Getting Involved with Rugby: Can it Help Your Future Career?
Following the success of the Modus Challenge Cup match on Monday and ahead of the Women’s Rugby World Cup Final on Saturday, RGS Worcester had the pleasure this week of hosting a talk by Donna Kennedy, a Scottish Rugby Union coach and former international player who played for the National team from 1993 to 2010.
Donna spoke to the students about her career which started at the age of 19 when she started playing Rugby, and her experience of being the world’s most-capped women’s player from 2004 to 2016 and the first Scottish player – woman or man – to reach 100 international caps.
Further successes she spoke about included in 2004 being named the IRB International Women’s Personality of the Year. In 2015, the Donna Kennedy Cup, an annual top-level women’s Rugby competition was launched in her honour and in 2017 she was inducted into Scotland’s Rugby ‘Hall of Fame’.
After speaking about her successful playing career, Donna went on to explain about reaching a ‘void’ when she retired and was no longer ‘Donna the Rugby Player.’ Students gained an insight into how she had to reframe her perspective as “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it” (Lou Holtz). She decided refereeing was not for her and instead went into a coaching role and talked of the lessons she has learnt in motivating and inspiring others as a coach.
To conclude the talk, Donna gave the students three areas for them to reflect upon in their own lives:
– Believe and you can achieve
– Choose your attitude
– Opportunities and Choices
Donna also gave pupils some excellent advice to “Enjoy and recognise you’re in the moment, don’t pressure yourself to enjoy”.
The students who attended the talk really enjoyed listening to Donna’s insights and asked a number of interesting questions about her playing career highlights (which included beating England in Edinburgh), her toughest opponents (England again, by the way!) and how Rugby helped shape her attitude to life.
The Sport and Careers Seminar was a fantastic way for students to gain insight into a profession, learn about how playing sport can help make you a better person in life and about potential career routes after life at RGS Worcester. We are very grateful to Donna for giving up her time to present the session and look forward to the next Sport and Careers Seminar next Half term.