Richard Hill Talk Night 30th August 2011

It has taken me some time to write the report of the evening as I found it nigh on impossible to give the impression of how good the atmosphere was. There was good natured banter between the players and the coaching staff all the way through the presentation, much to the constant amusement of the audience. So I have settled for, what comes across as, a fairly bland reiteration of what I thought were the main points. If you want to sample the type of atmosphere we enjoyed then you need to come to the next “Meet The Coaches” evening!

Tuesday 30th August saw the biggest turn out for a WRSC event to date. The club Chairman, Darren Birch introduced the evenings panel which consisted of 4 players, Club Captain Chris Pennell, Errie Claassens, Shaun Perry and James Percival and Head Coach Richard Hill, Phil Davies, forwards coach and Tom Tench, Senior Performance Analyst. Darren then handed over proceedings to Richard.

The first thing that Richard did was to thank us all for the very good turn out and then went on to say that the purpose of the presentation was so that we, the support, could learn something about the boys and what goes on behind the scenes.

The Final and Promotion

The task of finding appropriate accommodation for the team is the role of Alun Carter the team manager. He decided that staying in Penzance would be too busy so he picked a hotel in Redruth. But alas his plans were thwarted as seemed the whole Cornwall was at the same hotel attending a huge wedding complete with all night disco! That setback aside the boys were shown a motivation video before the game which was a selection shots of positives from all the games leading up to the final set to “Where ever you will go” by The Calling. And as they say the rest is history, The Warriors went on to win both legs of the Final and much celebration was had by all. We were shown some shots of the Worcester final and the promotion celebrations.

The New Players

A series of video clips were shown to us of all the new players doing what they do best and what got them noticed by the coaching team.

It was then up to each of the new players present to tell us 3 things about themselves that we wouldn’t know. First up was Errie Claassens, firstly he said that English is his second language the first being Afrikaans. The second thing was that out of the 3 new guys present he was the only one with natural hair, James has been peroxiding his for years and Shaun is have treatment for his thinning hair, this drew some reciprocal banter from Shaun and James and quite a few laughs from the audience.Thirdly, when Errie was in his teens he worked in a restaurant and whilst serving an English couple with tea, he was asked for a pot of boiling water. With the limitation of his English he promptly replied “Would you like that with or without ice”.

Next up was Shaun Perry who stated that he is a keen golfer who plays off scratch and that in his youth he was Midlands ping pong champion and was considered good enough for GB trials but he had to give up with a repetitive strain injury to the wrist. Not, he hastened to add, from spending too much time on his own but too much time playing ping pong! Around the time when his elder brother was on holiday Shaun decided to take his bothers car for a spin even though he was only 15 or so at the time! He didn’t get very far as he managed to drive it into a lamp post!

Lastly it was the turn of James Percival who, it would appear, rather quite enjoys entertaining, as his anecdotes were well presented and very funny. He told us that, believe it or not he was once a choir boy, but also got caught drinking the vicar’s wine! Whilst walking in the centre of Coventry, looking at himself in a shop window after one of his aforementioned hair colourings, a bloke started to speak to James. Thinking that the bloke was probably a rugby fan and that would be why he had approached him, James got a bit of a surprise when the guy introduced himself as a Porn Film director and that he was looking for a change in look for the male stars of his films and was James interested in making some Porno Films? Before he got married this year he went on his stag do and shared a room with Shaun who was best man. On the last night after a great BBQ and when Shaun was asleep, he and a couple of his mates had a great idea of branding each other with skewers on the buttocks and jumping into the lake to cool off the wounds! Well turned out not to be the best plan as one his mates ended up with an infection in the wounds and had to sit on a ring cushion until it healed. James had a similar issue which ended up with his underwear and wedding trousers sticking to the wound. Removing them was very painful.

The Pre-season Training

Richard now started to tell us about how the pre-season training had gone and enlisted the help of the players on the panel to speak about the different aspects of pre-season.

Shaun described the joy of spending 7 hours in a canoe with James on their trip to Wales and how on the golfing day the pro shop went through an inordinate amount of golf balls! He also spoke about how rewarding the community work is and that as a professional rugby player it is good to give something back.

Errie spoke about the Geneva trip, to the a training facility in Nyon, close to the UEFA HQ. Here they got to train in the shadow of Mont Blanc. It was a very good week of training and getting to know each other. Josh Drauniniu was a water skiing expert but didn’t show it when it was his turn as he didn’t last long.

James relished the hardest pre-season that he has done anywhere. The guys wear heart rate monitors mainly to see if Shaun Perry is going to have a heart attack. They also wear GPS tracking device which stops Goodey hiding in the changing rooms. They did loads of power work such as running with sleds to work on their legs.

