Latest news with #AledWalters
Telegraph
24-07-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
Behind the scenes with Lions backroom team driving series victory charge
The British and Irish Lions are more professional than ever with a backroom staff completely incomparable to tours of past eras. Telegraph Sport was given exclusive access to three key figures in the Lions ' push for a series win against Australia this weekend. The head of performance Aled Walters, the Lions head of performance, has tailored the conditioning programme to ensure that the players are able to peak in the second Test in Melbourne with the opportunity to clinch the series. 'It's a different challenge to, for example, a World Cup, isn't it?,' explained Walters. 'Because there you get a block of time beforehand. Now it's a bit different. The players have had nine months of rugby. The biggest thing is for our conversations to be very individual-specific throughout, and it's not a blanket approach. 'Then you throw in on top something I haven't experienced before, which is the potential to be starting a game on Saturday, on the bench on Wednesday, and potentially starting the game again on Saturday. 'Our planning has to be so flexible and fluid around this and making good choices. I know we've said it a few times already – having conversations with players.' Walters highlighted the workload of Bath and Scotland fly-half Finn Russell as an example of how the Lions had adapted their training loads. 'It's well documented that Finn's played a lot of rugby this year, hasn't he?' added Walters. 'Are we expecting him to play his best rugby on tour? One hundred per cent we are. So how do we get him there? How does he go into the biggest games for him feeling mentally engaged, feeling fresh, feeling at his best? And it'll matter at different times for every player. 'It would be unfair to go, 'Ah, but that's a midweek game, that's fine'. That maybe a player's best opportunity to get on the Test team.' So could Walters see a scenario where you really lighten the load on a player? 'For some, they'll need to be pushed,' he added. 'I'm sure for some it's going to be about minimum dose. What does he need? What does the coach feel like they need? What does the data show us that he needs? What does he need to be exposed to, to be ready for that time? So that's where everyone is very, very different. We'll have pockets of players who are similar, but they all deserve, on a tour like this, to have the best planning for each individual. 'The collaboration with the clubs and the nations has been at such a high level as well that we've got a real clear understanding. In 2001, they didn't have the benefit of all this information. I'm talking about GPS information, heart-rate information, subjective and objective information. We've got such a clear picture of these players.' For Walters, his relationship with head coach Andy Farrell has been key. He opted to join the Ireland set-up last year from England. 'The most important relationship I've got on tour is Andy and making sure the training is appropriate. And I understand what he needs from a rugby point of view but he also recognises that if I say, 'We need this today or we need it at this level' we can adapt. 'We have to have that conversation and relationship that he trusts, if I say 'We need to nudge it now, we need to push here, or now we have to pull back'.' The analyst Vinny Hammond is the man you see sitting beside Andy Farrell in the coaches' box with his head often buried in a laptop. The former player and coach at University College Dublin is a veteran of the previous two Lions tours and has been working with the IRFU since 2008. Fascinatingly, he worked for Joe Schmidt, the Wallabies head coach, when he was with Ireland, and now Farrell, so has an insight into both head coaches. 'One of the first things I did was make sure we had an absolute of four analysts for seven coaches,' Hammond said. 'We appointed Rhodri Bown, from the Welsh Rugby Union, Carwyn Morgan, from the RFU and John Buckley, who works with me at the IRFU. John has managed what we need to do, day-to-day. 'My job is trying to take the stress away from Andy and just have something ready to go when he needs it, and understanding how difficult the head job of the Lions really is, because whatever [you might think] about being a head job in a country, this is another level of scrutiny. 'The biggest thing between any of us is just that trust. If I say something to him or he says something to me, it's coming from a place that we're trying to do something for the betterment of the result. 'In the game, it could be as simple as checking where a winger is standing on a kick-off or as detailed as some of the stats that we track live. But often it's very simple things that you think are small, but maybe in the bigger scale of the game, are big moments, and you're just trying to take one little bit away from him that he doesn't need to worry about.' Hammond describes the technology at a game as similar to that of stock traders. 'The set-up involved now for a match day is similar to a small trading desk in that we're taking six to eight angles of the game live into the coaches box,' he adds. 'That used to be one, then it went to two, four, and now it's somewhere between six and eight for every one of those angles. Then you've got eight in the coaches' box, eight people on laptops, so that's 64 video streams. 