In a first for the Leicester Tigers, the club’s community team completed successful back-to-back rugby camps in South America as part of the ever-growing global reach of the Tigers Family.
Following the opening camp for players aged 11-14, the Tigers community team took on a group of older players up to age 17 at Old Grangonians Rugby Club just outside Santiago, Chile.
One of the coaches on the ground in South America, Steve Hanna, spoke to leicestertigers.com about the final camp.
“With our second camp, the heat very much dictated the intensity and duration of activity,” said Hanna, the club’s community rugby manager.
“We used some of the downtime in the shade to work on some bodyweight exercises, which our Tigers S&C staff work-on with the senior squad, looking at the importance of technique, form and recovery work.”
In a well-rounded experience for participants, looking at much more than just what takes place on the pitch, players are also exposed to what is required of professionals in the modern game.
“We introduced the players to the process of reviewing video clips of them playing, working out where they could improve and looking at the outcomes of their decision-making on the pitch, which fed in nicely to the next time we were outside on the grass again.
“We were able to impart some of the coaching style on the players as we looked to introduce them to a conditioned games-based training and performing skills under pressure rather than the drills-based systems they were used to.”
It wasn’t just the youngsters who benefited from the trip, however, with Tigers coaches also able to exchange ideas on the game with senior staff at Old Grangonians.
“Staying behind after the camp, we were also able to observe the first-team training and took the opportunity to exchange ideas with the coaches,” Hanna said.
As with all Tigers Rugby Camps, activities concluded with the traditional presentations to players, which this time included a special surprise.
“As well as recognising the achievements of individuals on the camp, we were also pleased to invite two players who really stood out to visit our training facilities back at Oval Park and train with the Tigers academy for a couple of weeks in the summer of 2018, “ Hanna said.
“We are looking forward to seeing how they go in the Leicester environment.
“While Chile might lack the big forward packs we’d associate with Argentina for example, they try to play to their strengths, looking to offload and play at pace, which was exciting for us to observe.
“Our time in Santiago was a great learning experience for our team of coaches and the everyone involved from Chile. It’s the start of what we hope will be a long and fruitful relationship within South America.”
