Cobar’s sporting coaches had the benefit of picking the brains of four high perfor-mance coaches from the NSW Institute of Sport (NSWIS) at a community coaching workshop at Tom Knight Memorial Oval last week.
Organised by the Far West Academy of Sport, the free coaching workshop was open to club coaches and volunteers from all sports with local rugby league, rugby union, league tag, motocross, swimming and martial arts coaches attending along with high school PE and primary school teachers.
NSWIS supports Australian athletes to be-come the world’s best by providing world class training environments for both athletes and coaches.
NSWIS’s senior coordinator of people devel-opment, Mike Girven, said it was a first for the coaching group to be able to get out and do a far west tour, which also took in Dubbo, Coonamble and Warren.
“We’ve never had the scope to go outside high performance before,” Mike said.
Also presenting with Mike at the workshop were Australian champion powerlifter and coach Najat Khoury, former schoolboys rugby league/rugby union champion Tom Livsey and sport scientist and physiologist Chris Yeomans.
Chris said they have a focus on the journey to the Brisbane Olympics in 2032 and NSWIS is currently looking at young athletes (now aged 12-16 years) who will be 22-26 years old by 2032 and who will potentially become our Olympic sporting heroes.
Between them the four coaches covered a range of topics including: athlete wellbeing, women in sport, sports science, elite sport pathways, challenges facing community sport coaches, how to develop your coaching craft, coaching development plans, different coach-ing philosophies and where to find useful resources.
Each drew on their own personal experiences as athletes and coaches and were happy to answer questions from those in attendance.
Newly appointed Cobar Roosterettes Ladies League Tag co-coach Brennah Aumua said she got a lot out of the coaching workshop.
“After attending the FWAS/NSWIS coach-ing workshop, I felt a lot more comfortable within my first time role as co-coach for the Roosterettes.
“They provided a great amount of infor-mation from all aspects for the process of learning/improving to be a good all-round sporting coach,” Brennah said.
“I will definitely be planning to incorporate their methods into our style of coaching this year.”
