Coach Stories #1 Chris Rose Elite Academy Coach

Chris Rose is head coach of the Sheffield Eagles High Flyers U17 of 2024/25 in the UK.


He is Director of Rugby at Hill House School & Head Coach of Sheffield Eagles Youth.


His previous roles include being first team Assistant Coach at Sheffield Eagles and Halifax, Academy Coach of Warrington Wolves, Leeds Rhinos and Salford and former English Schools Coach.

Chris Rose is the first of our COACH STORIES on the Rugby League Podcast!

Interviewed by former NRL club and World Cup coach Lee Addison of rugbyleaguecoach.com.au

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-rugby-league-coach-podcast--5572032/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, it's Lee here from Rugby League Coach dot com
dot au and the host of the usual Monday Rugby
League Coach podcast. Welcome to the first of our Rugby
League Coach Stories podcast. This will be a fortnightly thing
until the ashes are over in October and November of

(00:25):
twenty twenty five, and then who knows how long this
podcast will go on for. Maybe it will become weekly,
depending on how many of you nominate, either yourselves or
fellow coaches that you know who are deserving of having
their stories outlined and explored. The idea of this podcast

(00:47):
is to show off if you like the work of
coaches at every level of rugby league male, female, Junior, senior, elite, grassroots.
Already I've interviewed the person you're going to hear from today.
I've already interviewed an A grade coach. I've already interviewed

(01:10):
a under sevens coach. So that gives you some idea
of the range which this Coach Stories podcast will go.
If there's a good coaching story out there, if you're
a good coach or you know one, the story needs
to be told, please get in touch at Rugby League
Coach on social media. Every channel apart from Twitter or

(01:34):
ex as is now known that is our coach on
the net. I'd rather you message me on Instagram or
Facebook though, please. My email is adding at Rugby league
coach dot comver tay you and I checked that regularly too,
so you can message me on there and send me
any coaching details Otherwise, Look, you don't need to hear

(01:56):
any more from me apart from the questions I'm going
to ask our guests. Just make make sure that you
listen to all these coach stories to get a full
range of lessons for you as a coach and also
to appreciate the good work that's going out there. Otherwise,
you can see me on rugbiley coach dot com to
tear you. The person I interview in this first episode

(02:18):
Chris Rose, head coach of the Sheffield Eagles High Flyers
of twenty twenty four and twenty five. So he's on
the staff at Sheffield Eagles, which is a lower division
club in England, very famous old club. As we explore,
Chris is also the director of rugby at Hillhouse School
and head coach of Sheffield Eagles Youth who's got a

(02:39):
very wide ranging group of roles right now. Previous roles
include first team assistant coach at Sheffield and Halifax Academy,
coach of Warrington Wolves, Leeds Rhinos and Salford, and has
also been a former English schooled coach. And this is

(02:59):
a great interview in the sense that he's had some
similar lessons than I that I had in my own
coaching history. He was on the Rugby League or Rugby
Football League's World Class Performance Planners work with some of
the people that I've worked with as well. So he's
a little bit younger than me, only a few years,
and he's had very much a different trajectory though back

(03:20):
and he stayed in England. So ladies and gentlemen, I
introduce you to Chris Rose. I won't be here to
sign it off at the end, so please listen to
the Rugby League Coach Podcast out early Australian time every
Monday morning, and the Ashes Rugby League podcast every fortnight,
and in the other fortnights this Coach Stories podcast. Take care.

(03:43):
Welcome to the first of these Coach Stories. And people
are going to accuse me of getting one of my
fellow countrymen on purpose to start easily, but a gentleman
i've met in recent months Chris Rose.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
How are Yeah, Morning League and Q.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Tell everybody what Chris Rose does.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
So I'm director of rugby at hill House School, which
is an independent school in Doncaster in South Yorkshire.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Which is the rugby union school.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
But then i also coach at Sheffield Eagles in the
Championship where I'm in charge of their youth programs and
have previously been assistant coach to the first team there
as well.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
So yeah, so quite a lot of coaching.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
You've recently had a match with under sevent teams Flying Eagles,
is it?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
So?

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Our programs called High Flyers. As you might be aware,
the clubs who were outside of Super League are not
able to have their own scholarships and academies in the
way that super leagues can super League teams can. So
what we've done is we wanted to set up, or
rather I wanted to set up a program to help

(05:00):
players develop with who coming really in our case from
outside of the traditional rugby league areas. So Sheffield itself
is right on the periphery of rugby league land. A
lot of my players are coming in from Nottinghamshire, from
Northeast Derbyshire, from Lincolnshire, from those areas. So the idea

(05:22):
for me was to develop these players very much like
we used to do on the Rugby League scholarships when
I was at clubs like Warrington and Leed and Salford,
exactly the same sort of model, but with our own
name of High Flyers rather than Scholarship, because it's essentially
a way of doing it without without the official official

(05:46):
sanctioning if you're not sanctioning, but we can't have a scholarship,
so it's our development in that name.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
For those who don't know, Sheffield Eagles played in the
first ever Super League game, didn't they in nineteen ninety six,
again to Paris on Jerman.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yes, did I remember that very clearly that night in Paris,
and it was obviously a shame that the Paris team
only lasted for two years. But yeah, some of the
people who I've worked with that Sheffield ego has played
in that game, Keith Senior and a friend of mine
from my amateur club in Halifax, Johnnylawllace from Siddel played
in that game as well.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Very memorable night.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
They won the Challenge Cup in nineteen ninety eight and
then merged with Huddersfield. Yeah, it was nine.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah, it was obviously the the the greatest shock in
Challenge Cup Final history when the fifty to one outside
bet that won in the two horse race there against
against Wigan and it was a John Keer masterminded performance
in which another good friend of mine, Mark Aston, won
the Lanstop Trophy that day. And it was a real

