Tisdale back at Malvern (From Ledbury Reporter)

Tisdale back at Malvern

3:08pm Friday 26th October 2012 in Sport

FORMER Malvern player Nick Tisdale has returned to Spring Lane as head coach in the wake of last week’s departure of director of rugby Liam Hughes.

Hughes felt he was no longer able to dedicate the required time to the role due to work commitments and Malvern moved quickly to replace him with Tisdale, who has had an illustrious playing career, representing Worcester, Stourbridge, Malvern and North Midlands.

Currently on the coaching staff at Malvern College, he has also been involved with the Worcester Warriors academy and, having coached at Old Halesonians for the last three seasons, he is delighted to return to Spring Lane.

Tisdale has also been involved in the selection and coaching of the Worcestershire and Herefordshire county side, who won last year’s North Midlands Championship against Greater Birmingham and Shropshire.

Assisting Tisdale will be former Malvern captain Gareth Richards and Gloucester full-back Rob Cook, who will be mainly working with the backs.

It is expected some specialist coaching assistance will also be brought in on a regular basis. Working alongside this trio will be Ben Randell (performance analyst support), Jenny Carter (lead sports therapist), Aimee Dennis (sports therapist) and John Clark (rugby administrator).

Following last weekend’s unlucky 22-15 reverse against Redingensians Rams in National Three South West, Malvern tomorrow travel to Amersham and Chiltern (3pm), who sit below them in the table but are rumoured to have imported several overseas players in recent weeks.

Malvern need to secure some points on the road — as well as several home victories — to climb away from the danger zone and back into the chasing pack in a competitive league.

With the top sides all scheduled to play each other over the coming month, the Spring Lane outfit will be looking to pick up the victories which will take them into the title mix and also leave the bottom sides behind.

First XV (v Amersham and Chiltern, a): Milton; Kitching, Mustow, Millar, Hale; Dixon, Longley; Brookes, Prosser, Day, Smith, Williams, Marshall, Nuttall, Gratwohl.

Replacements: Hobbs, Pinnell, TBA.