12 minute read
MEET OAKHAM RUGBY CLUB’S NEW COACHES
When life gives you lemons…
One minute you are knocking on England’s door and then the next your career is over. Mary finds out what professional rugby player Will Hurrell did next
WILL HURRELL IS Oakham Rugby Club’s new coach and they are lucky to have him as until January 2020 he was playing professionally for Bristol; so brings a wealth of experience with him from the elite rugby world.
Will was not expecting to be coaching Oakham. Brought up near Melton Mowbray and starting out at Leicester Tigers Will played professionally for many years (managing to gain a maths degree at the same time) and was coming to the end of his contract at Bristol when he was injured, ironically at Leicester Tigers so you could say his professional career went full circle, starting and finishing at Welford Road.
‘Initially what appeared to be a bad tackle and a standard head injury turned out to be much more serious as I’d had a bleed on the brain which meant I would never be able to play again. This resulted in trouble remembering things, I couldn’t sleep and suffered from panic attacks and anxiety. I have slowly recovered and got back into the gym but still suffer from memory problems. There have been long term effects but I can manage it.’
To go from being at the top of your game, literally to losing everything must be hard to take. Will lost his job, his home and lifestyle and had to come home to be cared for by his family.
‘I thought I was invincible and was the fittest I’d ever been. I had been very lucky with injuries, getting very few, but I’d looked after myself, training lots in the gym and doing any rehab that needed to be done, and it had paid off; until that match. But it is what it is and you’ve got two choices; get on with your life or wallow. I’m obsessed with rugby and had been doing some of my coaching training so really wanted to stay in the game.’
And he did, until Covid came along. Now in this transition period for Will, Oakham have been able to benefit. A very close friend at the club, Peter Rawlinson, suggested that Will come to them for the season and train the boys, and that’s what he’s done.
‘There’s a great attitude at the club and I enjoy running about and practicing skills with the boys. I missed pre-season training (thank you track and trace) so we didn’t start the season that well. But I knew this would be the case and wasn’t worried. The team has only just been promoted and the first three teams we played were really strong ones. The lads have been learning new skills and structures so it took a while for it all to click in. I would have been rattled if we hadn’t won the Oakham/Stamford derby though. The boys had trained really well and it paid off.
‘The amateur game is obviously very different and the main problem I have as a manager is to sometimes get enough players to make up a team and to get consistency. Obviously everyone has jobs including working shifts or away so it can be difficult to get cohesion. But we’re getting there. The amateur game is played out of love for the game, so enjoyment is the main thing. As well as training and getting fit of course. We’ve got some good players.’
Will is at the club to help put systems in place and build a pathway for the future. He sometimes joins the colts for training and the girls' teams too and is also training Oakham School’s 1st XV.
Professional rugby’s loss would appear to be Oakham’s gain who are very lucky to be able to benefit from Will’s experience and knowledge of the game. Watch this space.
Oakham Owls
Oakham Rugby Club has a thriving junior section and Kate met Giles Taylor, one of six coaches building up the girls’ side; the Oakham Owls
LONGSTANDING CLUB VOLUNTEER and Leicestershire RFU president, Barbara Crellin, has been instrumental in resurrecting the girls’ section of the club. She was heavily involved in ‘Tag to Twickenham’ in 2019 which was a mixed tournament for boys and girls in primary schools. Rutland put a team together and this was where Giles’ youngest daughter was first introduced to playing rugby. Training sessions took place at Oakham Rugby Club. As boys and girls are not allowed to play contact rugby together after the age of eleven, the idea was mooted to start a girls’ side. A head coach was brought in to set one up.
‘Two years later and we have 60+ girls playing,’ explained Giles. ‘It started with an advertised open day which was attended by a decent number of players who really enjoyed it and stayed and it’s built from there. Many girls have been encouraged and brought along by friends from surrounding schools and colleges.’ All the coaches have daughters and are fully invested in its success. In addition to being one of the U18 girls’ coaches Giles also liaises between the parents, Oakham RFC and other clubs.
‘We have U18, U15, U13 and U11 teams who are all at different stages so we adapt sessions accordingly. There are different numbers in each, which is quite normal in youth rugby. We have a full squad of U13s but fewer U18s so we’re looking to build that side. It’s only been two years since we started and one of those was taken out with Covid so we’re doing very well.’
It’s an impressive set up at Oakham: the facilities are excellent with good pitches and a brilliant club house. As Giles points out: ‘It’s not a bad experience for the parents either on a Sunday morning. We’re very well supported by local company and sponsor Lands’ End which has been hugely beneficial. They provide a big impetus to the club and have made a huge difference.'
There are six girls’ coaches altogether. The previous head coach moved on recently and it was decided to to share the role amongst them to spread the load as it’s a huge job. The ex-head coach should be applauded for his work and for identifying his successors from the parents on the touchline who had an interest or background in rugby.
‘I’ve played a lot of amateur rugby since starting at school,’ said Giles. ‘I never expected to go onto the coaching side but coming up every Sunday with my girls, I became naturally involved. It’s challenging but going on the different coaching courses has been great, it stretches you a bit. We have a range of coaches and we all add different elements to the coaching process. It’s very different playing senior rugby to coaching girls’ youth teams but it’s highly rewarding and all having daughters of our own helps.
