In April 2013 I moved to Chile for a new challenge in a different country and in a completely different culture as Director of Rugby at The Grange School in Santiago. Over time I became one of the coaches of the Old Boys team in the Old Grangonian Club (which is a private members only club and you have had to have gone to The Grange School as a student to become a member and play for the team).<\/p>\n

I soon realised straight off the plane that I had walked into a Coach-centred Coaching Culture. The complete opposite end to where I was now coaching, which is true Player-centred Coaching approach\/philosophy, that had come to great fruition as Director of Rugby at Denstone College (UK) as you have just read.<\/p>\n

With this being an adult team it meant that I had to tweak a couple of things in my approach due to external factors, e.g. some of the players worked full-time and none of the players had ever done anything like this before as they were always told what to do all of the time, aka a Coach- centred Coaching Culture. Despite this foreign approach for these players I still applied the same Player-centred Coaching principles and approach.<\/p>\n

Having been in the school for a couple of years and in and around the Community during this time I soon worked out many factors about the Culture within the School, the Club and the Community, as well as the native Chilean Culture which alone brings its own frustrations, challenges and uniqueness.<\/p>\n

I discovered that a unique combination of John Jackson (the founder of The Grange School in 1928), playing Rugby, the Griffin (i.e. the commonality in the Club\u2019s and School\u2019s badges) and being a part of a Generation (i.e. their year group like a family) were the 4 cornerstones of their culture. I delved into this emotional resource many times throughout the season because it gave the players an amazing feeing inside their bodies because of the deep and meaningful connections and affinity they had to these 4 cornerstones.<\/p>\n

One of which was the fact that the players had spent 14 years of their lives in The Grange School from 5 years old to 18 years old. With the main demographic of the playing squad aged 19 to 25, this meant they had basically spent the whole of their lives so far in the school. This also helped because I had already coached a good chunk of players in the club for a couple of years when they were in the school, so I had already built up a rapport and relationships with these young adult players.<\/p>\n

Discussing this new approach for them with the Head Coach, I said we should all meet at the John Jackson statue inside the school at the very beginning of the process because of the deep meaning it has to all the players in the squad and that it would evoke raw emotions inside them because of their long time in the school and their affinity to the school…<\/p>\n