Rocking it with The ECB
- by The Magic Stig
- •
- 09 May, 2019
Rusty swaps a wand for a bat!

Thanks to Diana Lewis, Women's National Talent Manager for the ECB...
Anyone for Cricket?
Firstly, a massive thank you to Rusty for a day’s worth of magic at the National Cricket Performance Centre in Loughborough as part of our Regional Development Centre Head Coach gatherings. Looking at our world through a different lens led to some great conversation, debate and sharing of ideas for us to continue to shape and challenge our thinking around principles of player development and how we shape our environments to deliver on those principles.
We had a theme of ‘working towards’ in contrast to ‘unpicking’ in terms of our coaching. We talked of encouraging competitiveness, creating pressure in a constructive way, how we might cause chaos (ever tried asking a player to use someone else’s bat before they head to the crease? –thanks to Hockey for this gem!), secret missions, stretching players (not literally) at and in between sessions and being mindful of how we best use language in terms of giving feedback and using it to both challenge as well as support players.
Questions asked in terms of provoking our practice;
Are we delivering experiences or events?
How much time do we give ALL players?
Do we always stand in the same place, if we moved, might it offer us some fresh thinking/perspective?
How well do we relate to the world our players live in and design our practice around it?
Do we include injured players in our sessions effectively?
Have we asked past players what would have helped them if they had their time again?
Magic moment of the day - the ‘wobble zone’ (if you know you know!).
A fab day and if Carlsberg ran Coaching Days then the Magic Academy would most definitely be present – thanks Rusty!

Coaches contributing include Stuart Lancaster, Eddie Jones, Giselle Mather, Jared Payne, Geoff Parling, Danielle 'Nolli' Waterman, Ian Peel & Joe El Abd to name but a few!
Making the most of their lockdown experience, Rusty and Fletch between podcasts and webinars have designed this latest resource to support Wizards in developing skilful adaptable players and teams. The tactical content will centre around challenges based on Scrum, Lineout, Transition, Attack, Defence, Kick Off, and Huddles.
With the cards themed around 'tactical', Vanessa at Fuzzbox Design has rocked it with a new look and new feel to the Cards .We have maintained the 'never tear' material so that they are completely weather-proof (Stig has tested them in the washing machine).
We know coaches are going to love these and have made them available for pre order now with expected delivery from September
Order yours now by visiting the online store here

Canada, we loved you, the whole experience was emotional!!!
1. What was the most challenging part of training?