Claire Tappin is the new coach developer for Mid Canterbury Netball. Photo Erin TaskerNetball and teaching have both played a big part in Claire Tappin’s life, and now she’s landed a job which combines the two just nicely.

Tappin is the new Mid Canterbury Netball coach developer, a part-time position which was previously absorbed by Mid Canterbury Netball’s netball development officer, but had become a standalone position thanks to some extra funding.

And Tappin is looking forward to really getting her teeth into it and finding out how she could best help Mid Canterbury’s netball coaches.

“My job is to grow and sustain coaching numbers for Mid Canterbury Netball, so pretty much finding out what our coaches need and want, and co-ordinating and delivering it,” Tappin said.

As a teacher, a former netballer who played to a high level growing up in the United Kingdom, and a coach herself, it is a role that is pretty much perfect for her.

“This is a role that I was kind of doing when I left the UK 20 years ago, I was delivering sessions to coaches within the UK,” Tappin said.

This new role would see her working with coaches from Year 7 and 8 teams right through to premier level coaches.

Mid Canterbury Netball already had 30 coaches on the Netball New Zealand coaching pathway after attending official modules, with half a dozen actively working towards qualifications and another half a dozen ready to take that step.

Historically though, the Mid Canterbury Netball Centre had a low uptake when it came to attending courses, so Tappin said it was important she looked at things differently, rather than just her or Mainland Netball’s Deb Johnson delivering modules.

Tappin had put together her first two sessions for coaches, and the first is set to take place this weekend. It is all about shooting and she’s brought former Silver Fern shooter Angela Mitchell and current Canterbury Tactix squad member Kate Lloyd in to take part.

The next weekend, on December 8 and 9, would include a session with Ashburton’s Andrea Cousins on player centred coaching.

Cousins was the assistant coach of this year’s Mainland team in the Beko Netball League, and her club team won the Christchurch premier grade.

Tappin herself had pretty good credentials too, though, as one of three coach developers from Mainland Netball invited to a Sport Canterbury regional training day recently. She also used to be Ashburton College’s specialist classroom teacher, which she said was the educational equivalent of a coach developer, and two years ago she attended a week-long national conference to develop her skills in that role.

As a player, Tappin was a formidable defender and a key player in the United A premier team for many years after moving to New Zealand 20 years ago. Now, she is the coach of that team.

Tappin played netball from a young age back in the UK and played for the England schools’ team.

As a defender, she knew the defence end of the court pretty much inside out, but when it came to things like shooting, there were things she could learn. It was a similar story with most coaches – every coach had something they could learn, and Tappin’s job was to find out what coaches wanted and make it happen.

“I actually think I get even more of a buzz from coaching coaches rather than players, because you give them the why behind things, the why you’re doing things and why it’s working,” Tappin said.

Coaching the coaches had a flow-on effect to players, which meant when you helped a coach grow you were helping the players to grow, too.

Tappin said in her role it was important she continued to coach too, so would be back with United A next season, and hopefully back for a second season coaching Mid Canterbury’s seniors.

Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 10 November 2018