Ulster Rugby Annual Report 2016-17

In addition to the delivery of formal courses, coaches have also been supported in a number of other ways including:- — — Age Grade Coaching programme. Targeting U16 level in clubs and U14 level in schools, rugby development staff have worked with coaches in 85% of the Schools of Ireland Schools and 83% of clubs within Ulster. This has resulted supporting coaches during the delivery of three hundred and seventy four practical rugby sessions throughout the season. — — Regional Coaching Forums. These forums are an excellent way of ensuring that our support is relevant to the needs of our coaches by bringing them together to share experiences and to highlight areas for future development. — — Coach Development Workshops. Through staff engagement with coaches we have delivered coach development workshops across a variety of stages and topics. A breakdown is shown below:-

Competition

Number of Qualifiers

Schools involved

U12 U14

5 7 5 1

44 47 25

Pollock cup (U16)

Developing

8

schools (U18)

Coaching At the start of the season 75% of teams from mini through to adult level were operating with the minimum of at least one appropriately qualified coach per team. As a result of targeted course delivery throughout the season this figure increased to 86%. To ensure coaches had the opportunity to attain qualifications the rugby development team delivered courses provincially through stages 1-3 of the IRFU LTPD and invited coaches to attend nationally run stage 4 head and assistant coach courses. The breakdown of courses and coaches attending is shown below:-

13 13

LTPD Stage Number of

Number of Workshops Attendee Coaches

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3

7 9 2

174 224

LTPD Stage Number

Number of Courses of Attendees

24

Total

18

422

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4

5 2 2 2

206

61 59 12

Total

11

338