You hear a lot in Welsh rugby about the regional Academies and the player pathway programmes.
So what exactly does that involve? What is life like for an aspiring professional rugby player? What’s their average day entail?
Well, for some of them, it starts at 6.30 in the morning!
While most of us are still tucked up in bed, a group of Cardiff Blues Academy youngsters are clocking in for work.
There are about 20 of them in the Academy in all, aged between 16 and 21.
Some of the older ones, such as Ioan Davies, Max Llewellyn, Teddy Williams and Ben Warren - who have just been away with Wales at the U20s World Championship in Argentina - will be training with the senior squad this season, along with the likes of Ben Thomas, Will Davies-King, Alun Lawrence and Jamie Hill.
Then there’s a younger group who will be on the early morning programme, as Academy Manager Gruff Rees explains.
“They are in four to five times a week and they tend to be in for 6.30 in the morning,” said the former Ospreys backs coach.
“A lot of it links to the academic timetable.
“If you think about it, once we get to September, nearly all of them are involved in education.
“So they are in at 6.30am and start at 6.45am. They begin with mobility work, doing stretching routines, to warm up properly.
“That’s followed by a strength and conditioning session on the weights.
“They have a bit of a window then where they can get recovery and nutrition. They have their protein shakes and all that sort of jazz.
“Then they are on the field at 8am and into rugby work.
“It’s running, contact skills, catch-pass, decision making, defence.
“They are usually finished by 9.30am, 10am.
“Then they are off into their academic day, be it at Cardiff University, Coleg y Cymoedd, Cardiff & Vale College or elsewhere.
“I think the early starts help in terms of building their professionalism and self-discipline.
“It becomes second nature to them, kind of habitual, in terms of making sure they eat properly before they leave the house and preparing their food and shakes the night before.
“They become self-driven in the way they run things and take ownership of what their careers potentially could be.”
The stars of the recent past
The Academy youngsters work with Richie Rees, Gethin Jenkins and Rhys Thomas, three former Welsh internationals with huge experience in the game.
There are also two dedicated strength and conditioning coaches within the programme.
“The beauty is lower numbers and a better coach-player ratio,” said Gruff Rees.
“They will also train with the seniors if extra boys are needed.
“At the moment, it’s about 70 per cent strength and conditioning and 30 per cent rugby.
“As we go through pre-season, the rugby takes over.”
Former Wales scrum-half Richie Rees - who is taking over as Blues backs coach from the departing Jason Strange - says there has been a huge change on the development front compared to when he was teenager beginning his playing career.
“There wasn’t an Academy system when I started out,” said the 36-year-old.
“I played for Dunvant until I was 19.
“The service the boys get now is unbelievable.
“You have got one of the greatest props in the world - Gethin Jenkins - coaching defence to 15, 16 and 17-year-olds.
“A lot of the youngsters go off to university or college after doing their work with us in the morning, so it’s a full-on programme.
“Some of them don’t drive because they are only just 17, so have to organise lifts themselves.
“Each region has a Welsh Rugby Players Association (WRPA) manager who helps them with all off-field stuff, such as education.
“It’s about trying to give them a bit of reality, because, ultimately, only 20 per cent of them will actually make it.
“The quality is good coming through from the schools and the colleges and there’s a lot of competition.”
As for his own pathway into coaching, the nine-times capped Rees said: “I suppose I am quite lucky.
“I graduated, I did my teacher training, I went that route and came into this a little bit later.
“I love it. You are constantly trying to learn and get better and pass that down to these youngsters.
“What I enjoy is finding out what makes people tick and how best to deal with them.
“Your man management is huge. The majority of sides play the same way, the coaches do the same thing.
“It’s the X-Factor players that make a difference and it’s how you get the best out of them. It’s about five per cent detail and the rest is man management.
“Dai Young was one of the best coaches I worked with because he was so good with people.”
In addition to the Academy, the Blues also run an U18s team and two U16s teams - North and South.
Intense competition and the breaking of bad news
When I went to check out the programme this week, it was the U18s who were being put through their paces at the hugely impressive University of South Wales Sports Park in Treforest.
That includes a huge indoor training ban, with accommodates a full-size football pitch, and a state-of-the-art gym/weights room.
The youngsters were certainly well blessed when it came to the coaches working with them too.
In addition to Academy trio Richie Rees, Gethin Jenkins and Rhys Thomas, they also had Wales U18s coach Chris Horsman adding his expertise, along with Blues prop Scott Andrews and former Wales full-back Justin Thomas, plus full-time pathway coaches Craig Everett and Aled James.
“We have an U18s squad of 65 players,” explained Gruff Rees.
“They are with us three times a week at the moment.
“They have three nights of strength and conditioning and then, on Monday and Friday, they have rugby-specific sessions as well.
“As this filters through the summer, we will gradually go from 65 down to 32, including eight Academy boys.
“So the competition is instense.
“These sessions are filmed and the coaches are able to check out the footage to help them syphon down to 32, as opposed to going off an old-school trial where you don’t see the wood from the trees sometimes.
“The U18s will play the four other regions, including RGC, home and away, which is eight games, and we book-end that with friendlies against the English club Academies, like Gloucester and Bath U18s.”
There are a further 130 or so players involved in the U16s North and South and that number will similarly be reduced down to about 64.
“I am the one that has to tell the kids and their parents. It is tricky,” said Gruff Rees.
The other challenge is holding on to the cream of the crop in the face of competition from English colleges and clubs.
Rees’ approach is to identify talent early and sign youngsters up as soon as possible.
“There are three players from last year’s U16s I have given Academy contracts to straight away,” he said.
“The fly-half Ben Burnell - Justin Burnell’s boy - was getting identified by clubs in England.
“He is English-qualified and I thought I am not going to wait a couple of years.
“We felt we could put a programme together and we have contracted him for the next three years.”
Rees believes the regional Academy programme, which was first introduced in Wales in 2005, is working well and reaping rewards.
“It’s a different world to when I started out as a player. It’s incredible,” he said.
“Every player gets an individual strength and conditioning development plan and the coaching provision is excellent.”
The new development in the programme is the introduction of Regional A teams, which will soon embark on their second season.
The Celtic Cup competition gets underway on August 24, with the four Welsh regions going up against each other and the Irish provinces at A-level over eight weekends.
At the Blues, the team will be made up of some senior squad members, some older Academy players and some Premiership players from Cardiff, Pontypridd and Merthyr.
As with everything in the programme, the focus is all about development and building for the future.
