The West Coast Development Squad has had a busy start to their 2024 campaign, with back to back trips across the Southern Alps to Canterbury to face staunch competition.<\/p>\n
Early defeats to North Canterbury and Canterbury Waitaha, showed the need for adjustments, but Coach Mike Waller feels they\u2019re just scraping the surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good core group of keen lads from all the West Coast clubs who haven\u2019t had this exposure before, and we feel we\u2019re starting to turn a corner. We\u2019ve narrowed the score margin each game, scoring more and conceding less so I\u2019m really happy with how they are progressing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great stepping stone to senior rugby\u201d Waller says.<\/p>\n
The Union is working to set up a development programme set to launch officially next year.<\/p>\n
WCRU Spokesman, Mike Lash, feels that this is a vital step in the growth of the game on the coast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe board has a strong focus on the future of the game here on the coast and one aspect of that is providing our up-and-coming players with these opportunities. It helps to provide not just skill based growth, but personal growth as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Players, Coaches and Referees all have the potential for higher honours, and we want to unlock that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lash says the aim of the development programme is to help bridge the gap between Age Grade Rugby and Club Rugby and then onto the Heartland Championship, by create a pathway for our players.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey take the skills learnt back to clubland and pass them on to their team mates and club rugby grows too. It\u2019s a win-win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next season will see a full season programme with skills-based coaching, fitness and nutrition education and support, as well as tapping into the resources available from our neighbouring provinces.<\/p>\n
The development team has two more fixtures remaining this season, with games against Ellesmere and Selwyn District representative teams, both played in Canterbury.<\/p>\n
Story & Photo – Adam Gilshnan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The West Coast Development Squad has had a busy start to their 2024 campaign, with back to back trips across the Southern Alps to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7716"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7722,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7716\/revisions\/7722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/wsct\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}