Premier Rugby
SAINTS & Moulton Marching on
The Saints Academy has been forging closer links with official partner Moulton College in their second year of partnership. Twelve members of the Junior Saints Academy are students at the College, which received the RFU’s first Beacon College Award earlier this year. One of the 12 players, full back Charlie Sadler, made his Wanderers debut in the Guinness ‘A’ League win over Bristol. With the College now receiving four sessions of coaching per week from Ali Hepher and Grant Seely the other 11 youngsters, all aged between 16 and 18, will have the opportunity to develop their rugby further. Moulton College remains the host of one of the Saints’ Elite Player Development Groups, and under Director of Rugby Jon Phillips the college will be playing fixtures against other Premiership partner colleges as well as making its bow in the Daily Mail Under-18 Cup. All of this experience is important in the development of a young player, says Saints Academy coach Grant Seely. “Young players need opportunities to show how good they are and at Moulton they can do just that,” he says. “The increased contact time with the players is beneficial to their development. We get to see how the youngsters respond to guidance and whether they put into practice in a game what they have worked on in training. The students are also lucky to be working with Jon Phillips, who has plenty of experience of professional rugby. “Having a partnership like ours with Moulton College is important in a player’s development as a person as well. Getting an education is very important and we encourage all of our players to take as much from the college experience as they can.” The Northampton Saints Community Department is also celebrating its best series of summer coaching courses ever. During the six weeks nearly 1,000 children aged between 7 and 18 received coaching at one of the eight courses run by the department, over half of which were sold out. The Saints would like to thank Banbury, St Ives, Olney and Wellingborough rugby clubs, Bedford School and the British Army’s Bassingbourn Barracks for their help and support during the summer.
