Academy reaches 1500 hour milestone yet again

The club’s Academy coaches have now delivered 1500 hours of coaching and support for the third successive season.

The Academy are working across many areas for the club.

The Community Programme sees the coaches working with state school pupils at Ealing Fields School. Funded by London Sport, the satellite club project is hoped to both raise awareness and participation in Rugby. We also hope that it can boost membership of the club in the longer term.

The Emerging Player Group (EPG) brings nominated players from the clubs U15/16/17/18 age groups together to improve on their fitness and skill levels.

The Senior Academy is predominantly made up of players from U19-U23. There a number of targeted U18 players who have impressed in the EPG.

Our Medical and S&C coaches have also made a massive contribution to the Squad performances this year.

Academy Director John Lacey said “This is a huge achievement for the Academy coaches, medical staff and managers. It is a source of great pride for us to take a moment to reflect on what we deliver. It is even more impressive when we think that this figure does not include management time or off the field mentoring and input by the coaches.

Our managers Annie Lyndon, Natalie Rose and Paul Flynn are all volunteers and very generously give untold hours to the smooth running of the Academy. Far too often woefully underappreciated. THANK YOU!!!

working with around 100 young players from the 15-23 is a real joy. As is widely documented it can be challenging demographic. However, I’m sure everyone involved with the Academy will agree, the rewards make it so worthwhile”.

The Academy are working hard to further develop the community programme and hope to announce exciting news in the coming weeks. Watch this space for updates.