Everitt puts faith in kids for pyramid climb

NORWICH boss David Everitt says the club are rising like a phoenix from the ashes after winning promotion. The club were unbeaten all season and declared champions in London 2 North by the RFU when lockdown arrived.

It has been a long road back for a club who played National League rugby in the late 1990s before slipping to London 3. A new emphasis on coaching and investing in the local talent has paid dividends.

“It’s always been the club’s ambition to get as high up the league as we can,” said director of rugby Everitt. “From playing in the National Leagues we plummeted to the depths and then rising like a phoenix out of the ashes, we’re on the way up.

“We’re building around our own players that come through our youth sections and that’s working very well for us. We just have to keep on working that and improving our players.

“As a club, we took a decision four years ago that if we wanted to get into higher leagues, we had to change what we did. We decided that we needed to invest in quality coaching, which will encourage players to want to play for us. It also improves the level of our youngsters coming through. It’s heartwarming to see that 70 per cent of the playing squad are all our own produced players.”

A big part of that success has been former Coventry player Lee Parry who was appointed head coach for the 2018/19 season. Parry, who had overseen a similar promotion at Ipswich, raised fitness levels and gave players greater responsibility with a strong focus on defence.

In his first season, Norwich had the best defensive record in the league. It was a key feature again this year, says Everitt: “It was quite astounding to watch players defending their fivemetre line as if their lives depended on it.”

For Everitt, the performance that stood out most was the 16-5 away victory over fellow promotion hopefuls Southwold in strong February winds as Norwich’s defence held firm.

Norwich were ably led by Matt Selby and leading try scorer Adam Huggins, who only turned 18 in November, was testament to the club’s emphasis on developing their own players.