'For all of that to work, the infrastructure in behind it needs to be very robust and very strong. 'It is not life or death, but it is pretty important at the time. In one of the games, the referee's audio coming into the coaches' box started to drop and Johnny [Buckley] is on the sideline trying to patch that up mid-game. So you're fixing the aeroplane while the aeroplane's flying, and it's quite an adrenalin rush.' As Farrell's right-hand man in the box, he insisted that data is not overbearing during games. 'I think people have this idea that there's some data set driving substitutions. The data makes up maybe one seat in the coaches' box, which would give it 1/9 of an input. 'You are trying to second guess what's coming, for example, how effective we are in the air. I need to make sure those clips are ready if Andy wants to go back and check and ask: 'Who was there, who was standing where?' Trying to find the mark where you need to get to is the adrenalin rush for me. That's why I love doing match day more than anything else. 'Sometimes Andy will want to show a video clip we'll have to get ready. Sometimes it'll be a simple message. Sometimes he will use a screen. Sometimes it's a flip-chart. Sometimes he uses nothing. It is about having all of those things ready to go. 'You want to work for someone you would go through a wall for, and with Andy you would go straight through the wall. You probably wouldn't make as big a dent as he would.' Analysis of training is also unique to this tour. 'One of the big changes Andy made was we reduced meetings to an absolute minimum now, and everything that we do is on the pitch,' adds Hammond. 'So we've had to hire a 20-foot screen for every training session on wheels and drive in our truck so that we do a lot of the meetings in the session. 'For example, if John Forgarty is doing a scrummage session, there is the chance to review each scrum on a big screen, rather than go back to the hotel and then hold a review session. Our philosophy is 'fix it on the go'.' And what about analysing the Wallabies? 'The midweek games were a disaster because we knew each of them had a couple of months to prepare for the game, so what they did in Super Rugby did not translate to what they did against the Lions,' adds Hammond. 'When you are dealing with a coach like Joe [Schmidt, the Wallabies head coach], who I worked with all the time he was in Ireland, and Andy, you are dealing with two of the best coaches in the world in the last quarter of a century, head to head. 'I know that Joe is spending every minute trying to fix what happened last weekend, and Faz is spending every minute of his day trying to make sure we finish the series on Saturday. 'There is a package on every Australian player that the boys have access to. It will be the same in the Wallabies camp. For me, what I have come to understand is that most of the stuff we think is important, only five per cent is actually retainable. 'It might be [that] we want the players to remember one thing that an opposition player does, as opposed to 10 things that the player does. Every time we add a bullet point to a player's profile it dilutes it. For one player, the key point might be a one-foot step. So all week we might just want the players to think about a left-foot side step that might be coming. 'If we can get a player coming to us and saying I want to know more, we know they will retain more of the information. Bundee Aki is a great example, on the night before a game he sits on the end of my bed and asks to watch his opposite number and maybe a couple of players around him and he will be calling the clips that he wants to see, as opposed to me giving them to him.' The nutritionist Professor Graeme Close is the Lions' head of nutrition. His job has been to ensure that the Lions players are fuelled properly and ready for action. ' A few years ago, we started this project doing biopsies on rugby players before and after a game. You can take a little muscle biopsy and you can directly measure how much carbohydrate a rugby player uses in a game,' said Close. 'So you take a small anaesthetic into the leg and then a small incision with a needle. Then you take out something that is about the size of a grain of rice but then what we do is look at how much carbohydrate is in that before and after a game. Then we can see what percentage of carbohydrate [has been] used so then you can work out if a rugby player uses so much carbohydrate during a game. 'We know precisely then what the energy expenditure of a rugby player is so, based on that, we will design diets here to fulfil the energy demands of a game. The advice we are getting has gone from laboratory to playing field, which is probably the most fun part of the overall job. 'There are two things we need to do: one, make sure that muscle is loaded and then making sure we give them top-ups, post warm-up, at half-time and with some players try to get a top-up at the 60-minute mark. That's a challenge in rugby because there are no obvious designated stops. What you are trying to do at the next stoppage in play can get that to that player, so each different player will have a different in-game fuel implant.' One thing that the players will consume during the game is a 'liquid energy shot' when they are able to consume water. 'There are certain players who cover huge areas at high speeds and what we know is they are the ones who will rip through their energy stores quickest when they are doing high-speed energy running,' said Close. 