(06:54):
shame actually when the merger came in, because all that
good work that had led up to that point was
essentially dismantled and Mark was left in the position of having.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
To restart the Eagles club.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
From the bottom of the third tier, which is obviously
what he did.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
What I'm just reading now is that that merger because
I forgot this that the merger didn't even last a
season and the Huddersfield reverted the name back to just
Huddersfield and there had to be a new Sheffield Eagles
formed and they started in the Northern Ford Premiership as
it was called then. That's right, and they've been in

(07:33):
the lower divisions ever since, haven't they.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
So Yeah, particularly cruel that really.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, tell me about this soaring gigle what they call
high flyers. High flyers, Tell me about them. Tell me
you've had a game recently, tell me how that went,
tell me what the challenges you're facing, etc.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Well, as I say, we set the program up because
I was aware that other clubs in the Championship and
League One were having junior development along the lines of
a scholarship but without name, and I realized that at
Sheffield nothing was going on. So I was on the
first team staff there with Marc Aston Keith senior Simon Brown,

(08:18):
and I made this point that we need to be
doing something at Sheffield to re engage with youth, to
re engage with the community clubs, and so in April
twenty twenty four we set this program up and it's
been open access, so it's not elite in the sense
that we haven't cut players or gone out and selected players.

(08:39):
The community club coaches get in touch with me and
I've allowed anyone who wants to come along to do so.
Now we've put it so far to this point, we've
put it in three blocks. So the first block of
that was all about core skill, right back to your grip, carry, catch, pass,
lines of carrier, lines of support, tackle technique, kicking, all

(09:02):
the kind of things that those people who will remember
we used to cover on the regional national camps back
in the back in the two thousands with the RFL
Performance Pathway, which I thought was absolutely superb. We then
did a second block where we started looking at unit
work and how players in different positions work together on
the field. And then we've done the third block now

(09:25):
which we just coming to the end of, which we've
called the game plan series, where I've talked them about
how you set up as a team, how you exit,
how you plan, and the things that you've been working
with me on over the last few weeks. And then
I wanted it to culminate in some development games against
other similar initiatives at other clubs. So we played Swinton

(09:46):
Lyons the other night over in Salford. Really good game.
We've played it as four quarters. I took a squad
of twenty two players over there. We rotated people round.
It was a really useful exercise. It was where we
and we we didn't put a big emphasis on scoreline.
We worked together both our coaches and their coaches, trying

(10:09):
things out and giving players an opportunity to play in
a different number of different roles and just have that game.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Exposure tell me about the game. How much of what
you coached in this significant block of work did you
see unfold on the field that.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
It was really encouraging, because again I go back to
when we began in April twenty twenty four, and I
was having to teach these players in many cases how
to hold a ball, how to pass the ball, because
a lot of them, as I say, have come from
the non traditional areas and a lot of them from
rugby union as well. So a lot of the players
that I've had in my and have in my High

(10:49):
Flyers group have not had a great deal.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Of rugby league.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
For six of my squad it was either their first,
second or third game of rugby league. So it and
what I found within the game was for the first
for the first three of the quarters, it was really
really competitive, and it was there was we were ahead,
they were ahead, there was one trying in we tailed

(11:15):
away in the fourth quarter. And I think the thing
is sometimes when those bits that are unfamiliar are more
unfamiliar to lads who have not played as much rugby league,
like getting your balllock working to floor, having the energy
to get back your ten meters.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Now that might sound.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Ridiculous to people who are involved in rugby league, but
lads who've only ever played union, this this, this part
of the game, this practicality having to get back ten
meters each time is something that certainly in the dying,
in the dying stages of games was very difficult. So
I was really encouraged to see the level of skill
and it looked it looked, it looked.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Like an academy game.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
I was really pleased with that they put into action
the plans we've worked on how to exit doing things
in the right parts of the field. It wasn't perfect,
not by any means, but the transition from training sessions
the game was definitely there.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Any more games with that squad.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, we're playing again in two weeks. We're playing against
Bradford Bulls in two weeks.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
But I think it will be a lot more.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Difficult because Swinton obviously it's elite one side. Bradford has
got an academy and scholarships. They have a championship side,
but they've got they've got the go ahead to provide
those programs.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
So I think it'll be more difficult.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
But the lad's learned a lot the other night and
we'll train again next week. That's one of the challenges
to I've only got these boys for an hour a
week on a Wednesday evening at at Tower Stadium. But
we'll But it's about val Stadium. Well, it's what used
to be Don Valley Stadium. It's the same stand as
Don Valley, but it's now called the Steel City Stadium.

(12:57):
So they put in a new pitch. The pictures the
other to where where Don Valley used to have theirs.
But there's a yeah, it's a it's a basic stadium,
but it's pretty good. You've got the the egles we
play out of their Sheffield United use it. But it
is on the site of the old Don Valley.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Do you still have an athletics track around it or not?

Speaker 2 (13:17):
There's no athletics track around it. No, Which is which? Which?

Speaker 3 (13:21):
It's always difficult when you're watching a Rugby League game
with an athletics track around.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, me and athletics tracks don't very didn't come together
very often and still don't. Where will some of these
lads end up next year?

