Peter Tiffin writes for the West Wales Raiders. We will be featuring his article here each week.
After a trial first year the partnership between Swansea University & West Wales Raiders RL has now been officially put in place. The Raiders over the past six months have stepped in and helped with both on and off field management plus coaching sessions, over the trial period.
The previous committee member of the university side still had the control of team selection and all off-field decision making, the staff from the Raiders were slowly giving pointers throughout the season to try and help with all aspects of the club. This new partnership will see that the West Wales Raiders will now have the control for all scholarships, coaching matters and majority of the off-field management, the players will still have a subcommittee controlling all the social and funding for the university side.
West Wales Raiders owner Andrew Thorne added “ This is more great news for our club I know that Head Coach Jon Jon Baz Ellis and General Manager Peter Tiffin have been delivering coaching sessions and travelling every week with the Swansea University team all over the UK they have even brought in medical staff for both home and away fixtures which hasn’t happened before, this has given the university much needed support however now we know where we stand we can concentrate more and dedicate resources to improving Swansea Universities brand and team and give players a better experience in playing student rugby league”
Swansea University Sports Manager Sadie Mellalieu also added “The University and our student Rugby League club have really seen the benefits after just 1 year of working with the Raiders. Performance on the field has improved dramatically and the team are really enjoying their Rugby League. Hopefully this partnership will continue and we can look forward to achieving bigger and greater things for the club in the future. We would like to thank the West Wales Raiders for all their efforts so far. First task that the West-Wales Raiders will be looking to fulfil is the scholarships that are available for the rugby league side for next season, if you would like to find out more information on how you can gain scholarship and play rugby league for the university please contact: petertiffin@raidersrugbyleague.co.uk
