The New Role

So as many of you may now know, I am currently in New Zealand. Whilst working with Harlequins I managed to get a position working with Northland Rugby for their 2015 ITM Cup campaign. It is technically another internship, but they did however pay for my flights and also are paying for all my accommodation and bills.

My title is Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach, and this is my role within the ITM structure. I am however also acting as the Head S&C for the Development Squad.

So my week is very busy. I work the daytimes with the ITM Squad, attending all their gym sessions, rugby training, and also analysing and issuing all the GPS and RPE data throughout the week.
Then I also work Monday & Wednesday nights with the Development team, as well as attending their fixtures.

So they are keeping me very busy, but it's really good for me in terms of progression as I am able to get heaps of hands on coaching time, as well as the opportunity to program weights, speed and conditioning for all the development squad.

It's a step up from Harlequins from a responsibility standpoint and that's exactly what I wanted it to be.

Tim, my boss, sat down with me early on and said what his expectations were for me whilst I'm here, but he also took on board my feedback about what I wanted to get from it.

So far it has been awesome. The ITM Squad are all a great bunch of lads, and the development are also in a really good position to challenge this year and develop a lot as players to push on and make the next step either throughout this year, or next year.

The house they've put us up in (my girlfriend Rachael is here with me) is good. It's nothing fancy but it does the job. We are living with some of the other players and their partners so it's nice for Rach to have some female company to get away from all the rugby chat.

It's a very social house too with a lot of the other players dropping from time to time so there's always someone about to have a chat to.

Anyways - that's about it for now. Just wanted to give an update of where I am, what I'm doing, and I'm hoping big time that it will lead to something full time somewhere in the World. If not then I'm lucky enough to have Reach Fitness London to fall back on when I return to the UK in December this year.

Thanks.