26 January 2012 (11:32) - The Sharks’ newly-developed High Performance Programme is centred around position-specific coaching of young players exposed to coaches from schools to clubs, representative age group level, through to Vodacom Cup, Absa Currie Cup, Vodacom Super Rugby, International level and ex-players.

A huge amount of intellectual capital has been assembled to make this initiative a success over the short, medium and long term future.

Exciting young local talent will be given the opportunity of receiving coaching from the best on offer with the aim of the High Performance Programme to get the message from The Sharks right down through the age group levels to Under 16s, and from The Academy to the clubs, schools and various coaches so that everyone sings from the same hymn sheet.

Swys de Bruin who has been appointed as Sharks High Performance Coach of this new exciting initiative explains: “This is a Sharks (Pty) Initiative, I will be assisted by Garth Giles with on-field matters while Piet Strydom will assist with administrative matters. Chester Koyana will act as my right hand man.”

The programme affords The Sharks the opportunity to work with players of a particular position across all the age groups, learning from The Sharks.

“It is mainly position-specific,” he stresses. “If we identify five things a centre should be able to do to be a good centre, we will focus on them. We will work with the elite players and if they are needed at the highest level, then they will understand the fundamentals of what is required of them.”

This is a process that will see results over the long term and in some cases, within a year.

“The exciting thing for me is the number of coaches we will be using,” he adds. “There will be one coach from each club, with the school coaches taking that information back to their respective schools. We’ve centralised the whole coaching wheel around the High Performance Programme.

“I know it will work because we all need to be on the same page - which we will. What is also pleasing is that our leadership – Brian van Zyl, Rudolf Straeuli and John Plumtree - are committed to the programme, their support is 100% behind it.

“This is a good coaching bridge between The Sharks and the clubs and schools, where the best schoolboy players are identified and work with our coaches, where they are exposed to our facilities and the way we do things here.”