Rhinos Academy staff share knowledge with Coventry Bears juniors

Leeds Rhinos Head of Youth John Bastian and Head of Talent ID Simon Bell recently showed their support for Coventry Bears’ junior set up and their ambitions to grow grassroots participation of Rugby League in the midlands.

The visit, which was initiated by Coventry’s coaching co-ordinator Michael Shires, saw Bastian and Bell attend one of six rugby festivals that the Junior Bears will participate in between May and July for their boys and girls sides.

The pair then presented the players, coaches and parents with the Rhinos’ pathway presentation, which focuses on the highlighting the opportunities available for players to join and develop their Rugby League skills in a professional Super League pathway.

Speaking about the importance of supporting junior players at a club like Coventry, Bastian said: “There's a lot of people in various parts of England and Great Britain that are quite detached in regards to a professional Super League club. We travelled down the M1 for 130 miles to get there from Leeds but we wanted to give them our support.

“We presented to the players and coaches to give them a broader understanding of opportunities to get onto a professional pathway. As those players get older, we have opportunities available to come up for a trial at Leeds to see how they actually progress, or be a part of one of Leeds Rhinos Foundation’s programmes instead. Ultimately, it was about giving them a broader understanding of Rugby League development and letting them know that they’re not isolated down at Coventry. It was all well received by everybody and it was great to be part of.”

All the players who attended are part of a 13-week programme run by the Bears, who aim to get more people picking up a rugby ball, teach them about the sport and develop their skills no matter how much prior experience they’ve got. With most players coming from a background in Rugby Union, Bastian said that he hopes the programme gives the players a taste of the 13-player code and what they can achieve later in their careers.

He said: “A lot of those players also play Rugby Union, so I hope they have a great experience. Michael Shires is a really good bloke and he's doing an enormous amount of work with a lot of volunteers, who give their free time to coach junior players and give them an opportunity to develop the skills in Rugby League, so it was great to see a large turnout.

“If any of those players have the desire to develop and make it to Super League, the drive to succeed belongs to them firstly, but at Leeds Rhinos, we'll always be supportive of players that want to do well. Ultimately they've got to be the ones that find an opportunity within a pathway and grab hold of it, which I hope we’ve helped teach them.”