New Zealand Cricket has appointed six CoachForce Directors – one in each of its major cricket associations - courtesy of SPARC’s National Coaching Strategy and generous funding from Century Foundation Limited.
The full-time employment of this regional network of CoachForce Directors provides New Zealand Cricket with a delivery structure capable of providing cricket with better and more coaches to service all levels of the game.
They offer cricket the opportunity to recruit, train and retain coaches, and support and acknowledge their critical role with school, club and representative teams.
New Zealand Cricket has a clearly defined coach development pathway with appropriate coach education courses and accreditation procedures.
The CoachForce Directors will assist New Zealand Cricket implement a quality assurance system that will deliver quality coaches capable of meeting player needs through a balanced approach that emphasises both the ‘technical aspects’ - what to coach - with the way in which coaches are able to deliver their message - how to coach.
A squad of CoachForce Educators will also be trained to assist the CoachForce Directors deliver New Zealand Cricket’s coaching programme. In this respect Sport Taranaki has already appointed a CoachForce Officer to service the coaching needs of cricket within Taranaki.
SPARC’s CoachForce Manager Ross Bond welcomes the addition of cricket to the already existing national CoachForce programmes.
Alongside the local CoachForce programmes being run by 13 Regional Sports Trusts, the programme is continuing to gain momentum and provide a coaching framework critical to delivering the National Coaching Strategy.
New Zealand Cricket is very appreciative of the contribution of Century Foundation Limited to introducing the CoachForce initiative and looks to further collaborate with SPARC in seeking to ensure excellence in coaching practice within cricket throughout New Zealand.
