progressing my rugby.

Question
Hi, i am 16 and have been playing rugby for 9 years now, rugby has always been such a big passion to me,its my life.My dream would be to play professionally for my country 'England' However i don't know where to begin my pursuit to this goal. There is very little scouting going around at the moment, and i feel as if i am never going to be able to accomplish this goal. Is there any courses, or apprentiships that would be able to progress my ability, and bring me closer to achieving my dream?

Answer
G'day Nick,

I would be keeping in contact with your current and past selectors and coaches. Ask them the same question you asked me, their feed back will be great.

I suggest making a rugby resume for yourself. On paper get your details down: teams, positions played, awards, points scored, any articles from local papers, letters from coaches, your times for sprint, mile etc, mesurements, weight, a photo. Also get as much game footage of you as possable, edit the high points and put it on a DVD. Do a cover letter  to state your overall goal and why you think you can make it, do a DVD of that two if you are confident on a video.

Get help from someone who knows how to put together a resume, there are some good resume examles on line if you Google "resume". You must treat this like a job interview. This is professional sports you are talking about and you can never be too professional. If you get asked to meet with someone then dress up a little even a coat and tie wouldn't hurt.

You will want to put all this together and with your coach submit it to the most relivent person in your rugby union. Keep following up with emails or calls or letters. You might consider a website to post all your rugby life on, training, game tape, player diary etc.

The key thing is to chase down the coach that you need and get your resume in front of them. If you are able you may want to move to an area that has a club which has an above normal amount of professional players.