NSW Rugby is pleased to welcome five new Development Officers to the Community Rugby team, thanks to the support of The Rugby Club Foundation, NSW Country Rugby and NSW Rugby Union.
Shaun McCreedy (Illawarra), Troy Doughty (Far North Coast) and Britt Merlo (Girls) have just recently commenced in their roles, joining Harry Lee (Central West) and Paddy Bowen (Central North & New England) who started earlier this year.
They join incumbents Gus McDonald (Western Plains), Brent Dale (Newcastle/Hunter), Luke Mack & Michael Burgess (Central Coast), Jarrod Simpson (Central West), Joey de Dassel (Mid North Coast) as well as Luke Hurditch and Junior Ta’ale (Sydney).
Development Officers are an important part of the Community Rugby team, and are at the coalface of the organisation. In their roles, they work closely with clubs, schools, coaches and match officials across the state to help grow the game and improve the experience of all participants. This is done through a range of programs and initiatives that focus on inclusion, safety, targeted education and pathway opportunities.
Shaun McCreedy joins the team with a wealth of knowledge and experience as the incumbent NSW Country Cockatoos and Assistant Super W Coach, having transitioned to coaching after being involved in the Illawarra zone as a player. He’s now focused on getting more and more involved with the clubs, developing coaches and creating a women’s rugby pathway within the zone.
“Our role as Development Officers is to help develop the game from grassroots through to senior first grade competition, and a big emphasis is placed on coaches’ education through membership and courses, as well as connecting with schools and juniors to fly the rugby banner,” McCreedy explained.
“Personally I am very excited about the opportunity to promote the game in the Illawarra, seeing the level of competition increase and connecting kids into club, junior Illawarra representative and Country representative teams,” he said.
Despite being in the role for just a short time, Troy Doughty has already had a chance to experience first hand how proud and resilient the Far North Coast Rugby community is, as clubs rallied up to support the recovery process after the terrible floods that recently hit the area.
“It was awesome to see our clubs out in force across the flood-affected areas, assisting with the clean-up and everything else that was required,” Doughty said. “This just shows how important our communities are to our clubs, and similarly how important the clubs are to their communities.”
With everybody still taking stock after the tragedy, Doughty's short-term focus will be on assisting and helping rebuilding community clubs and schools, ensuring that rugby continues to play its crucial role in the social fabric of the community through difficult times.
“Of course it’s a huge catastrophe and so many people in our area have lost everything they had. From our perspective, we don’t want junior or senior players to be unable to practice the sport they love or miss out the season because they don’t have the right equipment or training attire.
“We’ll work with our wider rugby community throughout NSW and Australia to help with donations of boots, training kit and headgear, so that we can get numbers back on the field. We want to get people back out to rugby with a smile on their face, having a laugh around their mates with a ball in their hand.”
In Sydney, Britt Merlo is excited to leverage the recent Super W success of the Waratahs to grow the women and girls game in NSW, increasing participation across the female game and providing competition opportunities and clear pathways for youth females to progress in both the 7s and XVs formats.
“The Female Waratahs' success and their ability to act as role models and inspire the next generation of young females has indeed been instrumental in the development and growth of our game, especially at a grassroots level,” Merlo said.
“I am very excited about creating more opportunities and a clear pathway for females, and youth females in particular, to play rugby.
“We have already taken a step in the right direction with our Super W U18s program kicking off in the last couple of weeks and I am also looking forward to the contest in the Super W and the upcoming Women’s World Cup.
“This is essential to the progression and reach of our game - if you can’t see it, you can’t play it,” she said.
NSW Rugby would like to thank The Rugby Club Foundation for their ongoing support of growing the game in New South Wales.
In reiterating the Foundation’s commitment to maintaining its financial support of grassroots Rugby as the cornerstone of its strategic vision of ‘Sharing the Spirit of the Game’, Angus Bruxner, Chairman of The Rugby Club Foundation, stated:
“The Foundation continues to acknowledge that Development Officers constitute the frontline of delivering programs that introduce, encourage and improve the skills of participants at the grassroots level of Rugby. The Board of the Foundation resolved that the Foundation should continue supporting NSW Rugby’s development officer program in 2022,” Bruxner said.
“It is now most gratifying to see the various Development Officers installed in those regions where Rugby must be developed and nurtured.
The Foundation’s ongoing support of the development officer program constitutes an essential and measurable contribution to Rugby growing to its maximum potential, and prioritising the health and wellbeing of the Rugby community and, most importantly, the grass roots level of the game,” he said.
ABOUT THE RUGBY CLUB FOUNDATION
Through its strategic vision of “Sharing the Spirit of the Game’’ The Rugby Club Foundation is pursuing its primary objective of supporting grassroots Rugby by way of a financial grants program. In the 2020-2021 Financial year the Foundation provided over $450,000 in grants to grassroots Rugby programs
https://www.rugbyclub.com.au/news/2021/9/6/nswru-beneficiary-of-the-rugby-club-foundation-grant