'What we know is that if we fully load the muscle with carbohydrate we have got enough fuel for 60-70 minutes of exercise. That's all at high intensity. We have enough fat stores to run all day but you can't run high intensity off fat stores. No matter how much you fill the muscle at 60-70 minutes it is going to start getting low. That's why we look to give a top-up at half-time and then give another little top up around the 60-minute mark. 'You might see when the water bottles come on. We have three different bottles: we have straight water, you have water with electrolytes and then we will have a sports drink, water with carbohydrates. The fans see the water bottles going on. If they have eagle eyes they might see what differentiates the bottles and what gels the guys are handing out, which is not on a random basis. The guys will pick whatever bottle they want but they will be handed a specific gel.' In order to ensure that the players are in peak condition for match day, Close will ensure they consume a high amount of carbohydrates on the day before the Test match. 'Breakfast is always pretty standard but it is usually porridge and we might have a porridge of the day,' added Close. 'We will try to make that porridge really tempting with white chocolate and cranberry. It is a good way of adding extra carbs. Then at lunch there would be lots of pasta options. Then dinner is always a live pasta bar. 'We have an unbelievable chef here, Carl, who is one of the greatest sports chefs in the world. On game day minus one there was a famous chocolate bar called a 'Lion bar' but we have a Lions bar so we are working with Karl to develop a nice little midday snack. It's chocolate, wafer, nuts. It is a treat bar, but there are a couple of extra purposes. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The British & Irish Lions (@britishandirishlions) 'There's only so much of the healthy carbohydrates that the gut can handle in one day. You can't just load with brown rice and pasta. We are trying to get up to around 6g of carbohydrate per kg of bodyweight that day. If I have a 120kg player that's 720g of carbohydrate I am trying to get into him on that day. To try to do that in starchy, fibrous carbohydrates is going to cause some issues. 'Saturday is all about getting the breakfast right and then the pre-match meal might just be some fruit and yogurt or a smoothie. What you often find is that players do not have an appetite as we get near. If we get it right the day before then it does not really matter.'
Wales Online
22-06-2025
- Sport
- Wales Online
Inside the Lions' critical plan to avoid issues that hit so hard eight years ago
Inside the Lions' critical plan to avoid issues that hit so hard eight years ago Perth is seven hours ahead of UK time and sleep experts have curated a thorough plan to adjust ahead of their arrival British and Irish Lions players form a huddle before the Lions 1888 Cup match at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin (Image: Niall Carson/PA Wire. ) The first challenge the British & Irish Lions face in Australia won't be Western Force, but the jet lag that shook the squad eight years ago. On the 2017 tour of New Zealand, Lions players were so affected by it that some fell asleep on the bus to the first game against New Zealand Barbarians. This was largely due to the fact they had arrived just three days before. In 2025, however, an all-encompassing framework to tackle the effects of jet lag has been devised, reports The Telegraph. To ensure they hit the ground running Down Under, the Lions have have teamed up with sleep specialists Resmed. Lions staff Ben Pollard, Aled Walters and Graeme Close will oversee the operation. Food timing and food itself has been taken into consideration, along with immune system protection, sleep monitoring and avoiding alcohol. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby. "The sleep and jet-lag plans are a critical aspect of how well we hit the ground running in Australia," said head of athletic performance Walters. "Everyone will expect the performance in Perth. No one will think 'but that was probably due to jet lag'. So that's why what these guys have done is critical." Article continues below Lions head of athletic performance Aled Walters. (Image: (Photo by) ) "What we know from the science is that it typically takes a day and a half to adjust per time zone," said head of performance nutrition Close. "But what we can do is put the science into it and we can get that done in about three to four days. So if we get everything right, we can be completely adapted, ready to rip in for game one." Close even added that feeding time matters to players, and the type of food too. He explains that providing a more brunch-style meal at 8am to trick the body into thinking it's seven hours ahead. Also on the food agenda is ensuring players do not over-eat. Close explains that the most common cause for constipation after a flight is eating too much, because the body "doesn't really like a lot of food when you're not moving very much". As well as this, on their flight to Australia, the airline were asked to provide breakfast when it's morning time in Perth, as well as to adjust the lighting to co-ordinate with the time Down Under. Also on the flight, players were asked to change their watches to Perth time, and as part of the advice given to them on