Combining sport and nutrition

Coaching innovation project Nutrition Rugby Girls (NRG) took place earlier this year, looking to introduce rugby to girls between 11-14, while also educating them about the importance of nutrition and healthy eating. We asked group member Daisy Player to give us an overview of her experience.

“Working with a young audience was challenging, especially when introducing concepts they weren’t aware of, such as realist evaluation. This particular idea is not recognised in the sports development field, so it was not the norm to our partners, either.

“Although the teacher we were working with had been to university himself, he hadn’t heard of realist evaluation, despite being a coach for many years. He was very interested in learning about it and gave us his full support, so we were very lucky to have him. I think he could see how much the girls enjoyed our sessions, so I think he was thinking about using some of our methods and implementing them into their own sessions, which is good.

“The CIP has been a challenging but enjoyable process. Applying the theory to practice was hard but rewarding; we’d not done it before so it was a daunting task but one that we learnt a lot from. We realised that it is possible to run a session without funding. We didn’t have any funding and were still able to run a session! The use of partners was enough to get our project up and running, and hopefully we’ve created a sustainable project.

“On a personal level, the process has helped me realise that I’d like to be a sports co-ordinator rather than an actual coach. It’s been a fun process, I’ve learnt a lot, and it’s definitely something I’ll be able to take into future jobs.”