On Wednesday 2nd March, St Lawrence College welcomed Simon Willis at our school’s Cricket Academy to coach both Tier 1 & Tier 2 cricketers.
Simon is one of England’s leading high-performance coaches and has a passionate commitment to improving the development of sports talent both nationally and internationally.
Simon set up and launched the inaugural Kent Cricket Academy in 2003 and was then appointed in 2004 by Kent as the youngest first-class coach in England at the age of 29. He went onto play a vital part for Kent Cricket in his role as Professional Cricket Manager between 2005 – 2009, resulting in the club winning trophies and developing various players to represent Kent and England at senior level. He has an extensive background of management and coaching experience in competitive sport from development to international level.
Most recently Simon was the England & Wales Cricket Board Regional Talent Manager – South, overseeing and managing boys’ regional cricket and county talent pathways in his region. Prior to this he was High Performance Manager for Sri Lanka Cricket, responsible for designing, implementing and managing a new high-performance environment and player pathway whilst overseeing the coaching of players from the Men’s and Women’s National Performance Squads, A Team and U19 Squads.
During our Tier 1 and tier 2 training session, Simon’s coaching session was based on back foot play and all of our pupils learnt a great deal. The schools Cricket Academy are for Year 6 through to Year 9 pupils which they are split into two Tiers to make sure we cater for all ages and abilities. The Cricket Academy is designed to push the players both physically as well as mentally but also provides them with an enjoyable environment that will prepare them as thoroughly as possible for the approaching season.
The Cricket Academy is a stepping stone to the Sports Excellence cricket programme which starts at year 9.
We are delighted to say that Simon will be back with our Cricket Academy on Wednesday 16th March and we all look forward to the session.
