Eminent Glasgow University sports psychologist Viki Penpraze confessed her worry about what she could say about about her speciality in Sports Science that would be interesting to a roomful of people with such expertise in rugby. That was taken by the 100+ GROGs present as being tongue in cheek. Viki proved to be one of the more interesting guest speakers at GROGS for a long time. Although her presentation of the development of Sports Science in rugby was quite technical she was easy to understand and follow. As became obvious the more we listened to Viki, the style of rugby played by most GROGs and the coaching methods they had been used to were products of a bygone era. Viki is a Northern Ireland girl with a lifelong interest in rugby though never been able to play the game due to the lack of opportunity in her early years. She’s been in Glasgow for over 20 years and had started to bring the benefits of Sports Science to rugby with Glasgow Hawks. Still very much part of that set-up, she has also worked with Glasgow Warriors, Scotland Under 20’s, Scotland Women, Scotland Sevens and many individuals who it was thought could benefit from her skills. It was clear that her credentials were beyond criticism. This report is not the forum for describing in detail what Viki brings to the Scottish Club and National rugby table. Suffice to say that she has been doing her work for some time with the primary intention of improving players’ wellbeing as well as their performance. To help achieve this, she introduced yoga to players last year leaving us with the image of some of those athletes who play their hearts out on a Saturday practising their downward dog and mountain poses! Her work had a bumpy start with the initial use of technology but she takes pleasure in seeing some of the early participants turning out as top internationalists. Modern technology includes videotaping, drone filming and GPS devices attached to players’ collars to track their every movement during a game. The explanation of the use of these was fascinating. Viki answered a number of questions from the floor from an audience that had not only been listening but had done so with enthusiasm before being presented with a bottle of GROGS whisky in appreciation of a most interesting talk.
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