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Well?

Speaker 3 (13:38):
The thing is obviously with us being a development program
and being outside of the Super League, I've been quite
proud of the fact that a good number of my
players have attracted attention from Super League teams and then actually.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Moved on and progressed within them.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
So I've had players go on to holl And to
Wakefield training and say and that's great because that means
that we're doing a good job our own program, our
our challenge really as well is I have a very
busy day job in.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
An independent school running the rugby.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Union there and we play two hundred fixtures a year
a figure close to that including tournament rugby. So I
then I then literally go there as a as a
volunteer to Sheffield Eagles. My assistant coach, he's a policeman,
he's also a volunteer, and we do it out of
the desire to help these these lads improve and out

(14:31):
of our love for rugby league, I think, whereas in
other clubs you've got you've got some of their full
time staff, some of their paid staff who were doing it.
I went off to Swinton the other night by myself
with our team without.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
With just me, so I was.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Your assistant. Couldn't make it that night.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
My assistant couldn't make it.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
He'd injured himself playing at the weekend, so he didn't come,
so I've gone over there just me and and Swinton
probably had a staff and between between in six and
ten or working together, so I think it. Yeah, it
showed an example prehaps of how their club is viewing
is viewing their initiative and it would be nice to

(15:13):
have that level of wider investment and interest from Sheffield Eagles.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Talk to us about your coaching journey. When did you
start coaching?

Speaker 3 (15:23):
So I began My coaching journey began as a pe
teacher back in I trained in two thousand and two
and I trained in North Wales and on the world,
and then I came back to my hometown of Halifax
in two thousand and three my coaching journey began. I
was thinking about this yesterday with two lads, Tom Powell

(15:43):
and James Atkinson coming up to me when I was
a first year teacher at North Halifax Grammar School and
asking if they could have a rugby league team and
I didn't have a rugby league junior playing background.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
I didn't.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
I'd played rugby union in school because I'd gone to
a grammar school myself, which yeah, not always you positively
in some of the rugby league circles that have been.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
You think it's held you back at all.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
I think there is some of that.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
There is what in rugby union you the pe teacher
into coach path is quite a common one, people like
DLive Woodward of course, who was a teacher. And you've
got some kid, You've got an example like John Kea.
But I think we do still in rugby league struggle
from what i'd call a shows your medal's mentality, meaning

(16:35):
that those with the professional playing career their opportunities are
significantly higher than those without it. Now, don't get me wrong,
you get some outstanding ex players who become very good coachings.
But I would also say some of the worst sessions
I've ever seen delivered have been by some of the
best players I've ever seen. I think that so I think,

(16:58):
And again I came at it as I say, as
a pe teacher and those lads saying to me, can
we have a team, and me going and getting myself educated,
going on the course as the old rugby league club
coach and then the senior coach, and my journey as
a coach paralleled that of the players where I was
learning and teaching them along the way and yeah. From

(17:20):
there I went to do Colderdell Service Area and coach
on the scholarship at Halifax. We then were relegated from
Super League in two thousand and three and haven't been back.
So I then joined Salford. Spent a few years at
Salford working with people like Alan Hunt, Scott Naylor, Ree Spencer.
A great time at that club. Then I went to

(17:44):
then to Leeds Rhinos. The coach called Graham Davey asked
me to go over there and I went over there
to do the under fifteen scholarship and under eighteen academy.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Then to Warrington. I spent three years at Warrington.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
You've had more club and Tiger Woods clubs, but it's over.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
It's over the last twenty twenty two years.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Halifax, Salford lead and then you said Warrington.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
Warrington year I was a two thousand and nine twenty twelve.
Then I went into rugby union, but I've always done
it alongside my teaching career, and then I suppose I've
got my dream opportunity when I went back to Halifax
as an assistant coach to Richard Marshall in twenty fourteen
and that was Yeah, something I was. I was a
Halifax fan. It was something I was very proud of.

(18:32):
And I did in England Schools as well.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
For four years, which was head coach or assistant.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
I was assistant to Chris Chapman.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, mutual friend and.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Francis Cummins mutual friend. Great people, great people and that.
And again I often talk about that experience where I
was here. You'll know Chris Chapman, and he was I
learnt huge amount from him. He was a tough he
was a me a tough apprenticeship for definite to say
the least in those years with England, but an absolutely

(19:07):
meticulous planner, prepper and yeah, knew the game, knew the
game technically. For those who don't know, David Waite was
the significant man who started if you like the world,
Well he didn't actually start the world class performance plan
worked for the Rugby Football League, but he certainly brought
it to the significant level. And then Chris Chapman took

(19:29):
over from him when David Waite went to Catalans, didn't he.
So that's the kind of person we're talking about. What
did you do after England Schools? So in two I
did England schools between two thousand and seven twenty eleven,
so I was coaching Warrington alongside that. Sorry, yeah, so
I was doing Warrington, working with Gary Chambers Chris Rudd

(19:51):
over there. Then I went and then I went and
coached the season with Chester Union thirteen and got a promotion.
Then we won National League three and I often look
back on that as I remember going into that team
and bringing in a lot of the ideas that I
got from rugby league, which you've.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Just saved it. Because my next thing was going to say,
you know, there'll be people listening to this would say
I got to ban you from talking about rugby union,
but you've just saved it by saying that there's some
there's some lessons that Coral Lake. Sorry, sorry to interrupt.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
No, well, I remember my first session and doing a
pretty standard three versus two drill. I remember because I
always would look at how many we did twenty and
they got three right. So it was ball down, wrong
pass selection, terrible skill. And I had a half back
in that team called Lee mcgovernor who played rugby league,

(20:45):
played for Swinton.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
It played played from.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Blackpool, came out Saint Helen's and Liam came over to
me and he went, rose, this is rugby union. They
don't know how to do these things. Yeah, and he
was right. Then I had to go back to again
teaching how you how you go at a defensive line,
how you attract defenders, where you go, how you square up,

(21:11):
and these things that I think that we take for
second nature that we're doing rugby league were just yeah,
they just hadn't hadn't paid the attention to those kind
of things.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
So where did you go after that? Mate?