Chris Pennell talked about skills part of the pre-season. The main focus was to look at the skills differences between premiership and championship rugby. Things such as off loading etc. Phil Larder has been working on tackling and defence with Phil Davies. Bath University have had some input looking at power output. Chris thanked Cecil for providing the new training pitch with is the same quality and dimensions of the stadium pitch.

Phil Davies went through what improvements are needed for 2011/12 season. Both players and coaches have looked at what it needed. From that analysis, systems have been developed to identify what each player needs to work on and their progress recorded. Phil thanked the support and said he hasn’t seen the passion we get here in Wales for a long time. He also paid tribute to Pat Sanderson saying that the support Pat gave Chris and all the young players was fantastic.

Phil pointed out some of the positives from the Championship season which were; a well developed team spirit, improved conditioning which had kept injuries down to a really low level and that a nutritionist had been brought in. All of which led to the Warriors winning 30 of 31 matches and a great season. Phil described the how roles of Kyle Goggin, employed as a sports scientist, along with Karl Denver a rehabilitation Co- ordinator were contributing to the wellbeing of the players.

The players then got to give us their take on the Pre-season games

Melbourne Rebels. - Shaun Perry.

The second half showed how well they had worked that week on defence. Outstanding tries from open play, great game.

Plymouth Albion - Errie Claassens

After the Rebels game it could have been hard to play against a Championship team., and 5 hour trip wasn’t the best preparation. 8 tries in the game. The grass had been cut a couple of hours before the game and the cuttings were still on the pitch.

Argentina – James Percival

Thanked the club for the quality of the pre-season games. With this fixture James was really looking forward for a good scrap! If you don’t count the 7 tackles missed for the 1st try they would have had 98% success rate. The boys do not look forward to being Phil Larders office in the morning. It feels like having one less testical.

Cornish Pirates. - Chris Pennell

The boys were "very happy” about playing them again. Looking at the positives, fairly young team and in the 2nd half did really well. The Academy here is excellent. Having said that, all their tries were avoidable and therefore very disappointing. We out did them on the stats front but we know we can’t play like that against Sale. Everyone was bitterly disappointed with the loss. We have a top group of players and we deserve success, you deserve it and Cecil deserves it.

Q & A

Q. Who is the fastest, slowest, youngest, oldest,

A. Marcel is fastest

Dave was faster than Besty.

Strongest - Depends on exercise. All strong.

Youngest Matt Kvesic at just 19

Oldest – Chris Fortey but with Dave, there are questions over his birth certificate as he remembers picking it up!

Q. Chris was asked if he is worried by Errie.

A. Yes but it is exciting to have Errie’s quality to push him to play at the top his game. All positions have similar contest, which is a very healthy place to be.

Q. Any niggly injures…

A. Not really

Q. Which team would you like beat

A. James - Quins

Shaun - any win any time

Errie – getting a good start any win and win against bath.

Q. Brian Ashton says that players can’t think for themselves and that players should be able to play what they see in front of them.

A. Shaun stated that as far as he was concerned Brian Ashton wasn’t correct and players do try to play what is in front of them and in France they just go out and play, where as in the Premiership it is a bit more structured. The best thing would be to try to get a balance of the two.

Q. What did the Pumas coaching team say in their feedback?

A. We were physical. Great for them, exactly what they wanted and based on that performance we should have a good season.

Q. Will there be a false sense of security with all the players missing due to RWC?

A. No weakness without Aleki and the same for other teams. All the boys want to be playing Premiership rugby and as all the boys have played Championship they do not want to back.

Q. How much time is spent with referees.

A. Regarding things like holding on and rolling away, as refs are assessed each week they change the things that they pull up on so to tick the box they missed the week before. Hilly and Phil get in touch with the ref early on in the week and team is given the heads up on what the refs pick up on. We need to be difficult to score against. From the coach’s point of view, last year started at 14 pens per game which was brought down to 9 – 10 by the end of the season. Refs will come in so players will get used to each ref. Rugby is the best sport in which to work with referees, as all referees have a coach. Every Wednesday they have a conference call with the club coaches, referee and referee coach to discuss the match the previous weekend.

Q. What is the panellist’s prediction for winner of the RWC

A. Phil – Wales

Chris – New Zealand

Shaun – Australia or France

Tom - New Zealand

James - New Zealand

Errie – South Africa

Richard – New Zealand

Q. What the cause of “handbags”?

A. It’s a physical game and it spills over. It used to be worse but with the citing process in place things have got a bit more careful.

Q. Did you get any tickets for the Olympics.

A. No mostly