Asia Rugby Hosts Inaugural World Rugby global pilot workshops for Leading Rugby

Late April 2020 – While most regions were still reeling from the impact of COVID-19 across the globe, Asia Rugby did a Region-wide survey to gather information on what Unions needed most for online Training & Education (T&E) courses.

Related Link: 2021 Training & Education Calander

The results from the survey saw Asia Ruby developing a series of bespoke online T&E workshops and webinars to mitigate the potential loss of face to face engagements due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The response from Asia Rugby Unions was overwhelming, and the requests ranged from technical workshops covering ACTIVATE, Coaching, Match Officiating, Medical and Strength & Conditioning and also High Performance, Governance & Sponsorship workshops. These were run from May to December 2020.

2nd December 2020
Asia Rugby together with World Rugby hosted 3 inaugural pilot workshops. These pilot sessions were also part of the World Rugby Global Pilot sessions for Leading Rugby and a soft introduction to the upcoming World Rugby Leading Rugby workshops in Q2 2021.

The workshops were:
a) Introduction to High-Performance Team (Components & Culture)
b) Introduction to Union Governance structures
c) Introduction to Sponsorship

All 3 workshops were run simultaneously on Wed 2nd December 2020, and the rationale was two-fold;

1. To encourage Unions to have individual staff leading these departments
2. To invite these particular staff to attend the workshops and upskill themselves.

A total of 33 participants from 16 different Asia Rugby Unions attended the 90-minute workshops and the feedback has been very positive.

Workshop Outcomes

There have been requests from participants from the High-Performance workshop for a second instalment of this in 2021 to help Unions build High-Performance structures in Asia. For the Sponsorship workshop, there were 3 great presentations by Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines and great sharing by the participants. There is already a request from one of the participants to help deliver the sponsorship module (more in depth) to other members from the particular Union.

In the Governance workshop, participants were excited about the change they could drive in their own unions but realised the challenges that lied ahead. They expressed an interest in attending more workshops and requested for more focus on certain topics of governance such as Strategic
Planning as an example.

Participants from all 3 workshops were also introduced to the Leading Rugby Workshop (Online version) that is due to be launched in Q2 2021, and most are keen to sign up for this.

the facilitators of the workshops were

High Performance
Mr. Gene Tong – World Rugby Regional Training Manager (Asia)
Mr. Benjamin Van Rooyen – Asia Rugby Development Manager

Sponsorship
Mr. Ridzal Saat – World Rugby, Rugby Services Manager (Asia)
Mr. Nasser Hussain (CEO Rugby India)

Governance
Mr. Ghaith Jalajel – Asia Rugby, Competitions Manager)
Mr. Anatoliy Shirov – Asia Rugby Development Manager Central Asia

Participant Quotes

Introduction to High-Performance Workshop

“The Introduction to High Performance workshop was a real success, it was a great opportunity to have key members from Asian Unions consolidate and discuss ideas on improving HP programs, very beneficial to all, Asia Rugby continues to rise.”
Jake Letts – CEO Philippines Rugby

Thank you for the Introduction to High Performance workshop. I learnt a lot from facilitators and other participants. At first I was a bit sceptical when there were no participants from Japan, Hong Kong and Korea considering they are the top countries in Asia, and I was hoping to learn from their experience.
It turned out that I learnt so much from Philippines, Qatar, India and other countries and that their models were more realistic and achievable in comparison to the top playing Unions in Asia.

Another great point is that we need to get all players to sit together and set the goals together. It is great to put our players as the centre of all the HP programs and empower them. As an ex national team player, I never felt like that and I will do that to our team. Looking forward to more workshops on High Performance.”
Fikri Al Azhar – Vice Chairman, Indonesia Rugby

Introduction to Sponsorship Workshop

Definitely an informative session and it’s great that we got to learn and share ideas with our fellow unions. Sponsorship has always been a challenge for developing unions like us especially during this COVID-19 period, but it’s great to see that there are ways to address it to ensure we manage and retain our sponsors properly. One area that struck me the most was the need to treat our sponsors as partners. Special thanks to Nasser Hussain (GM Rugby India) for his inputs regarding his experiences, their work as a union has always been phenomenal and it’s been really beneficial for us to learn from them.

I would also suggest for future workshops like this – to get the involvement of more established unions
(maybe Hong Kong or Japan?) so we can learn from them as well. Thanks again for this and well done to everyone involved!
Acee San Juan – Development Manager Philippines Rugby

The workshop provided a great platform for cross pollination of ideas and sharing of success stories. Lot to learn. It was an extremely informative, enjoyable & valuable session, and I look forward to putting some of the ideas I leaned into practice. Well done guys we should have more of these.
Salman Shaikh – Pakistan Rugby

‘Well, the workshop most certainly provided an excellent platform to learn from and exchange knowledge & experiences with other countries. The timing of it couldn’t be any better considering the unprecedented challenges caused by the pandemic (COVID-19). Really hope that it’ll be a continuous effort and a lot more of this in the future. Awesome stuff!” – AJ Haq, Malaysia Rugby

Introduction to Governance Workshop

“It was really good to have a Governance Workshop. Obviously, I was very useful and the way you hold it was very professional. I believe that we should hold these kind of workshops at least once in a quarter. It will help the individuals to groom as well as to implement new things in the Union’s Governance.” Moazzam Ali – GM Pakistan Rugby

“It was a great feeling to attend the workshop where we reviewed examples of different governing structures among Asian unions and also looked on best practices. Thanks to WR and AR for arranging this ”
Mahfizul Islam COE Bangladesh Rugby

World Rugby T&E