NSW aid to Japan

New South Wales has been active in strengthening ties with Japan and the referees have been a part of that initiative.

First a group from New South Wales conducted Australian Rugby Union Level 1 and Level 2 courses. Because there is, inevitably, a law component Jamie McGregor who co-ordinates referee education for New South Wales, was part of the group.

The others running the course were Joe Bakarat, the former St Patrick’s schoolmaster, who is the coach of the Junior Wallabies and Mike Doyle who runs coach education for New South Wales.

The NSWRU educators conducted two Level 1 Foundation Coaching courses, one at Toyota Industries in Nagoya where the Toyota Shokki Rugby Team is based, and one at Tokyo Gakugei University, with around 100 people attending the sessions. A two-day coaching clinic was also conducted for 120 players at Tokai University’s Shonan Campus for the University team, the Seagales. Following the coaching clinics at Tokai University, a three-day Level 2 Coaching Course was then conducted for 55 coaches to raise the expertise in this area of education. A DVD was made of the coaching sessions which will now be made available for distribution to coaches across Japan.

McGregor reports: “All the Japanese coaches were very keen to hear of our experiences with the ELVs also, given that they will be using some of them soon.”

Doyle reported: “The coaching seminars were extremely beneficial to players as they concentrated on advanced technique and changes to the game that will result from the worldwide application of the ELVs starting in August.

“We played a couple of brief opposed sessions and the playing philosophies of the two countries was immediately evident. The Japanese like to play with a lot of width in their attack which is really exciting and with more advanced coaching at all levels of the game could certainly make some big steps forward.”