Sussex Staff 2008-09

Sussex Girls' Rugby will be run by the following people this season:

Coaches

Matt Kemp, Head Coach U15 and U18 Girls (U18 Backs Coach)

Matt has extensive coaching experience in the women's and girls' game over a 12-year period. He has coached at the highest of levels in the club game, most recently in the Premiership (England's top Women's league) at Henley Hawks and latterly Wasps as well at at U17 and senior Regional level and Performance Development Academy/High Performance Academy, Harlequins Academy (Schools of Rugby) and England U20 trials. A qualified RFU Coach Educator, Matt has led the Sussex Girls' coaching team for three seasons.

Steve 'Granny' Grantham, U18 Assistant Coach

Granny continues to work with Sussex Girls' Rugby this season following a successful and popular entry in 2007. He spent several seasons as a spectator watching his daughter go through the ranks. Granny still plays every Saturday and coaches extensively at Crawley RFC. He has coached at Regional level.

Mike Titheradge, U15 Coach

Mike is welcomed to the Sussex coaching team this season, bringing his quiet, calmly enthusiastic coaching to bear on what could be a rowdy bunch of U15 players!

Robin Gale, U18 Coach

Robin joins the U18 squad from the U15s, with whom he had a fantastic, unbeaten season in 08-09. We look forward to his magic touch rubbing off on the U18 players!

Ross Waddington, U15 Coach

Identified as a promising coach and headhunted to join the Sussex team, Ross spent the 08-09 season working with the U18 squad gaining valuable experience which he now will transfer to the U15 squad for 09-10.

Hayley Kemp, U15 Coach

Now returned from becoming a mummy, Hayley will bring her passion, intensity and top-level playing experience to the U15 squad.

Sarah Wakeford, U15 Coach

A PE teacher by trade, Sarah joins the coaching team on a regular basis after assisting at several summer coaching sessions. She has played Premiership rugby at Richmond, represented the South region and experienced Super 4 rugby (England trials) before taking the first steps into coaching.

Managers and Physio

Wendy Harwood, U15 Manager

Familiar with Sussex rugby for several seasons,2008 is Wendy's first year as a squad manager and she's taken the U15 job and players by storm. Her daughter is a member of the U15 squad.

Claire Byrne, U18 Manager

Claire came on board as a manager in the 2007 season. She has transformed the way the U15 and now U18 squads are managed with her frighteningly effective organisation skills, her enthusiasm and desire to do the best for the players. Her daughter is a member of the U18 squad.

Catrin Evison, Sussex Physio

Recently joining the management team of the two squads, Catrin brings enthusiasm and expertise to the job, providing rehab advice to injured players, strapping to those who require it, treatment at training sessions and pitch-side services at matches and training.

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Following a training session, Sussex took on visitors Kent in an early-season shake-down at Christ's Hospital.

Sussex U18 v Kent U18

Both squads had a significant number of new players, whether new to Kent or Sussex rugby or simply making the transition from U15 to U18 rugby, so the respective coaching teams, keen to give all their players opportunities, agreed to play the match in quarters rather than halves, thus allowing greater scope for looking at different combinations.

With Kent starting strongly, it looked as though the match would follow the familiar pattern, that of Kent establishing a firm grip on the match while Sussex struggle to throw them off, scoring a try in the process but still ending up as spirited losers. However the Sussex U18 squad weren't prepared to follow this well-trodden path.

Those U18s who remain from previous seasons are far better equipped to play good rugby, are physically more dominant and mentally stronger and, bolstered by a raft of talented new players who joined the U18 squad from last season's outstanding U15 squad, things were destined to be closer than had been the case at U18 level for many seasons.

The story of the first two quarters of the match was characterised by the trading of tries between the two determined but tactically-distant teams. Kent were happy to rely on their physical and aggressive forward pack to provide the bulk of their tries while Sussex, with whirlwind back-rowers Alex Finch and off-colour Cassie Larcombe prominent, met Kent head-on and provided some quality ball to their backs, among whom Amy Wilson Hardy and in particular Deborah Harwood shone brightly. Indeed, with 4 tries in the game, one could be forgiven for mistaking Harwood for a back line in her own right!

With Sussex making minimal changes in the first two quarters and match captain Amy Grantham doing a great stand-in job at full-back, Sussex began to get used to each other. As new combinations grew stronger, Sussex began to edge in front of Kent and throughout the second half, while never dominating the game, were comfortably the more dangerous team with ball-in-hand. Kent continued to threaten with their sheer physicality and the organisation of their forwards, who numbered three TDG players in the back row alone.

Sussex's rugby was characterised by a general determination to keep the ball alive and away from Kent, but inexperience and an occasional lack of composure meant that sometimes, Sussex were lateral and looked panicky. However the class of players such as Yas Eager and Megan Laville meant that Sussex were quickly able to clear up messy ball and establishmomentum once more.

Players joining the U18 squad from last season's U15s again established themselves effectively with Rachel Titheradge hardly missing a tackle despite being outsized by Kent's back row and Mary Cunningham posing an attacking threat on the wing, while Zoe Joslin did sterling work in her first U18 game, helping Sussex gain parity in the scrums; Mel Ruffell continues to improve at scrum-half and the battle between Mel and the two 'veteran'scrum-halves, Amy Grantham and Beth Coleman, will be interesting to watch. It was also pleasing to see players such as Megan Rees (fly-half) and Beth Coleman (scrum-half) asserting a measure of control at half-back and it will have come as no surprise to anyone who has met her that Bex Salmon made an appreciable impact both at scrum-time and in the vocal stakes.

Overall, the coaching team hardly had a right to expect a better start to the season and those girls who represented the county did a great job, giving themselves and the rest of the squad a great platform to build on before their next game, away to Surrey at Warlingham on 16th October.

• 15. Amy Grantham (c)
• 14. Mary Cunningham
• 13. Deborah Harwood
• 12. Amy Wilson Hardy
• 11. Georgia Gray
• 10. Megan Rees
• 9. Beth Coleman
• 1. Zoe Joslin
• 2. Sereena Peppard
• 3. Megan Laville
• 4. Bex Salmon
• 5. Yas Eager
• 6. Rachel Titheradge
• 7. Alex Finch
• 8. Nicole Meed
• 16. Cassie Larcombe
• 17. Liv Davis
• 18. Mel Ruffell

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Following trials at Brighton RFC on 13th September, the players listed below have been invited to join the U15 squad this season:

• Players' Names

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Following trials at Brighton RFC on 13th September, the players listed below have been invited to join the U18 squad this season:

• Players' Names

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Selection of sports teams is often an involved and stressful process. Getting responses from players is usually far from straightforward and where teenage girls are concerned the difficulties are exacerbated! However mobile phones make life easier so we plan to tap into the teenage fascination with them and use a system called Teamer to select our teams and check availability.

Teamer www.teamer.net means that we can send out texts and emails to players with a few mouse clicks, saving managers hours in phone calls and emails and ££££ in phone bills, as it's free! Players will be registered on Teamer and an email and text sent to the registered phone number and email address asking them to confirm their registration. Contact details remain secure and cannot be accessed by anyone other than the coaching and management team.

Once registered, players will receive a text and email from the website a few days before a training session or match asking them to confirm their availability. Once they've done this they should then check this website to see the final team selection.

Receiving and replying to emails from Teamer is totally free; receiving texts is totally free (and doesn't cost the County either) and replying to texts will cost the same as the usual text-message rate on your mobile.

If you're having difficulty logging in to Teamer then let us know and we'll work to sort the problem.

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