Brad Cooper currently serves as the assistant coach for the Taranaki Bulls, who secured victory in the NPC in 2023. Additionally, he has recently been appointed as the coach for the New Zealand U20 Men's rugby team and is also the Coach Development Manager at Taranaki Rugby. Coops has come through the coaching ranks, gaining experience coaching club, representative, and secondary school teams. I have got to know Coops well over the past few years with the work I have done with Taranaki Rugby. He...
Mar 04, 2024•35 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Meet Mike Hester, the Participation Development Manager at New Zealand Rugby, tasked with the pivotal role of evolving the game to sustain interest and involvement in rugby. Balancing the weight of tradition with the evolving needs of today's youth and society, Mike faces the challenge head-on, charting a course for the sport's future. In our yarn, Mike peels back the layers, revealing the reasoning behind some of New Zealand Rugby's decisions around game modifications. As coaches and administra...
Dec 05, 2023•46 min•Season 2Ep. 20
This yarn with Sean Graham is a great listen for leaders in the youth sports arena seeking innovative strategies to captivate and involve young athletes in the world of sports. Sean is Director of Rugby at St Joseph’s Nudgee College in Queensland, Australia. Picture this: 800 boys, 40 teams, and 100 coaches—talk about a big scale rugby operation! Sean oversees the programme, breathing fun, connection and development for everyone. Sean’s has also masterminded the Youth Rugby Coaches Forum, an ann...
Nov 29, 2023•39 min•Season 2Ep. 19
Ray Everest served as the Weightlifting coach for New Zealand at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, transitioning into the sport after falling into it while living in Doha. A former school teacher turned principal at the age of 26, Ray and his wife Courtney, established the Future Focus Early Childhood Centre, which has now expanded to 5 Centres, employing approximately 80 staff in the Papamoa region. Connecting with Ray is always a pleasure due to his remarkable growth mindset. As a deep thinker, avi...
Nov 19, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Kane Jury serves as the Talent Development Manager at the Highlanders Super Rugby franchise, where he is responsible for overseeing talent identification, recruitment, and the development of the academy program. Additionally, he recently completed his second year as the head coach of the NZ Secondary Schools Boys rugby team. Prior to this, he coached various teams, including the Fiji Men’s 7s, Black Ferns Development 7s, and Otago Spirit, among others. Kane also gained experience in club rugby a...
Nov 13, 2023•48 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Pablo is the Mental Skills and Skills Coach for the Yacare XV who play in the Super Rugby Americas League. He also coaches the Paraguay Women's 7's team on their quest to make the HSBC World Series. We have connected over the past few years, after first meeting in New Zealand. He has an exceptional thirst for knowledge and amazing growth mindset. He puts his 'heart on the plate' in a truly authentic manner to connect with people around him. I particularly loved his take on 'brain friendly sessio...
May 15, 2023•44 min
Russell (Rusty) Earnshaw is a world leader in the coaching / coach development space. He is a former professional rugby player, representing many clubs and teams including Bath and England 7's. He later went on to coach the England 7's, England U18's and U20's rugby teams. He is the co-founder of The Magic Academy (www.themagicacademy.co.uk) and currently consults for a number of teams and sporting organisations. He is deeply passionate about coaching, people and sport and is doing hit bit to mo...
May 14, 2023•50 min
Michael Magriplis (affectionally known as Grips) is Head of Community Coaching at Rugby Australia. He oversees the direction of coaching in Australia in collaboration with the 8 Members Unions. He is on a mission where all players get a quality coaching experiences, where there is the right training, right environment and right support. He is big on game-based coaching and is heading the direction of coaching in Australia down an innovative, exciting path. He was the first person to highlight to...
May 12, 2023•46 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Charissa Barham (affectionally known as Reecy) has approximately 30 years coaching experience across many levels, including the New Zealand Secondary Schools Netball team. She is deeply passionate about youth sport and enabling youth / player voice to help frame their experience. A lot of coaches value player-centered approaches, where Reecy has a tangible and sustainable way of bringing this approach to life to become the heart-beat of teams she coaches. Reecy is currently a Sport Consultant fo...
Dec 12, 2022•46 min
Nigel Hotham has been the mastermind behind Hamilton Boys High School Rugby, Touch and 7s programmes for the past 20 years. There is not likely a school or coach in the country (maybe the world) who has tasted as much success as in the Secondary School space. To list the number of National titles would fill this entire blurb. He is a humble man who has given a good 3 decades of service to young men, not only in sport, but with his role as Deputy Principal. It was great talking with Nigel to unpa...
