April 2020 – COVID19 – this won’t be about that but just so we’re clear on the context, that’s what it is. Today is a Friday – it feels like a Saturday. Or a Tuesday in undergrad. Or any day if you’re unemployed. No wonder people without a job find it difficult to get one. It’s difficult to do anything without a purpose.

Now my mild depression is a slippery slope so we’ll stray away from that. Instead we’ll focus on the win for the day. Today was the first group Zoom meeting for the Bond Sport Science Internship Program. What is the Bond Sport Science Internship Program? It’s a program that has been set up by the university whereby students in 1st and 2nd year get hands on experience servicing a sport, led by yours truly. Is it a distraction from my Masters? Probably. Is it an opportunity to build something long term? Absolutely.

We had our first Zoom today and we discussed a variety of things. Firstly, the students all seem to have adjusted in a seemingly nonchalant way to “remote” learning despite there being individual challenges for each of them like distance from family + too much family. Not that doing an online exam was their cup of tea but it seemed to be going ok. I often forget that for the first-years it’s their first semester and they’re not sure what the experience looks like. It was good to put them at ease today with their questions and concerns generally. Overall the feedback about the program was positive – no one had any concerns that weren’t manageable – many negatives were due to people not understanding the shared responsibility they all had (not being busy enough/having anything to do) or the season being cancelled before the first round (not having a game-day experience). Those can easily be fixed in due course. In the back of my mind I know I’m going to have to coach the “this is cool” out of them and fixate on the “this is work” but for now I’m happy with where the program is at.

For the next few weeks their focus will be on the White Paper projects – that is they are building what the Bond Sport standards will be in regards to servicing for each different topic in the tables below.

1st Year
Health	Injury Prevention	Gameday Aids	Recovery	Physiological Challenges	Skill Acquisition
Sleep   Soreness	Biomechanical challenges in competition (1 WP/Sport)	Caffeine	Post Training/Game Physiology – what are we recovering from? (1 WP/Sport)	Game Demands (Energy Systems) (1 WP/Sport)	Group Training Sessions – Effective Coaching Feedback

2nd Year
Health	Injury Prevention	Gameday Aids	Recovery	Physiological Challenges	Skill Acquisition
* Training/Game Carbohydrate Ingestion * Training/Game Protein Ingestion * Mental Fatigue * Illness and Training + Competition   * Menstrual Cycle + Performance	* Load Management – how much is too much (excluding ACWR) – (1 WP/Sport)	* Cooling (readjust Rugby to new format) * Hydration	* Modalities – which works best? (1 WP/Sport)	* Competition Demands (Pacing + Performance Determinants) (S)   * Growth + Development (Men)   * Growth + Development (Female)	* Training practices to improve key competition skills (1 WP/Sport)

I’m so excited for this project. If it’s completed correctly, we will have a collection of documents that will be able to be used as part of coach and player education resources for Bond Sport in years to come developed by students and then used by the sports. It’s incredible the potential that this project has. Each of them are required to finish at least 1 paper by the start of semester 3 but I’m going to try to push each of them to finish as many as possible – let’s hope the standard is up to scratch. Ideally we’ll have a document for each topic by the end of the year and we can start 2021 with all the information that we need to deliver quality programs to all sports!

I think the weirdest part of this process is that sometimes I feel like I’m still one of them. I think there’s a part of me who still wants to be them, to have little responsibility and not have to be a teacher but I know that to do the best job I can, I can’t intentionally cloud that perception. I also think the fact that they’re writing things down when I speak makes me feel a little odd – I don’t feel like I should be seen as someone with knowledge that deserves to be written down. I wonder whether that feeling will ever go away or whether it will end up becoming more a me now to high school students relationship where there’s a clear gap but generationally we’re quite similar.

Time will tell whether I’m up to scratch. I think I am. I’ve designed and delivered this program from the start to now and it’s going gangbusters. We have engaged students, good projects and engaged sports. We now need champion players and we’ll have the whole package – a system that delivers elite performers. That’s the dream. That’s the goal. That’s my focus.