The director of rugby at Sedbergh, one of the top rugby-playing schools in Britain, is enjoying his time working with Bermuda’s up-and-coming talent.

Simon Mulholland arrived on Sunday alongside James Coulton, a coach at Sedbergh, and is working with the local quartet of outgoing national coach Jamie Barnwell, Dzuri Gill, David Lunn and Chris Naylor in three days of training sessions, which end today.

The initiative, a collaboration with Beach Education director Neil Speight, has been going on for more than a decade and has resulted in the island’s budding sportspersons securing scholarships to Sedbergh, a boarding school in Cumbria, North West England.

Zeri Tomlinson, Brianna Ray, Cameron Jeffers, Logan Jones, and Amari Ebbin have all benefited from the programme.

“It’s been brilliant coming to Bermuda and coaching the young rugby players, both boys and girls,’’ Mulholland said.

“We've had a great time and it’s just so nice to see the smiles on faces and the enjoyment that they’re having. It’s a real pleasure and honour to be here.

“I’ve been coming here for the last five or six years alongside a cricket coach who was with us.

“This year I’ve been lucky enough to have James Coulton, who is a staff member and who played for Bermuda. He’s helping me with these courses and these camps this week, and it’s just great to be out here coaching in Bermuda. We love it.”

Giving an assessment of the youngsters he has been working with, the New Zealand-born Mulholland highlighted their enthusiasm for the sport.

“They are really great children and really talented,’’ he told The Royal Gazette. “They love running with the ball in space, using footwork.

“They’re a little bit raw but that’s probably a by-product of not having as many sessions or maybe fixtures on a week-to-week basis. There’s just so much potential here and it’s so nice to see them enjoying, playing rugby.”

Mulholland met with parents of students who are exploring the scholarship route on Monday night.

“There are scholarships available for the right person,’’ Mulholland said.

“We’re a full boarding school and we have a full weekend programme. A lot of people who live overseas love that aspect of us.

“We start school in September and welcome new enrolment. We’re hoping going forward that we can have a really strong relationship with Bermuda. We’ve a long list of talented Bermudian sportsmen and women, so we’re just hoping to keep that going.

“There’s some talent identification from us and we have lots of meetings with prospective parents to see if they want to send their children to Sedbergh.

“At the moment we have about six to eight children from Bermuda. They’re just fantastic and we love what they add to the school. They come from great backgrounds and we really enjoy having them at Sedbergh.”

Coulton, whose stay in Bermuda was cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic, is excited to coach the island’s future stars.

“It’s really good actually to support the Beyond Rugby Programme as I only saw these guys at tournaments when I lived here before,” Coulton said.

“Now it’s good to go into these schools and get some coaching with these guys, look at their skills set and see what they've been coached before.

“They’re really athletic, they’re keen to run around and have fun. The main thing for us is to make sure they have some fun while learning some stuff.”

Na-shea Symonds, 11, of Sandys Secondary Middle School, was taught the proper tackling techniques at the session on Tuesday.

“I learnt how to tackle properly, how to fall properly and how to get up and go from there,’’ Symonds said.

“It was my first time playing rugby and I want to continue playing the sport.”

Warwick Academy’s Aidan Taylor really enjoyed working with the coaches and the ten-year-old has been playing rugby for seven years.

“We did a lot of drills and did tackling at the end,’’ Taylor said.

“The coaches are really good and taught us about the ways of falling, tackling, running and other stuff.

“They taught us how to do things better and better over time and advised us to keep practising to get better.”

Aaron Lee, 14, from Somersfield Academy, picked up some new skills.

“It was great working with the coaches, it was different stuff from what we usually do at school,’’ he said.

“We don’t really play rugby, we just started on Thursdays at school. I hadn’t done tackling before and this was the first time that I've done it, so that was good.”