Nov 30, 2022•45 min
Victoria Grant has just recently been named Head Coach of the Hurricanes Poua for the upcoming Super Rugby Aupiki 2023. She has also coached the New Zealand Mens Under 20s, NZ Black Ferns 7s Development, NZ U18 Girls 7s, Bay of Plenty Women's 7s, and currently her local Premier Men's Club team, Rotoiti. She just loves it, where she genuinely coaches for the love of people and the game. Formally Victoria played for and captained both the Black Ferns 15s and 7s rugby teams (including winning a cou...
Nov 03, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Jesse Rawlings is head of the Pre-Academy with the Wellington Phoenix Football Club (New Zealand’s sole professional Football Club). He brings a fresh approach to how Youth Academies run, where he keeps the players journey as the focus, rather than that of the coaches. He is an absolute sport nut, where he lives and breathes it, noting that he used to pick ‘form team of the week’ for cricket, rugby and football at the age of 6! Legend. He has also recently finished his Master’s research analysin...
Oct 20, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Leigh Gibbs is an absolute legend in Netball and New Zealand sporting circles. She played 61 tests for the Silver Ferns (NZ National team), including captaining the team to win the 1987 World Champs. She then coached the Silver Ferns as both a Head Coach and Assistant Coach, where the team won the 2003 World Champs and 2006 Commonwealth Games. In 2001 Leigh was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, due to services to Netball. She has dedicated much of her life servicing the sport an...
Sep 09, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Dave Dillon is the newly appointed coach for the Highlanders rugby team. He has also coached others professional teams including Kobelco Steelers (Japan) & Bay of Plenty Steamers, led player development at the Chiefs. Dave has a background as a secondary school teacher and coach, so we were able to apply learning from the professional game to coaches operating in the youth and community space. Through our yarn it was clear how Dave values relationships and connecting with people - a trait th...
Sep 01, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Mark is the current Video Analyst for Waikato Rugby. He has also been the analyst for the Fijian Drua, Chiefs, Canada National team and Bay of Plenty Steamers. As well as his analysis role, he is an assistant coach with the Waikato Men's Rugby team. Mark has made a niche from combining his coaching experience with the ability to use footage as a learning tool for players. And apart from that he is a top man. He is very grounded, has a great sense of humour and loves to play the drums in his spar...
Aug 25, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 7
It was great yarning with the energetic, charismatic, legend of the South Jimmy Sinclair. Jimmy has made a huge impact in coach development where he worked for Canterbury Rugby, done consultancy work for New Zealand Rugby (including being the face of the FABS campaign), coaches the NZ U18 World Schools Girls 7s team and is now moving into a 'Play Manager' role in Canterbury. He also runs his own company called The People Outfit (check it out HERE ). It's always a pleasure catching up with Jimmy ...
Jul 20, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Simone works at Aktive in the role of 'Sports Manager,' where she works with and consults sporting organisations within the wider Auckland area. She also consults with Sport NZ on the Good Sports National Parents Project. We yarned about Good Sports which is all about creating positive sporting experiences for children and young people. We covered: A Climate of Performance v Development The Good Sports spine The roles coaches play in fostering a 'climate of development' What empowerment can look...
Jul 06, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Zane Winslade is a Mental Skills Coach and founder of Flow Sport. We chatted to Zane about 'Coaching Confidence.' This is a topic many coaches get in touch about. You know... "In my team, some kids are really confident, where other kids are the opposite end of the spectrum. How do I help my players be more confident?" We chatted about: What is confidence? Where does confidence come from? How to help players be more confident? Goal setting - effort / courage v outcomes Using analogies And more......
Jun 29, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Dave is Coach Development Manager for New Zealand Cricket. He has also worked for Volleyball NZ, Harbour Sport as well as being a Director of Sport at a Secondary School in Ireland. He also has his own business, Coaching Unleashed where he facilitates corporate training. He's a passionate, deep thinker who just loves coaching and people development. We yarned to Dave about: Observation Skills - An underrated and underdeveloped coaching skill. What to observe, how, operating as a coaching team. S...
May 25, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Jay is National Coach for Golf NZ. He is also the host of Coaching Performance Podcast, so it was nice to get him on the other side of the microphone. We touched on a fair bit including: Skill learning + the importance of play How teenagers are engaging in Golf How identity can be wrapped up on sport - his own story Can coaching intervention make athletes worse? The role of representative sport or not? His own reflections on youth sport and coaches who impacted on him....
May 09, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Sam McKenzie currently works for AFL in the coach development space. Formally he worked in coach development with Auckland Rugby where he completed research based around the 1A 1st XV competition. His research is titled: Secondary school first XV rugby players’ perceptions of the coaching environment It's a fascinating insight into the perceptions of 16-18 year old boys.
May 05, 2022•41 min•Season 1Ep. 1
