Expectations are enormous for the new men’s head coach at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club to duplicate last year’s historic provincial honours.
Si Culley, an Englishman from Newcastle, arrived at SARFC to guide the fantastic firsts – Labatt’s Cup premier division championships the last two years –and the terrific thirds, winners of the third division Digby Dinnie Cup for the first time in 18 years to the provincial finals for more hardware.
“There is a bit of pressure. Everyone wants to see you do it again and there is certainly the potential to do it again and that’s what we want to aim for,” Culley told the Gazette prior to Tuesday’s training session. “You’ve just got to do the best job that you can and I would like to think that we can do something special.”
Culley, 35, is the fifth head coach since SARFC rejoined the Alberta Cup premier ranks after capturing the 2007 Lor-Ann Cup second division provincial crown, kicking off an amazing run of seven trips to the premier final in eight years by the first 15, highlighted by the first Labatt’s Cup in club history in 2010 (13-2 record) with Chal Smyth at the controls and provincial titles in 2014 (14-1) with Jo Hull at the helm and last year (14-2-1) with player/coach Clay Panga running the show.
“I’ve already seen enough to know that we’ll be able to play as Jo and Clay got them playing. They’ve been scoring a lot of points and they’re playing well. You don’t fix what’s not broken so we’ll just carry on building on the strong foundations and hopefully we carry on developing,” Culley said.
The third 15 were reborn last year after a brief three-match stint in 2013 and during the season 45 players dressed for duty as the Visser Cup champions in the Edmonton Rugby Union and provincial winners finished 12-3.
“I’ve always been aware of the club’s success,” said Culley, who received scouting reports from a buddy who immigrated to Edmonton and has played against SARFC.
Culley is also a coaching disciple of Hull, head coach and performance manager of the Hong Kong national women’s 15 team, through the Darlington Mowden Park Sharks RFC and has strong links to Bourmouth RFC, a pipeline of talent for SARFC over the years that has produced such standouts as Karim Lynch, Adam Higgins and Antony Fitch.
“I did a fair bit of research. I saw a few of last year’s games (on video) so I’ve got a really good idea of how the shape of the game is out here,” said Culley.
He played youth rugby in Sussex and basically hung up the boots after university.
“I was the same size as a 14 year old as I am now,” said the former back row who later switched to wing.
Culley’s coaching background includes a year at a boys’ boarding school in Australia, as well as the Sharks and Northumbria University, where he was in charge of five teams, men and women, since 2012 after serving as the development manager for a year.
“I’ve had a bit of itchy feet in the last few years and felt that it was time to try something aboard. This opportunity came up while I was over here snowboarding in the new year. I became aware of it so I had a chat with them and I will see where it goes,” Culley said. “I’m always looking for new challenges and something to keep me sharp.”
Culley described his coaching style as “slightly adaptive but it all revolves around high tempo and decision making, getting the players to take a bit of responsibility and make a decision.”
He’s ready to embrace the “different challenge.”
“You’ve got guys who are full Canadian internationals and at the training sessions you might have an ex-athlete or an ex-footballer or hockey player who comes along and wants to give it a bash and has got tremendous talent so you’ve got to be careful how you construct your language. You can’t make an assumption that people have that 15 years of jargon under their belt. The men’s coaching I’ve done back home recently, 99.9 per cent of the players had a really long rugby history. Here, it’s more of a blank canvas sometimes and that’s nice to work with.”
Outdoor training has gradually been ramped up as the turnout of numbers continues to grow.
“A few of the first div boys are either in B.C. or on holidays but it’s been really good. We’re still looking at one or two options around imports and recruitment but the guys we’ve had are training really well. The work ethic is fantastic. They’re really buying into what I want to do and that’s worth its weight in gold.”
League play kicks off May 4, with SARFC hosting the Nor’Westers in the U21 ERU fixtures.
The May 14 triple-header at the Nor’Westers features the firsts and thirds against the host club, plus the women’s ERU division one team against Crude/West.
The Alberta Cup premier lid-lifter is a rematch of last year’s physically-draining 28-19 tussle for the Ken Ann Cup, the third in a row for the firsts and the seventh in eight consecutive appearances in the north final.
The Nor’Westers are the toughest foes for the firsts to conquer in the north.
“I can’t wait. It will be good but you don’t want to get caught up in emotions. The first game of the season you want to have a solid start and make sure you get your basics right because we’re building a platform,” Culley said. “Early in the season is really important so that you actually know the basics and you get those foundations right. I will be looking for strong set piece, we’ll want to have our defence looking pretty nice and we want to have the basic structure in our attacking play in place so we know what we’re going to and where we’re going to do it.”
SCRUM BALLS: The status of Khaleb Whitehurst, the ERU senior men’s player of the year and SARFC premier men’s MVP, is unclear for the season opener. The Australian import from the Cobar Camels in New South Wales recently relocated to Victoria after working as a snowmaker at Sunshine Village. The hard-nosed flanker was moved into the centres for the playoffs and his try in 69th minute was the knockout punch that floored the Nor’Westers.
The thirds were recognized at the ERU awards banquet as the McGee Trophy recipients as the most sportsmanlike team in 2015.
The Spitting Llamas, a touring team formed about 12 years ago of past and present SARFC players, has been confirmed for the Edmonton Rugbyfest, May 20 to 22 at Ellerslie Rugby Park.
