Newcastle Thunder

Testament to the hard work and recourse we have put into the Academy and the community game over the last 5 years!! Goes to show you get what you put in! Keep your eyes on the North East again this year with more new community clubs launching and Newcastle competing at U16 Scholarship, U18 Academy, Reserve Grade and First Team

The entrance fee that is £5 more then what you would be paying to come to Kingston park incredible value for 4 games!!!!

Highest watched opening game in 6 years

What do you mean? The game is included in your season ticket, we are taking the hit and buying all season ticket holders a Saturday magic ticket

Newcastle Thunder’s innovative SPARC player development principles broke new ground in the run up to Christmas 2019, as the club’s U16s academy united with counterparts from three Super League clubs for the first ever Invitational Development Day. Kingston Park Stadium welcomed players and staff from the academy programmes of Huddersfield Giants, Hull KR and Wakefield Trinity for games and a series of workshops at an event that aimed to serve as a demonstration of how academies could work together and provide additional development opportunities for players and staff. Alongside the traditional adapted games, where points are awarded for a range of attributes being displayed by players on the field, the development day saw conditioning, contact and handling workshops take place to further enhance the experience for the youngsters in attendance. Well received by those taking part, Academy manager Michael Heap spoke of his satisfaction at the day itself and of his hopes it would serve to supplement some of the great work that is already being done across all levels of the game. Heap said: “It was a really worthwhile day and something that we are definitely looking to continue doing in the future. “The initial feedback from staff, players and parents was very positive. We will now undergo a full review process in which we will seek the opinions of all those involved to gauge how successful different aspects were and how we can further improve in future. “We are really grateful to those that got involved with the day and Newcastle Thunder are looking forward to working with all concerned in future to continue to innovate and provide more opportunities for the development of future players for all levels of the game.” Newcastle Thunder General Manager Jordan Robinson said “ We rolled the SPARC Development days out into our community game in 2019 with massive success and to see all of the academies embrace the concept today was fantastic. From a north east point of view we now have over 1,400 players playing the sport across 15 community clubs and in 2020 every kid playing the sport will get the chance to take part in our development programme and experience the SPARC festivals” Check out the video above to see the action from the day and hear from those present on their thoughts of the event. IMG_3209.mp4

https://thunderrugby.co.uk/general/thunder-host-invitational-development-day/ Thunder to host Invitational Development Day Newcastle Thunder Academy will be hosting its first Invitational Development Day this week with players and staff from the academies of Hull Kingston Rovers, Huddersfield Giants and Wakefield Trinity travelling to Kingston Park to take part. The purpose of the Invitational Development Day is to provide an alternative development opportunity to academy players in the Under 15 and Under 16 age group – giving them the opportunity to train alongside their counterparts from other clubs across a variety of different areas. As well as this it will provide valuable networking and development time for the staff, many of which are volunteers, of the different clubs. The day will see players partake in; Strength and Conditioning sessions, core skill development and contact sessions delivered by staff from across the four attending academies. This will be accompanied by a workshop delivered by The RFL’s Performance staff educating the players on the player pathway and how the journey to elite isn’t straight forward. The day will culminate in the player putting their skills to the test in short festival like training sessions using Newcastle Thunders’ innovative SPARC rules. Thunder have been using their SPARC rules throughout 2019 in the North East Rugby League community game as part of the Under 12 and Under 14 Player Development Programmes, but this will be the first time it will be used at Under 16 age group with players from a selected environment. Under the SPARC rules players are able to contribute to their team’s points tally through the conventional scoring systems of rugby league as well as demonstrating particular examples of Skilful play, Physical capability, Awareness of the game, Resilience and Character such as leadership and support. Thunder’s Academy Manager, Michael Heap, is excited about this innovative approach to player development and really pleased at the support that has been shown for this from other clubs. Speaking about the Invitational Development Day, Michael said “We first discussed this idea at a recent Academies meeting in which myself and another academy presented on some of the work we have been doing with our community game to further enhance player development. The SPARC concept generated a lot of interest from the other Academy Leads so we decided to launch this day. The intention is to provide another opportunity for players to be exposed to good coaching before being challenged in a way they will not be used to. We believe that this approach can be utilised within the Player Pathway alongside the existing Scholarship games to help create a better standard of player for the elite levels of our sport.” Wakefield’s Head of Youth Mark Applegarth said “We are looking forward to this invitational day and I feel it will benefit all players from all clubs and challenge them in ways they probably haven’t experienced before socially, technically and educationally. Hopefully we will see more of these events being rolled out throughout next year”. Andy Kelly, Head of Youth at Huddersfield Giants, commented “The Huddersfield Giants Academy 16’s is happy and excited to be involved in the day and its concepts. This is a very innovative project and thanks must go to the Newcastle Thunder academy and staff for staging the day. We look forward to its challenges and a successful day.” John Bastian, Head of Youth at Hull Kingston Rovers, noted “Firstly, credit must go to Newcastle Thunder’s Academy staff for putting this development day on and bringing together 4 different academies for a day filled with enjoyment and learning for players and staff. The players of Hull Kingston Rovers and really looking forward to getting up to Newcastle. I believe the focuses of the day are going to enhance the long term development of the players, not only from a skill development aspect but the small sided games.” If you would like to know more about Thunder’s Invitational Development Day then please contact Michael.heap@newcastle-thunder.co.uk. Keep following Thunder’s website and social media channels for updates on the day and a highlights package after the event.

Newcastle Thunder Academy home & away IMG_2806.mp4

Newcastle Thunder 2020 IMG_2739.mp4

He’s been playing in Australia for the last year

Well an average of 15,000 tickets have been sold to north east post codes for the magic weekends in Newcastle! Strong numbers we have plans to smash that number in 2020

The power of Newcastle!! Welcome home magic weekend From the Super League “The highest ever first week ticket sales for a Magic Weekend at St James' Park Exclusive launch discount, a weekend ticket for the price of a day http://bit.ly/DMWFBE”

Check out the trailer for a brand new fly on the wall documentary featuring Newcastle Thunder two episodes per week will be getting aired on the OurLeague App https://www.rugby-league.com/article/55984/our-league-to-show-exclusive-newcastle-thunder-documentary

Check out the highlights from our celebrating the growth of Rugby League event at the Eagles Community Arena in Friday night. On the night we showcased our plans for the growth of the sport across the region as well as outlined the clubs plans to win the BetFred Super League title by 2030!. We also launched our brand new Wheelchair Rugby League side & unveiled the kit for our latest community club the Newcastle Magpies RLFC. #NorthEastRL #BoldlyGrow ️️️ IMG_2052.mp4

We have plans to run development days in the Scottish boarders in 2020, we very much see this is as part of our area and that with a little investment it could go a long way to improving it.

For our SPARC festivals and development programme days we have split players up a number of different ways do give everyone the best possible challenges, for example we have split it up using hight, weight, speed, positions. from our point of view there is no competition with union and we actively promote playing both codes of rugby. Kids are now starting to play rugby league from 6 year old and it’s getting bigger year on year. our academy is in a very strong place and that’s reflected in the England academy call ups. And from last years academy 5 have been handed first team contracts for 2020 happy to answer any questions, keen them coming