St Mary’s Academic Speaks at Coaching Conference

Programme Director of Football Education, Coaching and Development FdA at St Mary’s University, Twickenham Michael Ayres spoke at a recent coaching conference at London Welsh Rugby Club.

The conference, entitled Collaborative Coach and Player Development – Ensuring Optimal Learning, saw almost 100 coaches listen to experts including Michael talk about the latest developments and ideas surrounding coach and player development in team sports.

Michael, who is also responsible for the sports pedagogy modules on St Mary’s Physical & Sport Education BA programme, explained to the audience how he feels players should be coached.

He explained his strong belief that players should be ‘coached as individuals’ with special attention paid to each player’s own coaching development needs. He went onto to say that coaching ‘should be holistic and focused on the individual’, as everyone learns and develops differently.

Michael, who alongside his role at St Mary’s is also leading a group working with Leinster RFU to develop their coaches, discussed the shared developmental characteristics of both elite performers and coaches. He proposed that there is a ‘consistent desire’ to want to develop players who are ‘creative, adaptable, empowered and take ownership for their own development’, the same characteristics that coaches want to develop and possess in order to help players achieve their potential.

Speaking about the conference, Michael said, “It was a great opportunity to discuss and interact with a range of coaches and to share our work within elite sport. The conference provoked lots of discussion and debate which is ultimately what events like these should set out to achieve.”

To read more about the conference visit the Coach Logic website.