‘All the age grades are taught how to tackle aiming to play contact games, but we can also adapt these when we play against other clubs depending on the numbers that each side has. It is fluid and flexible and adapted to the experience of the girls. Because of Covid it’s been difficult for the girls to get game experience so far, but we are now able to play more regular games.
‘It’s always been incredibly important to make it as much fun as possible for the girls but we also introduce the rugby virtues of hard work, discipline, teamwork and respect within the different age groups and within the whole Oakham Owls setup.’
The England Ladies rugby team is currently ranked No 1 in the world, having recently beaten New Zealand twice (which some of the Oakham Owls witnessed in Northampton) so there has never been a better time to get involved in girls’ rugby.
For further details visit www.oakhamrfc.com/ girls-orfc/ or email: girlsrugby@oakhamrfc.
com
Jeremy Smithson-Beswick looks back over the last year and some very strange times
AS WE REACH the turn of the year it’s a time both for reflection on the past twelve months and for looking forward to the spring. As I was flicking back over 2021’s previous columns I realised how easy it is to forget, now winter has arrived, what a strange last spring and summer it was for all of us involved in local sport. It’s only six months ago, for example, that I was bringing you long reports of Leicester Tigers in this column because there was no grassroots rugby to watch. The Premiership might have been in full swing but the local game was still moribund, forbidden to return to close contact and, without scrums or mauls, no proper matches were possible. We had to make do with ad hoc touch rugby tournaments at best.
Going further back, the cricket season the previous year had started but then stopped, so there had been no tales of promotion and relegation to bring you and almost all other sporting activity around the area was affected to some degree. The Burghley Horse Trials, the Rutland Show and Burghley Park’s Cricket Week just three of the more notable casualties. It really was quite a barren landscape back then.
And then this year’s cricket season finally, tentatively, got under way, although with no one knowing at that time if a full campaign was going to be possible. Thankfully it was, and Uppingham CC for one are particularly grateful for that. It was an almost perfect year for them, going into the last game of the season with a chance to have all three of their senior sides promoted. In the event the second eleven just missed out, but the firsts will be back in the Premier division again to resume their friendly rivalry with Oakham which, together with the elevation of the Sunday Rutland League side, makes them by some way the most improved club of the year.
Oakham also deserve credit for a season that demonstrated that they’ve now firmly established themselves in the top flight, even
Bourne’s title winning 1st XI heading the table briefly in May and have proved they can give anyone a run for their money on the day. They were also Leicestershire and Rutland’s Twenty20 Champions, which qualified them for the regional round against some semiprofessional outfits and reached the final of that tournament too. Given their Sunday side were promoted as champions ahead of Uppingham in second place, that’s not a bad end of term report.
Another highlight was Bourne winning the Lincs Premier at something of a canter and, of course, there were many individual performances worthy of note scattered across
Will Hurrell, Oakham RFC coach
all of our local sides. Too many to list here but surely Alex Birch’s double century for Stamford was one of the best innings of the year and we also can’t ignore Oundle’s Harrison Craig. To be picked for Cambridgeshire to play against Essex is some achievement but to then go on to claim a 5-fer, including the wicket of one Alastair Cook, is not something he’ll forget in a hurry.
Overall we were rewarded for our long period in purdah with a compelling and intriguing season - and next year should be equally fascinating, especially with the Oakham Oakham Uppingham derby back in play. As for the rugby, things brightened up there too as the authorities lifted the restrictions on close contact (that had stopped all fixtures last winter) just in time for the new season. So it seems, fingers crossed, we’re now going to get a full one just like the cricket.
If Oakham Uppingham is the pick of the cricket grudge matches, then Oakham Stamford is its rugby equivalent and, as many of you will know, we’ve already had the first instalment. With Oaks going into the match having lost each of their opening three fixtures by a country mile, and Stamford having won all three of theirs. It was perhaps inevitable that the inherent cussedness of
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rugby should dictate that Oakham ran out winners, if only in order to embarrass all would-be local pundits (including this one).
The big question for the rest of season for Oaks fans is can new coach Will Hurrell (ex Tigers, Bristol and Bath) turn their season around in the new year? In October we described his appointment as a ‘coup’ but it hasn’t gelled so far and they currently sit in the relegation positions. Injuries have played a big part but they need to hit form soon or it’s going to be a painful start to 2022. Stamford acolytes, on the other hand, will be hoping that that defeat against Oaks hasn’t taken the wind from their collective sails and that the following 10-67 home defeat against Olney isn’t the beginning of a trend.
Over in the world of the round ball, the first part of 2021 was as sterile a desert as the rugby, but thankfully we’re now back in full swing. Stamford Daniels had a tricky September, perhaps partially down to the curse of being tipped for great things by yours truly that month, but have improved markedly since. Recent league results include 6-1 and 5-0 wins against good sides and they have climbed to seventh in the table as a result. Who knows, they might even live up to my pre-season prediction of promotion.
I’ve found it’s best to make lots of these tips because, strangely enough, my chances of at least one being right increase with the more of them I make. Expect me to claim to be a prescient expert in a few months - and if you could conveniently forget all those forecasts that went down the tube that’d be nice, thanks.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Please make a resolution to get out and about to enjoy your local sport in 2022. Almost all of it is free to attend, you’ll make new friends and I know how much the players really appreciate you being there watching.
D.G NORMAN
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