the plane, there were even caffeine cut-off times. When it comes to the immune system, players need to be in peak condition ahead of the first touring match. Therefore, Lions have been given immune support packages which include chewing gum to increase saliva production, which protects the body from picking up infections. Immune support also spills into the food players eat, too. First-defence nasal sprays were also provided to players to protect them from picking up anything dodgy. Despite alcohol being a popular fixture in famous Lions tales, especially when it comes to player bonding, it is off limits ahead of their travel to Australia. Close explains that any more than four units of alcohol can impair sleep. "We've all done it when we've had a skinful," he said. "You might get off to sleep quickly, but you're waking up quite often during the night. We know that alcohol does impair sleep. It also puts some stress on the immune system as well. And in excess, it's a diuretic, so it will dehydrate you. So, you put all that together and it's probably not a good thing." Measures will also be taken to manipulate the circadian rhythm (the body's natural sleep-wake cycle) of players. This will take into account light exposure, social times and training times. Pollard adds that players will be asked to not check their phones if they wake in the middle of the night, which would expose them to stimulating blue light. Also, before bed, players are encouraged to take a hot shower. The body falls asleep by a fall in core temperature, and Pollard says you can artificially achieve this with a hot shower. Player sleep will be monitored using Whoop wristbands. Walters explains the statistics from these bands will be used to inform coaches. Article continues below "If we see a trend, if 80 per cent of the players have had a terrible sleep that's something we have to inform the coaches of," he said. "Because they will be more susceptible to those little injuries and you are going, 'is this really how we are going to start the tour?'" Walters says. "The flip side is, if 80 per cent of the squad are sleeping beautifully like babies, that we'd be able to go 'we can probably be a bit more aggressive'." Having played their opener against Argentina in Dublin on Friday night, which resulted in a loss against a quality Pumas outfit, the Australia tour begins against Western Force on June 28 at Optus Stadium.
Telegraph
22-06-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
How Lions will counter jet lag to avoid repeat of 2017 fiasco
The first major challenge the British and Irish Lions will face when they touch down in Perth on Sunday will be overcoming jet lag. Eight years ago, the squad landed in Auckland just three days before their opening game against the New Zealand Barbarians in Whangarei, and some players were struggling so badly that they fell asleep on the bus to the game. This time the Lions management team is determined to minimise the sleep disruption caused by travelling across seven time zones, which according to the latest science, can take up to 10 days to recover from. The Lions face the Western Force in Perth six days after they land. The Lions party of 91 players, coaches, support staff and executives will each be given a personal plan devised by their sports scientists, Graeme Close, the head of performance nutrition, and Ben Pollard, a strength and conditioning coach, all overseen by Aled Walters, the head of athletic performance. The Lions have also partnered with sleep specialists Resmed for the tour. 'The sleep and jet-lag plans are a critical aspect of how well we hit the ground running in Australia,' says Walters. 'Everyone will expect the performance in Perth. No one will think 'but that was probably due to jet lag'. So that's why what these guys have done is critical.' The first thing in the Lions' favour is that the last game before departure (Friday's loss to Argentina in Dublin) was eight days before their first tour game, unlike 2017 when players were involved in the Premiership and United Rugby Championship finals the previous weekend and the squad did not depart for New Zealand until the Monday. 'What we know from the science is that it typically takes a day and a half to adjust per time zone,' Close says. 'But what we can do is put the science into it and we can get that done in about three to four days. So if we get everything right, we can be completely adapted, ready to rip in for game one.'
Reuters
28-01-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Lions strengthen backroom staff for Australia tour
Jan 28 (Reuters) - Former Australia international David Nucifora will join the British and Irish Lions as general manager of performance ahead of this year's tour of Australia, the team said on Tuesday. Ireland's head of athletic performance Aled Walters will assume the same role on head coach Andy Farrell's backroom staff after this year's Six Nations Championship. "David's unrivalled experience will help us shape and deliver such a challenging and exciting rugby programme, whilst also bringing essential insight into Australian rugby and the country as a whole," Farrell said in a statement. "Aled is a World Cup winner who has worked with players across England and Ireland and has also coached in Australia and Super Rugby with the Brumbies." The Lions are set to play nine tour matches in Australia starting in June, including three tests against the Wallabies.
