I hopped off the plane in Wellington, New Zealand in September 2011 feeling relieved to be home. After being away for six months living and coaching cricket in Holland it was a good feeling to get back to the wind, rain, hills and Kiwi culture. I had been working abroad for the Ajax cricket club in a small University city called Leiden, in South Holland.

My first coaching experience in Holland was coaching a group of sixty teenagers at a local school who knew very little about cricket. I wasn’t to bothered about this and did my usual planning of how I would run the hour-long session.

Just as I was about to kick off the session I was told by the teacher they don’t really understand English that well…. This threw me slightly.

Somehow, I got through the session with my demonstrations and setting up some basic modified games that were easily run without too many verbal instructions. Line cricket, non-stop cricket and rounders, as well as a running between the wickets game were all used.

This first experience taught me to always have other plans up your sleeve. When good coaches get these types of challenges thrown at them they have to find a way to adapt as you have no other choice.

You can either give up or you can get through the tough situation by remaining calm and level headed. This was a good lesson learnt.

Another experience I had was when I was asked to coordinate a skills session for approximately 300 kids from the local football club. These kids were not cricketers so this was a great opportunity for them to sample the game and hopefully fall in love with it. This time around I had at my disposal about 15 coaches so it was more about being well organised. We started off having kids at the 15 stations that we had set up, then blowing a whistle to signal when they needed to move to the next station. This needed to be short, sharp, engaging and flow seamlessly, which it did. I was pleased to get through this as it required significant planning and highlighted the importance of it for sessions to run well.

My main role at the club was coaching of the senior teams. This is what I really enjoyed as I had a chance to up-skill players and make them better. The players were all keen to improve and put in the hard yards so the improvements in individuals were quite big.

As much as I focused on my usual fundamentals as a coach of planning and communication my other big focus while in Holland was on skill acquisition.

I wanted these players to get better at the basics of the game as this would put them in a good position moving forward as players. It was not always easy doing this in a team environment so it required many individual sessions to help them improve these skills.

I loved my time in Holland with the club and players as they were so accommodating and had real passion for the game.

It was a tough experience personally being away from all the things I love about home but by getting through it I found out a lot about myself.

1.I am hungry and willing to do what it takes to reach the top

2. I have resilience and an ability to get threw a tough situation without my performance or attitude being compromised

3. Being in an uncomfortable position or environment gives me the best opportunity to learn and get better from that experience

These were all important learning’s to get out of the trip and they would put me in a good space for when I was faced with similar challenges in the future. For now, its back home in Wellington and time to get a job………….

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