09 June 2010

About the new Rugby programme

By Moira Blake with photos by Emu Izaki and Miho Fukuda

There is a new group of students on campus this year. They move around faster than many of the other students, and they were in action as a group doing the haka at the Commencement Dinner. So who are they and what are they doing at IPC?

NZIRP students on the field at IPC.

Team Talk: Coach, Sean Bristow, with the team

Staff members often refer to them as “The rugby boys”. This is because they are here on the New Zealand International Rugby Programme, NZIRP for short, and they are a very distinct group.

The Manager of NZIRP and the Head Coach is Sean Bristow, and the aim of the programme is to equip enthusiastic rugby players for a representative or professional career in rugby, by giving them top training opportunities, backed up with excellent medical care by sports medics, physiotherapists, and a sports doctor, while at the same time ensuring that they have a sound academic background. The programme is a highly disciplined one, with equal amounts of time being allotted to study and to rugby, and with an emphasis on preparing the participants to cope with the demands of a top level rugby career both on and off the field. Sean says that being based at IPC is “fantastic”, because rugby is a global game and the IPC environment is conducive to developing in the students the ability to function well in a global environment. As well as their academic work and training at IPC, the students on the NZIRP programme will take part in four IRANZ (International Rugby Association of New Zealand) training camps during the year.

I asked several staff members for their impressions of this new group of students. Judith Mtetwa, who is teaching a DISS Research paper, is very happy with two great aspects of the programme, namely that there are no issues with attendance, and that the group dynamics mean that there is positive peer pressure influencing performance in the classroom and beyond. Most of the NZIRP students are enrolled in the IPC DISS (Diploma of International Sport Studies) programme, but two are studying at degree level, and 3 are completing NCEA qualifications, one of these three while also completing an IPC paper.

James Oliver summed it up like this: “As they spend so much of their time together, they have developed a real culture and respect amongst themselves. Also, as rugby players they are very interested in the practical elements of their papers... they respond very well to instruction and especially their peer coaching. I am enjoying their energy and class contribution.”

Peter Davies put it this way: “Interacting with the NZIRP as part of the DISS is different as the students/players have a more specific focus on the training and games as a team, while still having their own goals. They also start their day a lot earlier and have 2 training sessions per day, and they have a fulltime coach who provides individual plans for their week. For instance the day could start at 6.30am and finish at 8.30pm depending on what they are doing. And of course they play the games together on the Saturday.”

The team is an IPC team, affiliated to the Massey Rugby Club so that they can play in the Premier Colts (under 21 years) provincial club competition. The Massey club contributes a few players to make up the numbers. The success of these students on the field speaks for itself. They had a seven-week record of wins, almost all by a margin of 20 points or more, before losing 3-0 in the last few minutes to Bush Colts. Since then they have returned to their winning form, beating the teams from Linton and Marton. However, coach Sean Bristow makes sure that the focus is always on improvement and personal best performance by making the debrief after each game an exercise by the team members in grading their own play, so that even when the margin between the scores is as much as 40 points the team members learn something from every playing experience.

The team in action. Left to right: Doug Juszczyk, Andrew Hanara, (Non-IPC player) player), and Andrew Hill supporting in the background	Team work! Jandre Van der Westhuizen (No.6), Andrew Hill (No.3), Doug Juszczyk (No.7)

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