Academy Staffing Changes

Senior Academy Coach Mike Hill has departed to take up a position with Wales Women, but we are excited to welcome back Mark Lilley and Ryan Davis as Lead Academy Coach and Academy Performance Coach, respectively. In their roles, they will be working with our Senior Academy players as well as the University of Bath where they will work alongside Head of Rugby Aaron James, coaching the performance squad who will take part in BUCS Super Rugby. We have 15 players in our Senior Academy who are eligible to play BUCS rugby in the 2022/23 season and it will be a great opportunity for them to have more one-on-one time with coaches who have a vast amount of experience.

Elsewhere, Chris Bakker has been promoted to Academy Athletic Performance Manager while last season’s intern, Jonny Glendening has earned a full-time position as Academy Athletic Performance Coach. George Gauntlett has also been promoted and is now our Lead Academy Physiotherapist having previously been involved with the Junior Academy.

In the Junior Academy, Matt Lishman is our Junior Academy Phase Lead and will look after the DPP and age groups Under-16s and below. He will also carry on with his coaching development role within the region. Sam Nash comes in as an Academy Pathway Physiotherapist and will work with the Under-18s while Josh Richardson will work part time as our Academy Athletic Development Coach, focusing on age groups Under-16s and below.

We have assembled a really strong group of staff who have worked extremely hard in the early stages of pre-season. They have made a massive difference in terms of where the Academy programme is going and the acceleration of player development throughout the pathway.

Pathway Update

The Senior Academy came back in at the beginning of July. The newly contracted players are living at Farleigh House, have fully integrated with the Senior Squad and have all settled in nicely.

Our England Under-20s players (Tom Carr-Smith, Ewan Richards, John Stewart, Ethan Staddon and Sam Harris) will return on 15 August. We are really excited to get those boys back in and their return coincides with when the University pre-season starts at which point, some boys will switch from senior training to training at the University of Bath with Mark and Ryan.

We have a really good group of scholars who have come in and will go to University this year. We will announce them once they have received their grades in August.

The Junior Academy have also been in for a number of weeks and had a friendly with Cardiff Rugby which was an extremely positive experience for the group. Our Under-18s had a three-day residential at Farleigh House where they had workshops, team building and camped out together which was a great shared experience to bring them closer together ahead of the new season.

Two squads – Under-17s and Under-18s – will head to Malvern College for an Academy Festival and then at the end of the month, the Academy League will start with two games against Bristol Bears and then Saracens.

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