The Ghana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) is holding a two week historic training programme in Accra, in association with the International Rugby Board (IRB) and the Olympic Solidarity Fund (OSF) to improve the quality of rugby coaching in the country.

The training programme, GRFU Vice President, Mr. Ernest Hanson, explained will be the first time that rugby coaches will be trained, qualified and certified as Level 2 Rugby Coaches in Ghana.

The IRB is sponsoring the cost of a Certified IRB Trainer from South Africa, Mr. David Dobela for the historic event, but the training cost would be sponsored by OSF under auspices of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC).

Mr. David Dobela is currently the Caretaker Head Coach of Border Academy in South Africa and qualified as Level 2 Coaching Trainer in 2010. He has also been involved in coaching for the South African National Team, the Springboks.

The training will take place at the Media Centre at the Accra Sports Stadium from 13 July to 25 July 2014.

During the first week 23 people will be trained and having passed the IRB evaluation, will be certified as Level 1 Rugby Coaches. The trainees include coaches from the 11 clubs that will take part in the 2014 /15 national league tournament, as well as Sportsmasters of 12 schools from the Greater Accra, Western and Central Regions.

The Level 1 Rugby Coaching Training will include modules on understanding the game and the principles of play, applying the principles of play to the development of skills, planning and demonstrating a practice, and management. It will cover both 15s as 7s coaching skills.

This course is designed to enable coaches to acquire basic skills so that players who are new to the game learn to play in safe, enjoyable competition.

During the second week, a Level 2 Coaching course will be held that will include modules on coaching styles and coaching process, values of the Game and principles of attack and defence, planning and delivery, key factor analysis and player welfare and functional role analysis, selection and laws.

The Level 2 Coaching course is designed to provide coaches with the skills needed to coach teenage and adult players in the club or school environment (in major Unions) and to higher levels in less developed Unions such as the GRFU.

The President of Ghana Rugby, Mr. Herbert Mensah, emphasised that the newly elected Board of the GRFU is assessing the state of rugby in Ghana with the view to present a blueprint or roadmap for rugby in Ghana to all stakeholders towards the end of July 2014.

Mr. Mensah said, “It was quite shocking to realise that Ghana does not have one Level 2 certified coach after 11 years of being registered as minority sport in Ghana. Without properly trained coaching resources Rugby in Ghana can never progress. This will always continue to be a high priority on the agenda of the new Board and we are delighted that we had the opportunity to postpone the initial dates for the training in order to structure it in such a way that there is forward movement.”