Sinds dit seizoen hebben de dames er een nieuwe voorwaartsen coach bij: Keith! Samen met Simon Johns - die we nog kennen van vorig jaar - zal hij dit seizoen de DIOK dames begeleiden op weg naar de top van de Ereklasse. Aangezien niet iedereen Keith al heel goed kent volgt hier een openhartig diepteinterview! Vergeet vooral niet naar de foto's te kijken!

Keith, when did you start playing rugby?
I started playing at the age of 12 when I went to high school in Scotland. I have tried to retire from regular competition every year for the past 10 years but only succeeded finally when I began taking coaching seriously 2 years ago at the age of 46.

Which clubs did you play for?
Lots! Apart from my school team I was selected for Scottish Midlands Schools and played a couple of games until they found me out!

At 16 I started playing for my local club, Perthshire. Every Saturday I played for the school in the morning and the club in the afternoon. Perthshire were in the Scottish Division 3 and ran 5 senior men’s teams. At the time Scotland had 7 national leagues and many other regional leagues. One of my first games was for the 4th XV and I still remember a valuable lesson. As an enthusiastic, headless 16-year-old I was about to chase a long kick from the full-back. The captain (40-year-old chain-smoking prop) grabbed my arm and said “Stay here, son – the silly buggers will kick it back in a minute”. And they did – right into my arms.

At 18 I went to Edinburgh University, also in Scottish Division 3, and from there to my first job in Dundee where I played for Harris Academy FP (Division 4).

From Dundee I went to work in Italy and joined Rome Exiles RFC (Italy’s equivalent of Te Werve). The Rome Exiles were in Italian Division 3 (I see a pattern here) and were even more exotic and eccentric than Te Werve. At any one time about one-third of our team were trainee Catholic priests from the Rome seminaries. You can imagine how much frustration they had to release during a game! I pretty soon became captain, trainer, cook and chief bottle-washer for the club.

After 5 years in Italy I moved to England and took a break from rugby because of my young family and demanding job. I assumed that was the end of rugby until I moved to the Netherlands and a certain Simon Johns persuaded me to buy a pair of boots and join the ESTEC RFC at the age of 36. We had a great few years until the squad got too old, too bald and too fat to play anymore. Those who could still run defected to either Te Werve, Bassets or, in one case (Carel Krieger) to DIOK. I went to Te Werve and played a few more seasons.

 

 Te Werve: the end of my playing days. Who is the big guy standing 5th from right?

 

Which positions did you play?
I have played every position from 1 to 15. In the 1,000 or so games I must have played, I was flanker for about 70%, centre for 20% and 10% ‘the rest’. I was particularly useless at scrum-half.

What was your speciality as a player?
My main strengths were fitness and tackling. If you are fit you can make up for your modest skill levels. As for tackling, cutting down a winger in full flight is better than scoring a try (not that I would know). At ESTEC I was affectionately known as Captain McBlood because I invariably ended the game covered in it (my own, not the opposition’s).

Typical 3rd half!

 

Have you coached before? Where and when?
I was coach by default for the Rome Exiles between 1986-1990 but that generally involved running 10 times round the pitch, 100 press-ups, a game of touch and 6 pints of Guinness. I started taking it seriously in the 2006-2007 season with my son’s team, BSN Cubs. They were short-handed so I agreed to give it a go. The first season I was pretty hopeless. The following season I was Head Coach and felt I was beginning to gain some understanding of what coaching was about. That season the BSN Cubs played 17 games and lost only 1. Unfortunately that was the one game that mattered because it was the national final and it was against a team (Dukes) which we had beaten earlier by 39-0!

ESTEC: we were rubbish! Note Simon Johns, standing 4th from right after a heavy night

 

Towards the end of the 2007-2008 season I was looking for new coaching challenges. I was approached by Simon on behalf of the DIOK Dames and by another club. I was impressed by the squad spirit and commitment at DIOK and here I am!

I also coach the BSN Juniors.

What is your speciality as a coach?
I am nominally responsible for the DIOK Dames forwards but Simon and I keep things fairly flexible. I also want to improve the contact skills – more aggression in defense and attack. For the BSN Juniors I do the lot.

In coaching terms I am still a novice. I learn something new every time I watch a game or read a book or just have a conversation over a beer with some gnarled old forward (no offense Marius). When I watch a top game on tv I no longer cheer when a try is scored - I get closer to the screen to watch the replay and see how they did it. Ah, the flanker obstructed the scrum-half, then the 12 went on a dummy run giving the 15 a huge gap to scamper through… It’s still fun, just different.

I never really received proper coaching throughout my playing days but there is no question that it makes a difference. It saddens me when I see mindless ‘coaching’ with players either jogging round the pitch or hanging around doing nothing. If you take on the job then you have a responsibility to put in the effort to make the training relevant, varied and interesting for the players. I reckon that the success of a team depends about 80% on talent and 20% on coaching.

There is so much coaching material available that you can soon learn a few ‘tricks’ – nice exercises to teach skills in a variety of ways. That, for me, is coaching Level 1. Level 2 is to understand what the exercises are trying to achieve and to recognize when it is not working and what to do about it. Level 3 is tactical awareness – that is the difficult bit.

What is your ambition for the DIOK Dames?
In short, to win as many games as possible. I am not familiar with the qualities of the other teams but it seems to me that our strongest XV must be the best in the country. Of course we don’t always (never?) have our strongest XV so we need to develop the skills and awareness of the entire squad. 

We do our very best to win each game and see where it takes us.

Keith recruiting for the DIOK Dames!