Saracens coaches Lewis Sones and Charlie Esdon finished off their busy week in Malaysia with coaching sessions for the KL Saracens Seniors and Academy players on the evenings of Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th March respectively before heading off to Kolej Tuanku Ja’afar (KTJ) on Thursday 8th of March to deliver a coach education session to coaches from KTJ, Epsom College in Malaysia (ECiM) and the International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL).
Seniors squad being put through their paces on Tuesday evening
All three of these international schools have a strong ongoing relationship with KL Saracens, ISKL having a long track record of student involvement in the club and both KTJ and ECiM having been great supporters of the club in many regards; engaging in regular fixtures, providing facilities for training and KLS tournaments and with numerous teachers and gap year students playing in the Seniors section at KLS.
Coach Education practical block at KTJ
Having concluded the coach education session at KTJ in the morning, the group moved to ECiM for the afternoon of the 8th where Charlie and Lewis ran a player-centred coaching session for ECiM and KTJ students, putting into practice many of the functional movement protocols discussed on the course. It was, once again, a high energy and fun-filled session with a strong focus on gameplay as the main coaching medium, a common theme of this and the other more recent Saracens visits.
Player-centred coaching session at ECiM
With rugby duties completed, the Saracens coaches managed to fit in a day’s visit to Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary on Friday 9th March to see first hand some of the excellent elephant conservation efforts ongoing at this special centre, which also doubles as the base for elephants trained to assist in translocation of wild elephants finding themselves trapped as a result of habitat encroachment and reduction. Saracens is a club that already holds a close interest in elephant conservation through their support of Space for Giants, a Kenyan based elephant conservation charity, hence the appeal of the visit to Kuala Gandah to understand some of the challenges facing pachyderms in Asia.
Charlie & Lewis getting down to work at Kuala Gandah
You can find out more about the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary at http://www.nre.gov.my/en-my/EcoPark/Pages/National-Elephant-Conservation-Centre.aspx and about Saracens support for elephant conservation efforts in Africa at https://www.saracens.com/news-article/saracens-support-space-for-giants-and-march-for-giants
Finally, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Lewis and Charlie for their tireless efforts over the last 7 days which has seen them deliver 7 high quality coach education sessions and 8 player-centred coaching sessions to over 100 coaches and 400 players from all over Malaysia. We hope that they have enjoyed their time here and we look forward to seeing them back in KL in the not too distant future.
