| COMMUNITY COACHING |


11


‘The goal for this year is to win the Under 16s championships – that would be the cherry on the cake!’


Personal and professional development has always been important for Lilley, something he reflects on before starting his Level 3 Coaching Certificate with Leeds Rhinos in a few weeks’ time.


‘I’m looking forward to starting my, Level 3, it is more about the professional game but there will be things I can bring back to Stanningley,’ he said. ‘I’m the type of person who wants to constantly develop and I would go to any workshop.


‘I think a lot of that has gone into my coaching. Anytime a workshop was available, I would be on it, and I would hear other coaches commenting on things and think “I’ve been doing that for years”.


‘I am lucky because Jamie Jones-Buchanan played and coached here and I probably owe a little bit of what I learnt to him.


‘I would watch him in action with the open-age team, take those ideas and condense them down for Under 9s and Under 8s. He was bringing stuff from Super League to amateur level and I was taking it back to the juniors and condensing it for them to use.


His older son, Tomas, had been playing for a few years when Lilley himself was still playing in open age, but it was with Jordan that


he started to think more seriously about coaching and completed his Level 1 Coaching Certificate when Jordan was in the Under 8s.


At the time, there was just one coach for a group too large to be considered safe under the supervision of one adult. So, to allow the children to play, teams were split into two separate groups with Lilley taking on more involvement. The kids dubbed their newly divided teams the Cougars and the Cubs, a nickname which Lilley’s boys, the Cougars, have kept to this day.


Currently coaching the Under 16s, the nucleus of the team has been the same for 11 years, and the team has seen great results through Lilley and the coaching team at Stanningley, with 12 of 20 boys being scouted for scholarships last season.


‘I had a quality side, they were coached by me and by others here. We do have a good coaching team,’ he said ‘From about age 9, I was developing these kids to be in fruition by the time they were 14, and this is paying dividends. We’ve won pretty much every bit of silverware available in this region for this age division.


‘The younger they are the shorter their concentration span is, so everything I have done is designed around keeping it short’ added Lilley.


Lilley freely admits that his ultimate goal is to coach the first team at a club where he cut his teeth, but for the time being this well-regarded junior coach is happy to share the limelight with the team around him.


‘I’ve been lucky as I have always had people around to help. Even though I have always been a head coach, there have always been assistants, so we can split the kids into smaller groups to rotate different drills and keep it fun and fresh for them.


‘That’s what it’s all about. Making sure the kids have fun and enjoy themselves playing Rugby League.’


Nathan Dickinson of the open-age team has come through the ranks


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