Rugby spirit is alive at St Peters

Earlier this term, resident Sports photographer, Anthony Cox, asked Rugby Coordinator, Russell Todd, about his vision and goals ahead of the AIC season.

ANTHONY COX | Digital Marketing and Design Officer

Q) Being new to the College last year, what were some things you set out to achieve in the Rugby Season, this year and beyond?

In Rugby, we are looking to establish clear focus and development areas for our students. We have started by aligning the program into three clear focus areas; Primary (Years 5-6), Junior (Years 7-9) and Senior (Years 10-12) where the focus is on participation, performance, and development, respectively. Future work in this space will be the development of a skills curriculum so that we can ensure our players are able to achieve certain milestones on a time line. This will also help to give our Coaches some direction around their sessions.

Beyond this, we hope that we can get back to touring in the coming years so to really bolster our students' St Peters Rugby experience.

Q) What are your goals for the 2022 Season?

First and foremost, I want the young men playing to enjoy their experience. Regardless of results, I want them to enjoy learning about the game, developing as players, and creating friendships and memories with their school mates. I would love the growth of Rugby in the school to continue and seeing Mayer Oval packed with Rugby shirts at the start of 2023!

Q) Can you tell us what the boys have been doing in the lead up to this year’s season?

We have been fortunate that the school have supported our pursuit of beginning to develop a Rugby 7s program. So, the first half of Term 4, 2021, revolved around advancing that, culminating in the State Rugby 7s Championships, where we just missed out on winning the Grand Final in both the U13 & U18 divisions.

Following Rugby 7s, our Opens group began their pre-season preparation where we spent time focusing on core skill development and games-based learning opportunities. This fun training block spends a lot of time playing variants of different games to develop players fundamental skills and decision making.

In Term 1 this year, our Opens players came straight back into pre-season training and competed in the Brisbane Junior Rugby Union (BJRU) Lightning Series Club Competition. Participating in this competition was a first for the College and was very important for the Opens to build relationships, experience and become battlehardened ahead of the AIC season.

Q) What have been some of the highlights during pre-season?

For the Opens it was getting to represent the College in the BJRU Club Competition for the first time. The players represented the College exceptionally well and the results followed, finishing third place overall.

For the wider program, we were lucky to welcome Queensland Reds, Jock Campbell and Lawson Creighton, to a training session, which was an engaging experience for our Juniors. Additionally, we have close to 40 more students playing Rugby this year, so we’re starting to build positive interest and engagement in the game.

It’s great to see teams supporting each other on. On Round 5 game day at ‘home’, we assigned the Senior players to one of the younger age groups to help them warm up and run them on to the field at the start of the game. We hope that this experience helps our younger men see what being in the 1st XV team is like and gets them aspiring to one day be in their shoes and pay it back to the next generation coming through.

Q) How does the program vary for different age groups?

2022 is the first year we have approached the program with clearly defined focus areas. Within our Primary program focus of participation, the Coaches make use of a gamesbased learning approach to help engage the students in a fun environment, get them hooked, but also to start their Rugby education.

The Junior program focus is on development, so more attention is paid to core skill and athletic development, but importantly maintaining a games-based approach to help develop decision makers.

Finally, the Senior program focus of performance is where we start to look at the game in more tactical depth, help give the players more awareness of getting the most out of their bodies as well as maintaining the core skill development and games-based learning approach.

It’s still got to be fun whatever the level!

Q) What does a typical Rugby week look like from a student’s perspective?

To be a 1st XV player there is a fair amount of sacrifice, time management and self-drive required. A typical in-season training week consists of some sort of training or preparation up to six days a week. Sessions are a combination of gym and video game review, high contact field training, and lower energy field training where we work through our tactical adjustments for the weekend’s fixture.

Q) Can you tell me a bit about the Coaching staff?

When it comes to appointing Coaches, there are three criteria that I look for: 1. they are passionate Rugby people; 2. they are driven to want to be better Coaches; and, 3. they understand, or can be sympathetic to, the St Peters Rugby journey, being a smaller program.

Fortunately, all of our Coaches in 2022 tick these boxes. We actually have 11 of our 14 Coaches who are Old Scholars (ranging from 2009-2021 graduates) who are having a massive positive impact on the Rugby men of St Peters.

The Senior Coaching group meet regularly to discuss what’s going well for them, what challenges they have, and discuss video analysis and selections. With the Junior Coaches, we ran formal in-house Coach Education, but we have a Coach Mentor (Mike Rickerby) who works with that group on an on-going basis.

Q) Are there any students looking for representative opportunities in Rugby at the present?

We currently have three students with the Queensland Reds Junior Academy—Kadin Pritchard, Moe Koroi and Vice Latu. Barney Radel and Kuwanon Dickman were also invited to attend Academy Sessions as guests. In the Opens age group, we have had five students—Liam Macdonald, Jimmy Roberts, Ethan Pass, Moe Koroi and Barney Radel— selected for the Met West 17-18 Years team.

With the Junior Met West and Queensland age grade teams not being selected until Term 3, I expect to see a number of our Junior players rewarded with representative honours too.

Q) In closing, what would be your advice for students wishing to join the program in future years?

Rugby is a unique sport—truly a game for all sizes—where everyone has a role and can feel valued. Whilst it can be a tough game and can be daunting to consider giving it a go, I assure you that the personal growth you will have over the coming years will far outweigh the initial nerves. You will be able to challenge yourself, learn to be resilient, enjoy continually learning about the game, and create friendships and memories that will last you a lifetime. So come and give it a go!

Thanks for spending time with us and we look forward to hearing how the season progresses. Best of Luck!