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Then it was Halifax, So that was so I went
to So yeah, the following year I went to I
went to Halifax's assistant to Richard Marshall does myself Malon
Billy as assistants there, and that was a bit of
a dream come true because I'd always wanted to go back.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
To the division below Super League. At the time, that's.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
Right, Yeah, we're in the championship and it was when
you had the the Middle eight competition at the end
of the year, which which that first season we got
into players players in that team like Scott Morel, Jacob Fairbank,
Stephen Tyra and it was a yeah, it was, it was.
It was a great, great time that with Halifax, and
I learned a lot again. Richard Marshall was superb, video

(22:08):
superb breaking down teams and coming up with real detailed
plans on how to on how to break down the opposition.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
I learned a lot from rich.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
In that respect from Halifax too.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Well.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
When I When I finished at Halifax, then I then
moved on in my teaching career, taking this job in
Doncaster as director of rugby in the independent school that
I'm in now. So I spent a couple of years
building up the program there. And then it was in
twenty twenty one when Marc Aston got in touch with

(22:45):
me and said that he hadn't seen me about in
in rugby league land for a while and would have
liked to be back involved. And then I joined. I
joined the first team staff at Eagles. Then in twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
One you're still there to this day. You've not got
that much head coach experience in rugby league, have you?
Is there any reason for that?

Speaker 3 (23:11):
I think because I've always done the job. Somebody said
to me, and perhaps controversial here, very early on in
my teaching career he said, never rely on rugby league
for your income. And so I've never taken opportunities to

(23:32):
go full time in the sport. Now generally those full time,
those full time positions are the head coaching roles. So
whereas I I, yeah, so whereas I'm always you know,
head coach at at Siddel, I did it on the
on the Yorks regional camps.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
H I haven't.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
I haven't had a head coaching positioning in say academy
or first grade. And again that out of a wariness
really of taking on a job that would to be
going because I saw too many times. I remember a
coach who'd been a Celtic Crusaders telling me about about
Christmas has not being able to buy presents for his
kids because because the.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Club had run out of money.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
And I also remember being away with England in twenty
ten when Wakefield Trinity went near to bust and seeing
the anguish that a coach I was working with who
was the full time under eighteen head coach at Trinity.
In twenty four hours he went from having a job
to not having a job, to having a job to

(24:38):
not having a job. And that really stuck with me
and I thought, well, I.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Will never I say never, but I've always been incredibly
wary of leaving, of leaving the teaching profession to be
full time in rugby league.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Let's talk about you as a coach. Why do you
think you're a coach? What made you startle?

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Many people go into coaching because they had somebody that
they looked up to when they were a junior player
wanted to do the same. Mine is the opposite. When
I was a junior rugby player, I didn't have that.
I look back on the guy who taught me. I
used the term talk very loosely in school at a

(25:29):
grammar school in Halifax in the nineteen nineties, and.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
People considered that.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
It's interesting is because people considered this guy to be
a legend of the school, and he may well have
been as a character. But I learned nothing about rugby
from this person. Nothing, And we were churned out every
week on a Saturday morning and beating every week. And
so my intention was to when I went into education

(25:56):
and into coaching that I would I would be the
opposite of what I had. So I've completely dedicated myself
to to improving players and to being that hopefully that
coach that that is very much bothered is completely bothered
and will do anything for I hope that I do

(26:16):
so again, my my path as well was not as
an ex player, it was as a teacher and and
I so I went through that process of educating myself
in coaching, going through the pathways. And I was really
well supported on that by the RFL's pathway at the
time because I was able to do service Area and
then I was I did National Camp, Regional Camp, National Camp,

(26:40):
and then and then England Schools and so it was
a much as there was a great pathway for players,
there was also a great pathway for coaches, which I
benefited from tremendously.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
That pathway still exist now do you think, no.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
It doesn't.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
It doesn't, and it's I couldn't actually tell you out
what the what the pathway is, but then it was
very clear you had a step by step and I've
often talked about that as being a real example of
how good it can be and how well it was done.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
Tell everybody what one of your training sessions looks like.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
I will always have a huge emphasis on course skill
will always will always be a part of that. So
I would always begin with and I suppose like a
lot of coaches do, I would always begin with some
some unopposed course skill, so passing of various passing different drills,
passing of different widths, so you pass selection, you six
o'clock PASSI or spin pass.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
I'll always visit that early on in a session.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
I'll then introduce some opposition to that, so against scenarios
that you would see in every game, unstructured scenarios three.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
V two v ones, two v ones, four.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
V threes, push through practices will always have an element
of that in there as well, irrespective of what the
overall session content is, such as the centrality of handling
and doing those things in a game. Then I would
move into the specific part that I know that I
need to work on now. Again, So if I'm going

(28:21):
into next week's training session for Sheffield preparing for the
Bradford game, I know that the other night there was
an issue around our width of defenders at A and
our efficiency at stopping their attack between rook and A,
which wasn't good enough. We were broken there too many times.

