As Adam Bowman and his squad enter the third week of their pre-season training programme, the Head Coach declared himself ‘pleased’ with the efforts and progress made by his young players. After finishing seventh in London South 1 during their maiden season, Bowman and his squad are looking to use the experience of last season to make improvements and ensure that they don’t stand still.
‘We have talked briefly about goals for this season but now is the time to get down to the hard work and ensure we are in the best possible shape when the league campaign kicks off in September’ says Bowman. ‘We changed a hell of a lot throughout last season to put foundations in place for us to build and have long term sustainable growth and success and unless you were close to the squad, you might not have seen it.’
Leader of the Pack. Stuart Coleman will once again captain the 1st XV this year. Photo Credit: David Purday
‘The new foundations are now in place, and now as a coaching team it is all about driving consistency in our performances and ensuring we continue to improve what we do and how we do it. I’m delighted that we have kept the same coaching, medical and strength and conditioning group together, who will no doubt have learned so much coming off the back of last season. We really invested heavily in the coaching structure last year, with five coaches and that enables us to ensure we provide a diverse training schedule for the players, so that they are not doing the same thing week in, week out – across a long season, that is vitally important.’
Loyal Support. Adam Bowman and his Squad are working hard to ensure they can put on performances worthy of their loyal support. Photo Credit: David Purday
Oaks have confirmed pre-season fixtures against Regional Premier League (formerly National 3 South) opposition in the form of Westcombe Park and Guildford. Those matches, against opponents that are a league higher than Oaks, will give Bowman and his staff the opportunity to see how the players have reacted to the rigors of three sessions a week and also provide supporters the opportunity to see some new and returning faces in the squad. Bowman is particularly excited about the returning contingent of University students, who will be all too familiar with Bowman’s coaching style and game play having played under him during his time as Academy Head Coach.
‘The pre-season fixtures will give us a chance to run through our patterns that we have been working on and also enable us to try various combinations in different positions against quality opposition. It’s been great to see so many returning faces and builds upon the number of former Academy players we had last year. I think at one point we had 11 former academy players in a 1st XV fixture so to have more coming back in is really exciting and makes the work the Club have done to build the Academy so worthwhile. We also have some new faces from the local area who are also quality additions so at the moment I feel we have great quality across the squad. It’s now down to us as a coaching group to get the best out of them.’
The Sevenoaks RFC Senior Squad continue their pre-season training throughout July and August on Tuesday and Thursday nights at Sevenoaks School playing fields from 7.25pm and Saturday mornings, again at Sevenoaks School playing fields, from 9.25am.