Aberdeen Wanderers RFC kicked off their inaugural Leadership Programme last night hosting 20 players identified by their coaches who would benefit from some development in leadership skills. The group included Captains, Vice Captains and others identified as being potential leaders from the U15, U16, U18, Senior Development Squad and the Senior 1XV Squad.

Club President Guy Mullinor said “We identified that we put players into leadership positions but we don’t actually invest much time in developing them as leaders so this development programme aims to fill that gap. We’re very fortunate that we have a couple of people at the club who have considerable experience in leadership who agreed to develop and deliver the programme."

Fraser Burr and Marc Muir who will lead the sessions over the 3 sessions have developed a very interactive programme.

Fraser said “The inspiration for this initiative came from a course I recently attended where Guy Richardson of the SRU spoke very passionately of the need to develop players not just as players but also as leaders both on and off the pitch. I sat down with Marc and we pulled together the bones of a programme which we both agreed had to be interactive so the participants are fully engaged.

Following the first session last night, Marc said ”we’re really pleased with how the first session went. Having such a wide range of ages of participants from 14 to 28 makes it a real challenge to ensure all benefit from the sessions but I think we achieved that last night."

The programme will be delivered over 3 interactive sessions each lasting about 90 minutes and will cover areas of leadership;

• Defining leadership
• Exploring types of leadership
• Exploring the qualities and behaviours of good leaders (and bad ones)
• Discussing leadership in the rugby context
• Discussing motivating people
• Exploring why failure is important