I got my first coaching job at sixteen and from then on I was unstoppable

“I was only twelve when I realised that my dream of becoming a professional rugby player was starting to slip away and it reached a point where I had to face my coach to tell him that I wasn’t interested in playing anymore. I’d played rugby since I was eight and for me rugby was everything. I would wake up in the morning and start talking about it and I would go to sleep knowing that I’m going to dream of it too. My coach warned me. He said, ‘The worst thing you can do is to let yourself slip away doing nothing’. So he kept me involved by asking me to fill up water bottles and picking up cones and doing small managerial jobs. I was just helping the team really, but in the meantime, my interest shifted from playing to watching and understanding the game. I started to enjoy the managing role. From filling water bottles, I transitioned to recording matches and analysing them myself. I slowly became obsessed with finding out more about team management and performance analysis. I created a platform for coaches based on profile data which made me an asset to the coaching staff at the age of fifteen. I got my first coaching job at sixteen and from then on I was unstoppable. I’m eighteen and at the moment I’m managing a senior players team between the age of 18-35. At my age I know I have to be the smartest person in the room and I have to work twice as hard to gain a skill set that I didn’t get playing. My goal is to be one of the top coaches in the industry. It may sound like a faraway dream but I think big dreams are the ones worth working for. I’m only 18, but I was very lucky to find my passion early, this way I have plenty of time to create a legacy.”