Meet the Coaches

WRSC MEET THE COACHES EVENING Tuesday 7 September saw over 200 supporters in the Pitchview Restaurant eagerly awaiting the first WRSC event of the new season - a chance to hear from and ask questions of Richard Hill, new arrivals Bruce Douglas, Andy Goode and Tom Arscott, and old hands Kai Horstmann and Graham Kitchener.

The first part of the evening was a presentation from Richard and the players, put together by analyst, Mike Hall, setting out how the club is structured behind the scenes and how the coaches and team intend to approach the season.

RH set the tone for the evening by explaining that he would always try to be honest with the supporters. His coaching philosophy, developed over 16 years, was to put in place a High Performance Structure: 24 key themes, including strength and conditioning regimes, clear coaching and playing philosophies, analysis and feedback, and team building. It will not come as a surprise that he found a few of these things missing when he arrived and quickly set about fixing that.

He also set out values and behaviours for the players, focussing on 5 initial demands: -

1. To earn respect - everyone started from zero, which meant that Pat Sanderson and Jake Abbott started from the same point in terms of earning the jersey, a huge incentive to the younger players;
2. To respect others;
3. To be humble and polite;
4. To be able to "turn on your switch" - he wanted players to be pleasant and sociable to people off the pitch but "horrible to opponents on it"!
5. To have an outstanding work ethic.

RH then provided an analysis of the KPIs for last season: our scrum was our best area, 6th in the Premiership. It should shock no-one that we had a number of areas where we were 12th, including line-outs won, defenders beaten, and metres gained. This season there are targets in 8 areas. Encouragingly, we have exceeded or been close to all the targets in both the first two games.

Kitch explained the new approach to nutrition in the club, with the appointment of a nutritionist, Professor Adam Carey, who has experience with Chelsea, and the England football and cricket teams. A dedicated team chef has also been appointed and everyone's fat levels have gone down, although this could be due to a system of punishments for being too fat!

RH next turned to the Academy and the dual registration agreement with Stourbridge. Tony Windo and Thinus Delport coaching at Stourbridge is designed to help Stourbridge and give our youngsters more game time and consistent coaching. The aim is to get Stourbridge into the Championship so RH has already told Reg to get his finger out after their opening day loss!

Andy Goode then explained the three playing strategies the team will use. I will not go into detail for obvious reasons but which strategy is employed will depend on factors such as the weather, the score, the pitch and the opposition. We will return to the strategies later.

Tom Arscott set out the Skills Programme developed for players. Position specific criteria and programmes are given to each player and they are regularly marked on a scale of 1(bad)-4(very good) by the Skills Coaches: Andrew Stanley, Gary Meechan, and Tony Windo.

Another key element of the High Performance Structure is working with non rugby partners and Kai set out how the team is helping Acorns, including 3 players going to the hospice every Friday to take part in activities with the children there.

RH rounded off the presentation by taking us through pre-season, when we found out that swimming is probably Marcel Garvey's least favourite sport!

After a break for refreshments there was a question and answer session. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the questions were directed at the boss.

Asked why he thought both the Bees and Plymouth games were 4/10 performances RH admitted to being a bit naughty, as the Bees game deserved more. The Plymouth win was important, however, as it was the first away league win since 2008 and we were losing 16-12 with 20 minutes left.

RH acknowledged that in the Bees game there was a very good 10 minutes at the start of the second half after which the intensity tailed off. He wants the team to develop a killer instinct to really finish teams off. He was confident that it would come, with time and winning consistently.

Similarly, errors would reduce the more the team practised and played under pressure, but it was likely that there would be a greater number of errors whilst the team got used to playing more with the ball. As an example, Marcel might have got the ball 2-3 times in a game last season and made 1 error. Against Plymouth he made 4-5 errors but handled the ball 22 times.

RH also explained his rotation policy, where he aimed to give the same 15 2-3 starts, then bring the bench into the starting 15, give some players a rest, and bring rested players onto the bench. He also was able to rest injured players properly, given the strength of the squad. He was aiming to do well in the B&I Cup but aim to give Academy players game time, such as Matt Kvesic, Andy Short, Ollie Frost, and Sean McCarthy.

Members of the panel were asked their opinion of some of the youngsters. Andy described Joe Carlisle as fantastically gifted and Kai felt Matt Kvesic could play for England in time. Both were eager to learn and improve. Bruce said that Oliver Tomaszczyk also had huge potential.

RH was asked what the impact of Chris Pennell’s injury had been. He said it was a big blow, especially for Chris Chris had impressed him a lot with his attitude and having come through the club he would do anything to make Worcester successful.

Asked if he felt any pressure pulling on the 15 jersey, in view of last season’s wearer, Tom confidently replied, "No". -� Whilst acknowledging Chris Latham's ability he said that he was determined to put his own mark on the jersey.

The related subjects of the breakdown, penalties and the penalty count at Plymouth were raised by several audience members. RH said that if the same player was committing the same offence each week he would not play. That said, he did not necessarily see all the penalties at Plymouth the same way as the referee. Kai and Kitch both commented on the number of changes to the laws at the breakdown, and their interpretation. Kitch wanted the area left alone for a while, so they could get used to what was expected, whilst Kai hoped for greater consistency from referees from week to week: then it would be up to the players.

Andy and Kitch were both asked about their summers. Andy's was" fantastic" and Kitch's "awesome": he had learnt a lot from some great players and coaches with the Saxons.

Andy felt that it was a privilege playing for the Sharks. He had also had a great two years in Brive but wanted to come back to England and he and his family were enjoying living in the area. Bruce had really enjoyed the French experience too but was also glad to be back in the UK.

Both Andy and Bruce said that there was never any doubt about them coming to Worcester and they were settling in well. Bruce was convinced of the potential in the side and at the club and Andy wanted to be part of the first Worcester team to play in the Heineken Cup.

Kitch was asked about the rumours of him going elsewhere - he said that he had found out about that reading it in the paper, the same as us! He said the club had taken very good care of him since he was 14/15 and people had told him that at his age a season in the Championship could be better for him than one in the Prem.

Asked who would be our closest competitors Tom drew on his experience of last season. He felt that Bedford and London Welsh were strong and that Bristol would also recover from their shaky start. That said we needed to concentrate on ourselves and get our own game right. He also hoped to be able to play against his brother next season, but not in the Championship!

The final question of the night suggested we might get some new songs, in view of the strategies to be employed this year. Keep a look out in the match day programme for the words to "Land of Hope and Glory"�, "Le Marseillaise"� and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina"!!