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Regulus
Leadership and Governance
5
Keeping an
ball
on the
eye
If you are going to dream, dream
big says St Andrew’s new High
Performance Rugby Manager, Rod
McIntosh. But while a covered,
astroturf field may be some way off,
the professional rugby coach believes
StAC has a solid rugby playing future
ahead of it.
“There is a lot of very good foundation
work already in place (thanks to Ray
Southam, the College’s previous
Rugby Development Co-ordinator and
Mike Johnston, Rugby Co-ordinator)
and now it’s time to take things to the
next level,” he says.
Rod joins the College from Hong Kong
where he was Director of Sport and
Head of Physical Education at the
French International School. He says
his immediate goal at St Andrew’s is
to streamline the rugby development
pathway so it runs effectively from
Preparatory School through to the
First XV. “If a well-structured
development programme is put in
place with strong protocols that
embrace a professional common
approach, then athletes consolidate
skills as they move up and progress
through the system,” says Rod. This
is achieved by introducing generic
commonalities and general themes
across the teams in order to help
improve performance.
Rod has played and coached
professional rugby, including earning
75 caps playing for Waikato. He
represented New Zealand Secondary
Schools, New Zealand Under 21, the
New Zealand Māori All Blacks and
was an All Black trialist in 1989 and
1990. He continued to play rugby
professionally overseas in Europe
and South Africa then moved to Asia
making the Hong Kong National 7s
and 15s rugby team from 1994-2004.
In 2009-2010 he received the Hong
Kong Coaching Excellence Award from
the National Sports Foundation.
He has also coached schoolboy
through to senior level winning a
number of school championship and
senior premierships in New Zealand,
Ireland and Hong Kong. Rod also
sat on the Board of Directors at the
HKRFU as the Director of Coaching
and oversaw the delivery of coaching
programmes and coach education
throughout all levels of the game.
Most recently he has been involved
with the Waikato Chiefs Super
Rugby Camp.
Rod’s drawn on a skilled local
network to set up an experienced
rugby steering committee comprising
All Blacks Defence Coach Aussie
McLean, Martin Oxley - Rugby
Club President, Ray Southam
- former Canterbury and
Ireland coach, and Tracey
Paterson, a Sport
Performance Manager
at High Performance
Sport New Zealand,
to help forge a new
strategic direction for
rugby at the College. He
is also developing links with
the CRFU in order to access
benchmarking and resources.
He says a big focus will be
on coaching alignment and
collaboration in order to identify
and revamp generic skill sets.
Coaches have been drawn in from
the community and include former All
Black and Crusader Nathan Mauger,
who is now the Canterbury U19 coach,
Canterbury Women’s ITM coaches Kim
Brown and John Sherratt, and a mix
of Old Collegians and young aspiring
coaches. “We’ve got to work smarter
with the resources we have,” he says.
“The aim is to work collectively so
within three to five years we create
one of the most professional school
rugby environments in the South Island.
This aspiration is in line with the overall
strategic vision of being the most
respected co-educational rugby college
in the country.”
And he’s not waiting around for it to
happen either. The students came
back from holidays straight into fitness
testing. This was followed by a six week
foundation work block that focused
on strength and aerobic conditioning.
Each student will also be resourced
with a personal training programme
to work on over the summer holidays
and then at the start of next year
it’s back into a fitness re-test and a
comprehensive eight
week pre-season
preparation
block to
set the
foundations
for the next
rugby season.
Rod McIntosh