(28:41):
So then I'd get into my specifics of working on that,
talking about spacings, talking about the role of the markers,
and doing some fix up specific to what went on
the other night. Obviously that would be the defensive.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Side of it.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
We would then visit after that, we will do some
of our offensive shape as well, in which we'll look
back to a couple of occasions where we've done very
well top end and scored tries, but then there were
some bits where we were a little bit we didn't
get our depth right, didn't get our width right. So
again tailoring the bits that we needed to be better

(29:20):
at from the swinton game.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
And I would also look to have some.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
Perhaps ten minutes worth of competitive contact practice as well.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Whether we do what does that kind of session compare
to the first session? How does it compare to the
first session you ever did.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Well, the first session I ever did back into the
first session in my career.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, well, if I was to go back to that back.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
In two thousand and three, and I remember going on
to the we didn't even have a rugby pitch. We'd
train on the side of a football pitch, and it
was North Halifax Grammar School under fourteen boys, and I
remember thinking to myself, what do Halifax do before agame?
And and I'd seen them do some lines of four put
the ball down hands, so it was complete and it wasn't.

(30:06):
It wasn't quite pre internet, but information wasn't as easily
available as it is now. So I remember thinking what
have I seen Halifax do before a game and doing
the best to copy that, and it probably involved some
line lines of lines of passing in fours and got
rolling through probably a set of six and playing some

(30:28):
touch rugby. That was probably what it looked like.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
The coach I've met is very much a planner. You'd
like to plan to the earth degree, very wordy with
your plans. Would you say you're an artist or a scientist?

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Definitely scientist or over artists.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
I think yeah, I do like to be to be
quite methodical, to be quite detailed in my planning. And
that's probably from my from my background, as I say,
with RFL, with with Chris Chapman and Dave Elliot, people
like that, where you know, with Chris, I had to
have every single moment of that training session needed to

(31:15):
be needed to be planned, it needed to be the
I remember him once giving me a real telling off
before we played before we played France, and he wanted
an eighteen minute warm up and might have run to
twenty one minutes, and I remember him I remember him, Yeah,
not being very happy about that. So my apprenticeship, my

(31:36):
early education was hugely about being very very methodical, ultra
planned and making sure that everything that needed to be
covered was covered.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Let's do a weather report from where you are, because
it's absolutely persisting down here in Brisbane.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
Well, it's beautiful here today.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
It's nice sunny morning here in matt Locke in Derbyshire.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, it's quite pleasant out there.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
A little bit of cloud but cracks. It's been a
it's been a very warm summer. It's been very nice.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Biggest coaching influences for me.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Probably I've mentioned Chris Chapman there. I learned a huge
amount from Chris and he gave me the opportunities which
I will always been appreciative of. Francis Cummins. Francis has
been a mentor to me, a friend to me, wonderful,
wonderful coach and I think one of the things again

(32:35):
in rugby league is rugby is very hard game and
you've got to want to play for your coach. And
I think very very much players would with with Francis,
would would definitely want to do that because it's such
a good, good kind person.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Somebody who's looked out for me.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Another one I would mention and this and this one
now now this this coach again has only ever been
an assistant coach.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
But Chris Rudd, Chris Rudd was super Yeah, the Scottish
he was involved with the Scottish Rugby League for a while.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
He made.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
My apologies.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Chris Woods was the ex Warrington center. Yes, come came
out of what was it was Brower henting him, but yeah,
Whitehaven lad and Chris was one of the one of
the smartest coaches I've worked with at breaking at breaking down,
breaking down defenses and particularly good And then you get
you get others as well who who were real specialists

(33:37):
in their in their position.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Keith Senior.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
Some of the I would stand alongside and listen to
him at Sheffield working with the centers in the outside backs,
and he had some phenomenal knowledge there. And Mark Aston too.
You know, Marc Aston has been a big influence on
me over the last four years and he's going through
a difficult time right now, but I'm huge grateful to Mark,

(34:01):
Mark's detail and probably somebody else who worked with him.
Simon Brown again, and I learn a tremendous amount from him, do.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
You have coaching ambitions?

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Yes, I think again, I'd probably come back to the
come back to the point that I said about perhaps
being it. Look, if I if I was a multi millionaire,
I'd love to coach again full time. I would absolutely
love to do that. Mm hm. I, As I said,
I would be reluctant to reluctant possibly to leave the
job that I do in the daytime to go into

(34:38):
full time coaching, but I would I would like to.
I would like to coach. I would like to perhaps
have a head coaching role, maybe in maybe in League one,
maybe maybe in the championship.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
That would be That would be wonderful.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
But I think I would have to be at at
a time where without where everything would need to come together,
perhaps when my my daughter was a bit older and
I didn't have such a demanding job in the daytime,
which is six days a week, seventh day till seven
thirty each day.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
I would have to be in a different position in
order to do that.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
But yeah, yeah, you're an experienced coach yourself now, So
if you were talking to trying to teach somebody how
to coach, one of the three biggest things you'd advise them.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Number one, you can't you can't coach without the knowledge.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
You've got to. You've got to have the knowledge. You
can't you can't. That's that's point one on your journey.
So educate yourself. Make sure that you know you're subject
inside out. I also teach history. If I was going
to go and teach a lesson on Reformation Europe, well
I'm going to know all about Reformation Europe to teach you.
So yeah, before before you go into your into your session,

