The South Wales Raiders have been the only American football team in Wales for 12 years and this off season, things are getting shaken up in the organisation.
After the prolonged period of unknown during the pandemic, most organisations across all sports have taken a huge hit. Before finally returning back to the traditional format in 2022, the South Wales Warriors are making changes, to come out the other side with a new and improved side.
The organisation addressed this when saying, “Following the Pandemic over the last year or so we’ve had a turnover within our club and indeed our coaching staff. Our long term head coach Geraint Roberts stepped down at the end of 2020 before our current head Coach Dean Jackson took over at the start of 2021.”
“We are hoping that by getting extra coaches on board at the club we will be able to recruit more players and spread the current coaches workload out so they don’t have to focus on multiple positional groups.”
This is after standard competition had been put on hold over the pandemic to allow for a more NFL-like structure to be put in place as there is time to allow the transition to take place, hoping for a more professional standard in preparation and results.
“Positional wise we are looking for coaches for some of the key positional groups from Defensive Back, Defensive Line and Running Back. Luckily we have a strong core team but it’s always handy to have extra coaches to help out in practice and on game day.”
Having all this in place come the new season will give the organisation a better approach not only for the team but for the individual players themselves, trying to make a step up and be seen in a sport that has little attention in comparison to others.
“We had an encouraging 3-3 record in our “Return to Football” season this year and we are hoping that we can take the positives and negatives from that into this offseason ahead of 2022 when we return to Division One play and reach the playoffs.”
Only time will tell to see how much of a difference this restructure makes when the season will begin next April if all continues to go to plan. A very intriguing season awaits.
Sports Insider by Gerren Scapens 