The Marist Community ie the Old Boys, the coaches, and school are currently working on establishing a rugby academy at the school for those boys that are interested in playing rugby. Gone are the amateur days and some of these young men will earn a living and support their families playing rugby one day. At Marist we hope to give them the best rugby education we can with the limited resources we h
ave. We have begun with an Off Season Program for our junior and intermediate grades. Our Strength & Conditioning component commenced with a baseline test on 20th and 21st of November. Nacanieli Cawanibuka and Henry Elder will be running this part of the programme. The boys had sessions every Monday, Wednesday and Friday throughout the break. Our skills component also began for four specialist positions - half back, fly half, fullback and our h00kers. We had Joseph Narruhn taking the half backs and fly halves. Beniamino Soso coached the fullbacks and Bill Gadolo coached the hookers. These men took time off work to do this and their efforts were gratefully appreciated. These sessions ran every Tuesday and Thursday at Albert Park at 10am. Brief on the Marist Academy:
The initiative is being led by the Nadi Marist Old boys but is a MOB program. It will be funded by the MOB and next years budget for four grades is $9,000. This will be spent on rugby gear, teacher coaching accreditation, a camp and two rugby tours to Saint John Cawaci and Ratu Navula. The MOB will only spend money on items of a capital nature and not consumables. The program is built on three principles - skills, fitness and commitment. The MOB will supply the means for skills and fitness but the boys will need to supply the commitment. How do we measure commitment? Attendance is the best means so far as well as attitude at training. Please note that boys who fail to attend 80% of training sessions will be dropped from the program. Teams with less than 80% attendance in total will be dropped. Boys who fail to keep up with their academics will also be dropped. It is nothing personal. We have limited resources and it is better spent on boys who will make the best use of it. By starting early in the year we aim to limit the the length of training sessions during the second term thus allowing your sons to be home at an earlier hour with enough energy to do chores and study. I personally am a firm believer in healthy body, healthy mind. Boys will learn very quickly the value of time. If they are committed to this program they won't have time to get into any other frivolous activity. Much like in life, we have to share our time amongst competing concerns and its a skill that we should impart early in life. Eventually we will progress to our Pre-Season next year and I will furnish you with more details then. In the mean time, please feel free to contact me on 9993412. Kind regards
Clyde King
