IRB trainer impressed by Fiji coaches 10 February, 2011

Hugh Galvan between FRU HPU manager Talemo Waqa (L) and FRU development manager Sale Sorovaki (R).

IRB trainer and Canterbury B coach Hugh Galvan yesterday completed delivering to 24 of Fiji’s top rugby coaches the first part of an IRB level 3 coaching course which was run over three days. 

Galvan, who’s also a lecturer in physical education and sport coaching at Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand, has been surprised by the amount of information shared between participants during the course. 

“I’ve been really impressed by the way the coaches have been prepared to share ideas,” Galvan said. 

“Sometimes you go to coaching courses where you try and deliver and people get very protective because they’re coaching another club or a different provincial team and they don’t share ideas, but coaches here have been really great in sharing ideas because they see it is for the common good of Fiji Rugby at all levels.” 

The Cantabrian, who also spends a part of the year working as a New Zealand Rugby Union resource coach, believes it’s a good deal harder for coaches in Fiji to coach at national level as many of the country’s top international players are only around for a brief period of the year. 

“Tier one nations have the advantage of having their players with them the whole year round because they are contracted to them,” Galvan said. 

“The challenge Fiji has, and other small pacific countries, is a lot of their international players are not here so they only get them available for very short periods of time.” 

During the course Galvan has been getting local coaches thinking about processes to be used during game planning. 

“I’ve been taking the coaches through a game planning module which is all about process, so taking them through some steps, assisting them with understanding the processes they can apply to their teams."

In doing this Galvan has got the participants focusing on the Fiji national team as a case study and getting each of the coaches imagining they are the coach of the national team and going through the process of game planning.

Fiji Rugby’s development manager, Sale Sorovaki, believes the course was an excellent way of getting local coaches to think about the processes individual coaches need to put in place. 

“These sorts of courses are vital to anyone who aspires to be a top level rugby coach as it gets coaches thinking about strategy and being aware of the implications and outcomes of the processes they put in place,” Sorovaki said. 

Coaches who attended the course included secondary school coaches, club coaches, provincial coaches and coaches who have coached at national level. 

Galvan is due to make two further trips to Fiji, through the course of 2011, to complete the delivery of the IRB level three coaching course.