(35:53):
into your into your block of sessions, know what you're
doing and know how you're going to deliver it. I
think with that those well, one of my other sayings,
which is which is a personal one, is is win
the person, win the player. That's that's a huge one
for me that I've always believed in.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
What that means.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
If you can get if you take an interest in
the person, they will come with you on the field.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
They will do the things you want to do.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
So I always make sure, again in the school setting,
that I am completely up.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
To date with how kids are getting on in school.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
If they've got a test alaskamal, they've got on with it.
How are things going outside, how are getting on for
your community club. How did you do playing for Bentley
or lock Lane at the weekend. Take a genuine interest,
take a genuine interest in those who go because then
when you're asking things from them on the field, they
will give you that. And I think another one is

(36:49):
about being being respectful and being good to all of
those that you come across. I'd particularly unsay every incident
a few weeks ago with a coach at Sheffield Eagles.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
In which.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yeah, I didn't know this person. I'd never I'd never
spoken to them, not somebody I knew who they were,
particularly from the game, and it just so happened that
our sessions were my session was finishing as his was starting,
and and I explained to this person why why I
needed that particular part of the field, and was met
with a particularly unpleasant response of I don't give what

(37:29):
you're doing.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
And I think they were probably flying flamingo, that's right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
And and it probably wouldn't be righting me to name
this person, but somebody who's been who's new to new
to the first team coaching staff at Sheffield Eagles, it's
come from a believer development background. But that was particularly
something that that stuck with me, and I thought, well, no,
above all, you've got to you've got to treat treat

(37:56):
people the way that you'd like to be yourself.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Before we go. Anything that you feel that you might
need some help with in your coaching right now, anything
pressing that I might be able to help with, I.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
Think, yeah, I think when we when we when we
talk next, I think going into the going into the
Bradford game, I'd like to talk talk about a few
a few of the areas that we didn't get right
against Swinton, and particularly that final, that final quarter where
we fell off a lot of tackles.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
We were we were broken.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Through the middle, and I'd probably want to get your
get your insights on some things that we might do
on Wednesday next week to try and think up right.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
So you had less players than the opposition, didn't you?

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah? We did.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
We We ended up I had a twenty two man squad,
but we d We ended up with seventeen healthy bodies.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Were you smaller than the opposition, bigger than the opposition
or a similar size?

Speaker 2 (38:58):
I would say similar size to the position.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
But what I think was what I think the biggest
difference was was rugby League experience, as.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
I said earlier on.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
And yeah, and it being when you've played a lot,
and also that they've benefited too from perhaps the demise
of Sulford where lots of those I noticed that lots
of those Swinton lads you know, had Sulford bags. And
I'm thinking, all right, perhaps their their youths has disappeared.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
I don't know if it has so to be.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
I'm not I'm not sure, but I think the prob
their level of experience as a team was probably significantly
greater than our own.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
I think you've answered some of your own questions. Eh,
final quarter of the game, if you're playing with players
that are in experience, do you remember when you first
drove a car?

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yes, I wasn't very good.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Some would say maybe you're still not. But you would
have had to concentrate really heavily on the road. And
then while you're concentrating on the road, you're thinking, oh,
what pedal was it again? I need to press left,
the middle or right. Then you have to think about
your gears. Then you have to think about your mirrors,

(40:20):
and driving is actually quite tiring experience mentally early in
those days, and then as you get more experienced. You
probably drive on autopilot a lot of the time now,
Like I tend to find driving quite relaxing. Longer drives
are a problem. But right, apply that context, apply that

(40:44):
methodology to players who are playing a game they're not
used to playing at a level they're used to playing.
The mental strain of playing let's say, for argument's sake,
eighty minutes of football. After sixty it will probably tell

(41:04):
because they've had to think and focus a lot more
than their opposition, who were doing things that come naturally
to them. Mm hmm. Secondly, I think you traveled to them,
so there's obviously a travel.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
If you like, we had a two and a half
hour bus journey.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
So there's another few.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
On the night that Oasis were playing Manchester.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Well there's a few. There's a few more percent. They
were at home, so they had probably more of their friends, family,
et cetera in attendance, So there's a few more percent.
But now let's look at the actual match. What was
your completion rate like for the night? I haven't I

(41:57):
haven't got the would you would you have a rough idea?

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, I'd probably say I would probably say about into
the seventies, But certainly not better.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
It's not bad. I tend to coach with many of
the teams that I coach a building pressure style of football. Okay,
completion is high, particularly if they're a smaller side. Completion
is high. I'm moving the opposition around the field and
tiring them out. And if you think about my coaching philosophy,

(42:31):
as I want every play, I want every player to
search for a passive tackle at least on every play.
Even if they're doing a scoop from dummie half at
the start of a kick return set, their job is
to get a passive tackle. So that's on the attacking
side of the ball, high completion, turning the ball over

(42:52):
at the ninety meters plus down the field place as
much as you can, okay. And then in defense, tackle
technique designed to stop the attacking player, not to caress
the tackle player to the tackle player to the ground.
On our terms, it's designed to stop. And then there's

(43:14):
the what I call the effort to, which is the
rough control element of the of the job. And then
there's the floor work, and then there's how my team
retreats in defense. So we do it in such an
efficient way that we're saving energy, and then we just

(43:36):
keep coming hopefully and we have a focus. And so
if you play a game like that where you're always
trying to get incremental wins, can you imagine if you're
on the reverse of that, if you're not trying to
get your incremental wins in the same way, if you've
got slightly different So the reason I asked about the

