Leeds Rhinos Foundation is working with players from the Leeds Rhinos Academy and amateur coaches from the community to support the ongoing development of community rugby league in Leeds.
Through Leeds Rhinos Foundation's Rugby League Development plan for Leeds sponsored by MEARS, nine academy players have all gained their Level 1 coaching qualification as part of their off the field personal development but with the added advantage that they can now be utilised in supporting Leeds Rhinos Foundation's community delivery.
Working through a two-day RFL accredited course, including both practical and theory assessment, the latest generation of Academy players taking on the award gained the skills and knowledge needed to be able to coach primary school children between the ages of 5 and 11.
Now qualified the academy players will be able to support coaching in the city at community clubs, schools and at holiday camps alongside staff from Leeds Rhinos' official charity giving back to the community game.
To fulfil the practical side of the qualification, the players delivered coaching sessions with local Leeds Rhinos Ambassador club Milford Marlins, who provided their Under-11s and 12s players to take part in the sessions.
On top of the newly qualified Academy players, 19 amateur coaches from community clubs in the city also started their award as part the charity’s Rugby League Development plan for Leeds, sponsored by MEARS.
The course will run on four consecutive weeks at Corpus Christi College and coaches will work towards their Level 1 qualification, which will enable the coaches to work with many of the new under 7s teams now set up in the city.
Rugby League Development Plan manager Leon Crick said:
“By qualifying the Academy players as coaches, it gives us a wider pool of staff we can tap into for schools coaching and holiday camps with those players also now able to work with their old community clubs but also bolstering the number of community coaches in the city working in the grassroots game will help improve the standards of the wider community game.
"We have had great success in the past with this scheme, with several academy coaches becoming casual paid staff. Joe Sanderson is one example of someone who began his playing journey with the academy, before coaching with the foundation and has recently become a full time employee as the North Leeds Rugby League Development Officer, supporting his career while playing at Hunslet Hawks."
Leeds Rhinos Under 19's Assistant Coach Jonny Wainhouse added:
"We are really keen that we support our players to develop their lives outside of Rugby League, qualifying them as coaches gives them options away from playing and we have seen how this has benefited players on several occasions in the past.
"We also value the community clubs that our scholarship and academy players come from and as part of this programme, the players we have qualified as coaches will be going back into their local clubs this season and supporting the coaching of the next generation of players. The Rhinos Foundation do some fantastic work in the community to develop Rugby League and we are really proud to support this work via this project.”
For more information on the Rugby League Development Plan contact Leon.Crick@leedsrhinosfoundation.org