The Iron Curtain: My Rugby Journey from League to Union

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James first became involved with the Scottish national team as physio on the 1991 tour to Canada beginning a long association with Rugby Union and the Lions seeing him follow successive tours ever since. His experience will undoubtedly be welcomed by the other members of the medical party on tour. When we reached the final and beat Australia in Sydney, I had the opportunity to redeem myself. As a result Clive was knighted and I received the MBE.” Larder found the travelling required to play rugby union incompatible with his work at Saddleworth, so moved to rugby league, where games were concentrated in the north of England. He was first approached by Leigh but opted to sign for Oldham ( Heritage № 705). He played in Oldham's defeat by St. Helens in the 1968 Lancashire Cup final, and later moved to Whitehaven. [4] Coaching career [ edit ] Rugby league [ edit ] Larder, of course, went on to become the RFL’s Director of Coaching. He wrote two books on rugby league coaching and coached Sheffield, Keighley and Widnes before being appointed Great Britain coach. He would be a massive asset to Leicester, whatever role he may take up there.” Read More Related Articles

I don’t know. I think it’s pretty obvious to most of us,” he says. “There are good coaches and bad ones as well. Kevin and Mike have proved, in rugby league and now, that they are the right characters. Not everyone in rugby league is the right character. But look at Shaun and Faz, Andy Farrell.Sinfield had a stint in rugby union playing for Yorkshire Carnegie at the end of his playing career but has never coached in the 15-a-side game. That’s what makes Kev such a good defence coach, he’s so inspiring. He motivates us so much and he’s the sort of bloke you don’t want to let down. That’s testament to him as a bloke. When you go out there, part of it is you do it for him. You don’t want to see a guy like that, who puts his heart and soul into us in his work with his defence, feel let down.” My job is not only to help the Warriors cement a place in the Premiership but help to inspire them to become one of the leading rugby clubs in England. “

The pinnacle of his achievements in the 15-a-side code was winning the RU World Cup in the final against Australia in Australia, for which he received the MBE. Dave “Otis” Reddin has worked with the England team as fitness coach since 1997. Dave will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of the fitness and conditioning regimes required to keep the squad in top condition for the tour.

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Their joint and collective contribution to the Oldham story is topical, as are many right now, because of the distribution of Heritage Certificates in a joint venture by the Heritage Trust, the Players’ Assn. and Oldham RLFC. Larder viewed the 2005 squad differently. "I said it was a group we had to inspire and get far, far more effort from them than we were getting at the moment," he said, and he told Robinson so. "I phoned my wife after that meeting saying I was on the point of resigning and I felt from that moment Andy Robinson had taken us down the wrong avenue. I had a chat with him and he asked me to stay on but I stayed really only out of loyalty. It might have worked with the previous players but not the ones we had." And so was born the guard system in union, with Larder, starting employment with England the following Monday, able to implement this and many other new practices in a coaching revolution. Rugby league coaches landing jobs in union, usually to look after defence, is far from unusual – think Shaun Edwards (whose star has never aligned with England’s), Phil Larder (Woodward’s World Cup-winning assistant), Dave Ellis, Andy Farrell, Mike Ford, Les Kiss and Denis Betts. He later coached Widnes, Sheffield and Keighley, wrote the RFL Coaching Manual and coached Great Britain to the 1995 Rugby League World Cup Final, in which the World Cup went to Australia.

England forwards were still following the ball, instead of dropping into channels and covering the width of the pitch, when they played New Zealand at Old Trafford – with obvious consequences. Like I said, what Shaun Edwards has been able to achieve is wonderful and he’s had a fantastic career. It’s probably a bit unfair on Shaun to use me in the same sentence.” Talk to Larder now and he sees an urgent need for England to rediscover some of the ways of that all-conquering team of Johnson’s. That all changed when South Africa employed Jones on a consultancy basis in the run-up to the 2007 World Cup.Like Sinfield, Larder hails from Oldham and was head of PE at Saddleworth School but left before the ex-Rhinos captain began studying there in 1992. Larder is universally respected in both codes and his rugby league ideas revolutionised the concept of defence in union, leading to England’s World Cup triumph in 2003 under Sir Clive Woodward. He coached England at the 1995 World Cup, where they defeated Australia in the opening game at Wembley, but ultimately lost the World Cup final to the Kangaroos. Larder was coach of Great Britain on their disastrous 1996 tour of Fiji, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. The Lions did not win a match in New Zealand, and several players had to return home early to save costs.

At that time I was still naive on Union matters and I didn’t know the RU World Cup had only ever been won by Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. He played rugby union as a centre for Broughton Park, playing regularly in the first team by the age of 16. He later played for Manchester and Sale, and became known as a particularly good sevens player. Lions Record: Playing 1974 & 1977, Coaching 1989, 1993 & 1997. Toured South Africa on victorious 1974 tour playing 14 matches including 4 test matches. 1977 tour to New Zealand saw Geechs make 16 appearances for the Lions including all four test matches and the one off test against Fiji on the way home. Ian captained the Lions on two provincial matches in New Zealand. He also played in the Queens Silver Jubilee unofficial game against the Barbarians in 1977. Geechs Lions coaching career began in 1989 with the victorious tour to Australia winning 2-1. This was followed by a losing tour to New Zealand four years later and was then followed up with a successful tour to South Africa in 1997 resulting in a 2-1 win for the Lions.Wegrzyk was appointed by the RFU in 1992 and has run up a huge tally of matches as England’s top masseur. He is a veteran of Lions tours and this will be his third trip with the team. I texted him straight after the [Argentina] game and told him you won that game. The defence was absolutely awesome. I thought it was outstanding, I really did. It shook up Argentina to the extent they lost all their confidence.” It was incredible! Some people had amazing careers, but mine was so diverse, playing in all the divisions and in some amazing places. The Iron Curtain was still there, so we had the KGB following us about. The hotel wasn’t the best, but experiencing the culture was amazing. They put banquets on for us. McDonalds in Moscow had just opened and Geoff bought two huge bags of food and ate it cold for two days because he didn’t like the Russian food. We played three games, two against Fulham and one where we teamed up with Fulham and beat the Soviet Union.