Irish Women's Rugby Team Train at St Mary's

The Strength and Conditioning team at St Mary’s University, Twickenham have been awarded a contract to oversee the strength and condition training needs for the Irish Women’s Rugby Football Union players based in London. Graduate Assistant Jonathan Griffin, who works with Lecturers Hayley Legg and Adam Spence, in the Performance Education Centre, the University’s world-class strength and conditioning facility, to develop the players, oversees the training programme. The team have worked with the University’s UK Strength and Conditioning Association accredited lecturers for the past two years. The players have been training to develop strength and power qualities, as well as improving each player’s speed and agility ability. Each player has been assigned a unique training programme to target their specific needs, which is constantly monitored to ensure they are achieving their goals. St Mary’s also undertakes the physiology based testing for all of the UK based women’s IRFU players. Jonathan Griffin said of coaching the team, “It has been a real pleasure working with the London based Ireland rugby players over the past two years. They are a very dedicated group of athletes, and together with the IRFU, who are supporting the players 12 months of the year, we hope to see some real positive gains across the players physiological profile, which will hopefully go a long way to improving their on-field rugby performances.”