(43:57):
completion rate is about how much pressure you were putting
under putting Swinton under. Okay, So if you're not turning
the ball over in their half, in their quarter, and
you're turning it over sometimes on your own halfway line,
or you're only or you're forty meter line, you're putting
your team under pressure, which makes it more likely to
concede some points or defender to higher concentration level. So

(44:21):
if you think about defense, if you were defending down
the opposite end of the field, you're jamming in, you're
smashing them. You're high octane, aren't you. You're full of energy.
If you're defending your own goal line, you tend to
be high energy because you don't want to concede a try.
What about that no man's land right in the middleware

(44:43):
where they're potentially just coasting a little bit in defense
if they're not coached accordingly. You know, so you probably
did a lot of defense in your own danger areas
as well, which is a mentally tiring occupation. And that's
why there's always some relief when tries aren't scored, and

(45:06):
it's almost like it almost gets celebrated, like scoring a try. Sometimes.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
I'm definitely gonna be talking to them on Wednesday about
because every time we committed a mistake in the subsequent
set we conceded. Yeah, so whether that be a penalty
or whether that be a knock on, whatever, it might be.
So and too often it was in the middle, so.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
I will be the middle of the field.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Yeah, too often it was it was a I mean, look,
you've got to credit some of what they did. They
they had some some big middles who could offload and
the majority of their line breaks. Their success came from
that not getting the ball lock and then we're in
scramble from that point and again it was this fighting
was the final quarter where it really came in.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
I mean, you can you can fix your team, Pope,
focusing on holding the football, building pressure, no piggybacks. Yeah,
if you reduce those things.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Well, it's funny how certain bits often a bibruble League
Express every week, and each week they have a League
Express game breaker, which is the key moment in a game.
And we were up by we were up by eight points,
I think it was eighteen ten.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Is this the first team Eagles? No? No, this is
this is us the other night against Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
So we've got something like an eighteen ten lead, and
we break the line and my center goes through. We've
got a straight two v one sent a wing versus wing,
and he's got to pass.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
He's got to pass.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Score that it's twenty two to ten, twenty four to
ten with the kick, and I think, and I think
we've got a different outcome. He does the thing that
selfish centers do, which is perhaps I'm being disingenuous to me,
but he said, oh, he thought he thought they wing
a bit, which is what they always say when they
make an excuse. And he didn't make the pass. He

(46:59):
tried to go himself. He slipped and he lost the
ball and they scored off it. So that was your
that was your momentum swing, where potentially a twenty four
to ten lead has been squandered because of that. Now,
you can't put it all down to one thing, but
that for me was the moment at which the game

(47:21):
went and it went to them.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
So it's game smart, you know, and that comes with
not having an experience side. It's game smarts, and they're
probably as much as what you need to teach you
players in the coming weeks rather than the exes and
o's because because in theory, based on what you've just said,

(47:45):
you could just complete every single set. I mean Queensland
in Origin three, their completion rate was ridiculously high. I
don't think we can sit here and say there was
some amazing Queensland attack, but because they completed at such
a high rate and backed it up with really good
defense and the penalty count was low, they squeezed twenty

(48:06):
points out of New South Wales in the first half.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
I was really what.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Shocked me.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
I suppose with New South waleses there was absolutely no
variation to what they did whatsoever. I'm thinking, right, you're
going to get to fifth and it's going to be
it's going to be a mid length, mid high kick.
Here's another one. Here's another one. Yeah, here's another one.
I'm thinking right, Well, now you're behind. Now you're ten behind,

(48:36):
now you're twenty. You need to do something different and.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
I don't believe that. I don't believe.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
I may be wrong, but I didn't see a wide
shift in the first half.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Not mad, not many, but it's funny how things change.
So in Game one, New South Wales played a very
attritional game, held onto the football. They were also aided
by Asti Kline who gave them quite a few penalties.
And guess when New South Wales scored their tries. They

(49:09):
scored the tries in the game one at the back
end of the first half, so they scored two late
tries in the first half. When they scored their third
and only try in the second half in the seventies,
the minutes were in the seventies. So what that says
just from looking at that alone is that they built

(49:30):
pressure throughout the game and the pressure told at the
end of each half. So if you apply that theory
to your team, the pressure was built by Swinton over
that time and it told in that last twenty minutes.
The way the way you would overcome that is to
match that pressure or exceed that pressure. That's how you

(49:52):
overcome it and to take you up, I dare say,
if you take out all the drop balls and the penalties,
you know a far better football side.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
Yeah, I think, and I think we will definitely talk
about that this week, and hopefully will you and I
will go over what I'm going to do on Wednesday
next week. But I think another thing that stood out
for me is a lot of that majority of my
players are.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Playing in.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
Lower division community rugby, so they're coming from these areas
of like I say, of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, Mansfield, delper
matt Locke, areas that have got no no history, tradition
really of any rugby league. So I went to watch
the club North Midlands Night, who play out of a
place called Tupton in Derbyshire, and I went to watch

(50:41):
them play the other week because a good number of
my players from Eagles are in that side, and they
played against Coventry Bears and Coventry turned up with eleven
players and it was a bit of a non event match.
Now you compare that to the lads who were playing
the Swinton lads who are playing in the Northwest Competition
where they're going to places like Warrington and Wigan, so

(51:04):
they've got that exposure to a far more meaningful perhaps
not meaningful, but certainly a more intense level of competition
get each week than mine. But that's that's one of
the reasons why I've done it with Sheffield. We want
to try and and bring these lads in and develop
develop the game in these in these outside areas, because

