Firebirds Programme ensures future success

Centre of Dental Excellence Future Firebirds Programme ensures future success for Wellington

The Centre of Dental Excellence Future Firebirds Programme begins today at Westpac Stadium for Wellington’s young elite cricketers. It is a thorough and integrated high performance programme designed to greatly assist Wellington’s young players become high quality Wellington Firebirds and BLACKCAPS.

The programme consists of 7 stages beginning on July 20 and ending in February 2010 once national youth tournaments and an individual review process is complete.

The programme takes a holistic approach to the development of Wellington’s top young cricketers. It acknowledges that skill development is only part of what makes a successful cricketer – other components included are game sense training, mental skills development, physical fitness, and a detailed individual review process for further development.

Christie van Dyk, Cricket Wellington Elite Player Coach and designer of the programme, says “One of the programme’s key strengths is its vertical integration of players according to their discipline. This gives players the opportunity to learn from older more experienced cricketers while increasing training intensity and work ethic. This type of programme also allows coaches to develop all disciplines of the game in a specialist manner”.

The programme utilises First-Class coaches Shane Deitz (Firebirds’ Network Coach and ex-South Australian cricketer) and Christie van Dyk (Firebirds’ Elite Player Coach) as well as Matthew Bell (Firebird’s captain and partner in fitness company XLR8), Andrew Lamb (Wellington Firebirds’ opening bowler), Michael Burns (Wellington Firebirds’ opening bowler) and other Wellington qualified coaches.

The Centre of Dental Excellence, sponsor of the programme, is a strong supporter of cricket, and in particular young cricketers, in Wellington. As well as supporting the Future Firebirds programme, Centre of Dental Excellence owner Dr Lallit Rajpal also sponsored the Centre of Dental Excellence Rookie Contract Programme last season which provided for three very promising young cricketers in Wellington – Malaesaili Tugaga, James Widerstrom, and Joe Austin-Smellie. Tugaga went on to make his Firebirds debut last season.

Dr Rajpal has recently extended his support beyond cricket to other promising young sportsman through his sports management company Eye Talent www.eyetalent.co.nz . In providing a holistic support network to young players from financial support, to mentoring, to legal and accounting assistance they support some of Wellington’s best young sports people in making the transition towards professional sport. Dr Rajpal hopes his support of the Centre of Dental Excellence Future Firebirds programme will help ensure the success of the individuals and Firebirds over the next decade.

The programme consists of seven stages:

Stage 1. Vertical integration programme – skill development. This means players are vertically integrated (age) according to their specialty i.e. all batsmen are aligned in a group. Cutting-edge technology and video analysis will be used as well as first class skills-based equipment.

Stage 2. Indoor squad training – players return to their age group squads to further hone their skills and design individual and team game plans. Particular attention is given to performing under pressure.

Stage 3. Trials and indoor squad training – this includes a number of trial games as well as fitness testing. An agreed level of fitness is mandatory for continued eligibility in the programme.

Stage 4. Team game sense, open wicket training, indoor squad training – game sense training focuses on strategic decisions in game situations.

Stage 5. Warm up games and indoor squad training

Stage 6. National Youth Tournaments

Stage 7. Individual Review Process – all individual performances are reviewed and development plans are set for cricketer’s future development.

For further information contact:

Christie van Dyk, Future Firebirds programme director, Cricket Wellington
Phone (04) 460 9374 or email c.vandyk@firebirds.co.nz

Gavin Larsen, CEO, Cricket Wellington
Phone (04) 8012856 or email gavin.larsen@firebirds.co.nz

ENDS

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