KZN welcomes three new coaches
Three of the major players on the KwaZulu-Natal schools rugby front have made significant new coaching appointments ahead of the 2012 rugby season.
At Westville Boys High School Grant Bell, the existing Head of Sport has replaced Mike Vowles as the first team head coach.
Bell, an Old Boy of Westville has been actively involved in age-group coaching at the school. He was in charge of Westville's Under-16 rugby team until the end of the 2011 season. In 2011 he was also head coach of the KwaZulu-Natal Grant Khomo Under-16 team.
Although he has not been a teacher for quite some time now, in addition to his new important and time-consuming role, Bell will still be responsible for the full-time task of running 21 different sports at Westville including their highly successful swimming programme. Good planning and time management, along with the valuable support of his rugby coaching, conditioning and medical staff have enabled him to comfortably handle what might otherwise be considered a bit of a juggling act.
Included in his day-to-day rugby coaching duties are sessions before school, during the sports academy and in the afternoons.
Hilton College has also appointed an Old Boy as head coach.
Brad MacLeod-Henderson played for the Sharks from 1998-2003 before spending time in England and Italy. He recently made a name for himself as a highly-successful club rugby coach where he helped College Rovers capture the 2010 National Club Championships title, amongst other honours.
The experienced Tony Richter who coached Hilton for 10 seasons from 2001 to 2010 and was the KwaZulu-Natal Craven Week head coach for four of these years will continue in his role as Director of Hilton College Rugby and will no doubt provide MacLeod-Henderson, a rookie coach at schools level, with valuable support.
Extracts of a newsletter from Hilton Headmaster Gavin Thomson spelt out the reasons for the external appointment and the path forward for Hilton College sports: "On the sports scene, there has been evidence that our sport in recent times has not delivered the professional approach and necessary level of excellence expected of a school of this stature.
"With the increasing demands of providing a professional approach to coaching sport at schoolboy level, it was agreed to opt for an external first team coach in each of these sports who would be contracted to devote the necessary time and energy to provide a quality coaching experience for the team and influence overall strategy.
"This has been a lengthy debate over the entire year and not a decision taken lightly. There is opportunity to add a professional touch to our sport that will provide our players with a fresh and dedicated approach."
At Maritzburg College, Ryan Strudwick has been appointed as Director of Coaching.
First team head coach Steve Botha will now be freed up to focus his attention on training College's first team.
As part of overseeing all rugby affairs at College, Strudwick will provide input into first-team matters on a consulting basis. His will also share his vast technical knowledge in the area of line-outs.
Strudwick, a Wartburg Old Boy, played for the Sharks during part of his 12-year long professional rugby career which included spells in England and Ireland.
Over the last four years he has coached at club level and worked with different Sharks representative teams. In 2011 he was the head coach responsible for the amazing turnaround in the fortunes of the Sharks Under-19 team and even made use of five schoolboy players during this provincial campaign.
The Maritzburg College website displays this statement of Strudwick's vision for the school with a proud rugby history: "The short-term goal for College Rugby is to put some structures in place to assist both the coaches and the players and contribute as much value as I can. Hopefully with these structures in place the success on the field will improve.
"Then the vision will take on another angle, and that is, making the school a more favourable choice for youngsters seeking a high school. I appreciate the fact that these changes will not bring automatic success on the field and that this will be a process over time; but in the long term, I would like to see College rugby get back into the top echelons of school boy rugby competing against the top schools once again.
"In a nutshell, I would like to get College back to the top rugby school in KwaZulu-Natal and then the long term outlook is to get it back to the top in RSA."
By Beet