Under 16's see out season with awards night

Under 16's see out season with awards night

Although the U16s season has, all too soon come to an end, the work goes on both to aid and monitor the progress of the players as they return to their amateur clubs for the summer. As such the club has hosted a series of special events, as described here by Head Coach Danny Barton.

GUIDANCE GOING FORWARD

Unlike the majority of Super League clubs who are in Tier 1, and whose fixtures consequently continue further into the season, and who will then have the benefit of keeping involved with those players two to three times per week, as a Tier 2 club Salford Red Devils will be having to share responsibility for the majority of their players’ development with their amateur clubs.

 

From here on, training sessions will be limited to one per week, and monitoring players progress will be by means of watching them play for their individual clubs. In order to ensure the maximum efficacy of all this, a briefing meeting was held two weeks ago for all the U16 players and their parents, who were at the outset given access to the various staff who provided 1:1 advice and guidance for the benefit of each player going forward.

 

Following this, the whole group were brought together for two presentations. The first of these was on Nutrition

“It is part of the programme that not only are the players fully aware of the importance to them of nutrition, but also the parents are as well informed,” Danny explains. This was followed by a second presentation on Strength & Conditioning, which will ensure the players are fully aware of how they use their time in the gym. This was important as we get a lot of questions from players asking about what they need to work on.

 

The evening concluded with a question and answer session, in which parents were able to clarify issues which had come to light during the evening and others of which they had been aware over a period time.

 

LOCAL COACHES ADVISED

 

A week later the focus moved to highlight the people who will now be taking responsibility for the players on a session by session basis, namely the coaches of amateur clubs, and teachers who run school teams, within our local area.

 

And who more appropriate to lead this session than Salford’s Director of Rugby, Tim Sheens supported by Justin Carney and George Griffin as he addressed an audience of almost fifty people.

 

“Tim illustrated his presentation with a PowerPoint he had previously used in the NRL, and although he focused on Aspects of Attack, he did start off with some mention of defence,Danny recalls.  

 

We, here, had already spent some time with Tim being appraised on all this, and we have already been putting it into practice, but it was good to hear it again with a few additional suggestions which were very helpful.

 

Tim, himself, was equally pleased with how the evening went, and also with the number of people who had taken it upon themselves to attend.

I stressed to them that rugby is coach-led, and that what they do with players directly affects what those players do, on the field,he recalls. Attending evenings such as that one, and working to obtain their certification, will give them the tools to become better coaches, and the better the coaches at junior levels are, the better the players who come through to us will be.”

 

It was a great night, the questions were intelligent, and everyone seemed to enjoy the night, I know I certainly did.

 

This last statement was fully supported by Danny.

 

“The feedback from everyone outside the club was absolutely great,he enthuses.We are going to follow this up with a number of other sessions.Adrian Morley, for example, is going to be taking a session on On-field Leadership

 

PLAYERS AWARDS EVENING

 

Even though there have been so few games on which to judge all our players, for the first time in their history an U16s Awards Evening was held last Tuesday evening, to recognise those players who have merited such, with their performances both in games, and at training during the brief season, and the close season leading up to it.

 

Radio Manchester personality, Trevor Hunt was Master of Ceremony, and the fact that such a high profile figure was sought to undertake the role, shows the importance in which the club holds its young players.

 

On the night it was the following who were adjudged to have won the respective categories:

Coaches’ Player Of The Year - Josh Whitehall

Players’ Player Of The Year - Tyler Dupree

Best Trainer - Tier 1 - Ben Moseley

                     Tier 2 - Kieran Jones

                     Under 15’s - Harry Saxton-Martin

 

Congratulations to all of the above on their thoroughly deserved successes, and also to the whole squad for their efforts in achieving a 100% winning run, throughout the season.

David Clegg