Cana­di­an Robin Mac­Dow­ell is the new Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor of the Women's High Per­for­mance rug­by pro­gramme in T&T.

The T&T Rug­by Foot­ball Union, un­der new pres­i­dent Maria Thomas ap­point­ed Mac­Dow­ell to the Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor of Women’s High Per­for­mance. The Amer­i­can spear­head­ed a suc­cess­ful vis­it re­cent­ly that fo­cussed on com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment strate­gies and coach­ing work­shops in No­vem­ber 2021.

Since that time he has en­gaged vir­tu­al­ly with the women’s pro­gramme with a fo­cus on prepar­ing the se­nior team for the Rug­by Amer­i­c­as North (RAN) 7s com­pe­ti­tion.

A re­lease from the TTR­FU yes­ter­day ex­plained that in ad­di­tion to vir­tu­al meet­ings with the tech­ni­cal team and ath­letes, Mac­Dow­ell has opened doors for in­ter­na­tion­al train­ing camp op­por­tu­ni­ties for both the women’s and men’s pro­grammes.

“I am thrilled to join and con­tribute to the mo­men­tum the TTRU is build­ing from grass­roots to high per­for­mance across T&T, which was ev­i­dent dur­ing my re­cent de­vel­op­ment trip to both is­lands. Coach­ing against the T&T Na­tion­al team for a num­ber of years, en­abled me to ob­serve the tal­ent of T&T ath­letes from a unique per­spec­tive.

I see a tremen­dous amount of po­ten­tial, pas­sion, and de­sire among the women’s and men’s pro­grammes. I am look­ing for­ward to work­ing along­side Lar­ry Mendez to col­lab­o­rate wher­ev­er pos­si­ble to sup­port the suc­cess and growth of rug­by in the coun­try and to el­e­vate the na­tion­al pro­gramme. I am en­cour­aged by the foun­da­tion and com­mit­ment of the se­nior women’s pro­gramme and tech­ni­cal team which com­pris­es of Je­nilee Li­ma­da, Kerchelle Hink­son, and TTRU leg­end Ju­liana Strak­er, who are work­ing close­ly with a con­sis­tent group of top ath­letes week­ly in the long build-up to the up­com­ing Rug­by Sev­ens World Cup Qual­i­fiers,” Mac­Dow­ell said.

He not­ed: “In ad­di­tion, Kyle Stra­chan, Schezelle Flem­ing, Fay­ola Jack and Ten­isha Samuel-Duke are prepar­ing the next wave of ath­letes in the women’s pro­gramme. When you have a strong lead­er­ship group at the top, which is led by pres­i­dent Maria Thomas, con­tin­u­ing to em­pow­er a high­ly skilled vol­un­teer work­force both on and off the field, op­por­tu­ni­ty and suc­cess nat­u­ral­ly fol­low. T&T ath­letes are des­tined for great­ness. For me, it is an ho­n­our to join this wor­thy rug­by move­ment.”

Mac­Dow­ell now joins Mendez, who is the tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor of Men’s High-Per­for­mance pro­gramme, and was wel­comed by the Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee at its meet­ing on Jan­u­ary 31.

Mean­while, Thomas, who has made an im­me­di­ate im­pact since be­ing elect­ed to the union’s top po­si­tion said: “ Coach Mac­Dow­ell stands out with his abil­i­ty to meet ath­letes, tech­ni­cal teams and ad­min­is­tra­tors where they are, to hear and un­der­stand their am­bi­tions, and to cre­ate path­ways to re­alise mu­tu­al goals.

We are al­ready see­ing an im­pact through in­ter­na­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties that con­tribute to lo­cal de­vel­op­ment, and sup­port for the in­fra­struc­ture that we are build­ing through­out the union."