(51:26):
they also struggle in their community clubs to get teams
from Yorkshire Lancashire to travel to come into Derbyshire and play.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
So they don't want to do it because in the distance.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
So that's another obstacle with with with being a bit
of an outpost club and.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
You can't you can't circum navigate that. You can't hurry
that long. I'll give you I'll give you a big
example the Ashes. This year the RUGGB League Ashes, it
will mark fifty five years and it's great Britain or England.
I have beaten Australia in a in a three match
series or a World Cup to win the final. Okay, yeah,

(52:09):
we all know. There's more people who play the game
in Australia than the UK, so the intensity of the
football in the UK will be a bit lower. The
competition for places is a little bit easier. The standard
of football is a tiny bit lower at the elite
level Australia. It's doggy dog convenient excuses, aren't they?

Speaker 3 (52:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (52:39):
They are.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
But are the excuses or are they reasons that I think.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
I think they'll let me finish, let me finish. No,
I'm not ever goot it. Sorry, sounded a bit wrong
that Queensland have a better origin record than yourself Wales.
There's a bigger population, there's more people play rugby league
in New South Wales. There's more resources human and physical,

(53:10):
there's more money. And I would still argue that the
coaching and the standards of coaching and the competition for
coaching and places and whatnot is for far more significant
in Sydney than it is in Queensland. But Queensland have
won twice as many series as New South Wales in

(53:31):
this century and that's a forty year concept, forty five
year concept, something like that, So it can be done
as well. There's ways in and around that. And I
think if there's a big difference between Queensland and England,
it's that the DNA of Queensland is closely linked. That

(53:52):
DNA in inverted commas is closely linked to the way
they play, whereas England has probably lost that way somewhat.
We've tried to copy Australia quite significantly over the years.
I mean there's all this talk of completion rates and
grinding sets out etc. That came from Australia, way four
or five ten years behind Australia. All the time in England,

(54:14):
what about the English DNA? What about the English Rugby
League DNA? English Rugby League DNA used to be about
moving the football and playing a lot of football and
being fast and free flowing, but we lost that somewhere
along the line. Are you telling me that in fifty
five years we couldn't find seventeen men to better Australia
in a three game series twice? We can't. We couldn't

(54:38):
do that, like we weren't capable of doing that. And
the reason I've gone down this avenue when it comes
to your team is, first of all, it will take
a while for you to to teach your Sir Sheffield
Eagles boys how to play in that environment. And it's
a case of throwing them in the deep end. It's

(54:59):
a case of trial and error and learning. But how
you teach it and how you reference it is important.
So the way you deliver it and say listen, you
need to let understand lads that what you got wrong
this week was you know, if you start going down
with too many x's and o's avenues, they'll take away
from the thought that what they need to do is
focus on holding onto the football and not giving away penalties.

(55:21):
Why did you give away penalties? What was causing the penalties?
What do you understand? What don't you understand? Did you
have a clue? So they're the things you can focus
on there. But then the other thing would be what
does a Sheffield Eagles football team play like? What do
they play like? And what does it mean to play

(55:43):
for Sheffield Eagles and how do you play? So if
you go, if you go and coach at Tottenham Hotspur
or play for Hotspur, there's a certain style of football
associated with that football club. There's a certain style of
football associated with Manchester United historically, and anything away from

(56:04):
that is frowned upon. You know, does England have a
way of playing rugby league? Does does Sheffield have a
way of playing rugby league that suits them? I know
that Bradford Bulls in nineteen ninety seven for example, well
twice the size of everyone, So their DNA was quite
obvious and every recruitment they made was quite obvious. So

(56:30):
you know, if you're coaching this Eagle side for the
next ten years, they're the things that you'll have to
focus on, which is what we do, we stand for,
what's important to us, what problems do we have Because
every team has a problem, right, every team has a problem.
Everybody has an Achilles heel. So if you're if you're
doing the equivalent in Wigan, one of your big problems

(56:51):
to deal with will be complacency and thinking that you're
going to run over everyone and that the only fixture
that's important is the one against Helen's whereas really Wigan
is about standards and staying up there at those standards
all the time and setting standards. That's why Wigan has
been successful for so long.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Yeah, And after the game, Tubby was Marc Aston.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
Was was was was there and I spoke to him
afterwards and he said to me that look when he
talked to me about when Sheffield because that was the
first Sheffield Eagles youth team that has played in fifteen years.
And Mark said to me about he said, look, this
was great tonight. So when we set up Sheffield Eagles Academy,

(57:38):
he said we could compete for ten minutes of each
game against the other sides and then and lost every
game in the first in the first seasons. Then the
objective was can we can we get to a point
where we can compete for twenty minutes?

Speaker 2 (57:56):
Then can we?

Speaker 3 (57:57):
So he that was how he put it across to me,
because that was obviously disappointed.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Not to win.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
Yeah, but with those influencers that we've talked about, I'm
probably I'm probably quite pleased because we are selecting from
that lower tier of player. That's probably I don't want
to be disrespectful, not lower tier, lower level of experience
and lower level of exposure to rugby league.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Yeah, yeah, it was always going to be somewhat difficult,
Chris Rose. This has lasted an hour, so I think
it's going to be great, great, a great podcast for
people to listen to. Well done on your career so far,
well done and everything you're doing. And we'll obviously speak soon,
but I will make sure I keep everybody informed of

(58:41):
how you're progress in the coming weeks.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Appreciate that. Thank you, Lee