Coach's Corner

HALIFAX VANDALS RUFC

Founded 1923

CHRIS DAVIS – RUGBY UNION PROFILE

Chris started playing rugby league at Ryburn Valley High School but his main passion during his early years involved the round ball. It wasn’t until his older brother Rob (former Yorkshire back row forward) decided to move from Otley and play more locally with the Vandals that his journey in rugby union began at the age of 15.

Under the wings of his brother, coach Kevin McCallion and captain Tony Friend (now Rugby Chairman) Chris soon found his way into the 1^st XV and enjoyed a number of successful seasons with the Vandals including two promotions and the club’s only ever cup success winning the Yorkshire Silver Trophy in 1992.

During the 1994-5 season Chris was spotted by a number of professional rugby league clubs including Castleford, Wigan and his local club Halifax. Chris had ‘talks’ with these clubs but decided that the union code was the route to pursue having been approached by London based club Saracens. In 1995 he made the move down south and combined his rugby development at Saracens with a degree course in physical education at Brunel University, West London.

During his five years with Saracens Chris gained an incredible amount of experience both on the playing and coaching front. His arrival at the club coincided with the start of professionalism within the union game. Chris trained and played alongside some true legends of the game including Francois Pienaar, Philippe Sella, Michael Lynagh, Richard Hill, Kieron Bracken, Paddy Johns and Tony Diprose a to name a few. All of these international players brought a vast wealth of rugby knowledge to the club and this was instrumental in shaping the way Chris views and thinks about the game and how it should be played.

It was during this time that Chris began coaching having taken his first coaching awards under the direction of Dick Best the former England, Harlequins and London Irish coach. Chris assisted Mark Evans (formally Saracens and Harlequins head coach) in developing the young talent involved with the Saracens Academy.

On the playing front Chris was generally quite unlucky with injuries. This said, he still managed to push for first team action at Saracens. He was a part of the Saracens Middlesex Sevens team that competed the final against the Barbarians in 1997 and was part of a very talented university side that won the BUSA championships the same year. He also captained the England Students side to victory over Scotland, Wales and Ireland in the 5 Nations. Chris was unlucky to miss out on a bench place for the Tetley Bitter Cup winning team the following year having come back from a broken leg but he did come back early enough to be selected for the England 7’s team that played in the inaugural 7’s competition at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.

This was the beginning of Chris’s 7’s honours. He represented his country at a further six tournaments on the IRB World Sevens Series, including the famous Hong Kong tournament and went on to captain the side in Tokyo and Shanghai.

Following a catalogue of niggling knee injuries Chris made the decision to move away from full time rugby and gained a place at Cambridge University to further his studies. It was here that Chris continued his coaching in the University and local schools and on the playing side gained his Cambridge Blue in the Varsity Match in 2000.

In 2001 Chris took the job as Director of Rugby at Culford School and in addition coached within the Suffolk County youth system.

In 2003 he ventured to South Africa to experience the coaching systems employed in the Western Province area and gained a valuable insight into a different cultural mindset relating to the way rugby is coached and played.

It was on his return to the Halifax area in 2004 that Chris was approached by the then Vandals President, Bob Ingham, to see if he would be willing to coach the team following the departure of their previous coach. During the 2004-5 season Chris steered the Vandals to promotion into Yorkshire 4 although aspirations of being a full time referee meant that Chris had to step down during the following season.

Now Chris has been given another chance to coach the club where his rugby career first started and he is not going to let anything disrupt him this time (even the arrival of his first child!). He sees the club as having all the right ingredients to build a reputation for success on and off the pitch. Chris is looking forward to the challenge of developing the potential of a good group of players and aims to recapture the accolades brought to the club during the early 1990’s.