able to take the transfer from our training session tonight back to their clubs, back to their regions, back to their Super Rygbi Cymru games and develop for international honours later in the year.”
Whiffin explains there are more such sessions planned over the coming weeks, “So every two weeks we’ve got a touch point with the players. This September block is open to all academy players.
“As we get into October it will be a little bit more selected around our 20s group and then as we move into November, December again into more matches. But every two weeks we’ll have a touch point with the academies around these skills evenings.”
The importance of these sessions is clear, “This September to December block is all around connecting with the players, improving the players, but giving them an opportunity to put their hand up for Test matches post-Christmas,” added Whiffin.
“We obviously have the Six Nations and Junior World Cup [next year], and they are two big targets that we go after. But aligned with that, we have four under-19 Test matches against good opposition, France, England, Ireland, Scotland. So we almost get a Six Nations for those under-19s players as well. The key thing is getting players in the red jersey.”