Dave Alred

Dave Alred

Dave passionately believes that the job of a coach is to take individuals to where they have never been before in terms of performance and achievement. This means the coach must also travel into the unknown and has resulted in a continual search for the coaching ‘Holy Grail.’ In 2005 this journey lead Dave to the completion of his Doctorate at Loughborough University – but not resting on that achievement, Dave is still searching with even more vigour and enthusiasm!
In the world of Rugby Dave is regarded by his peers, players and coaches in both hemispheres as a world leader in his approach to mental preparation and skill acquisition. He is regarded as the world’s best kicking coach and has achieved a ‘full house’ within rugby union; victorious Lions Tour of South Africa ’97, Triple Crown Winners ’98, ’00, ’01, ’02, Grand Slam ’03 and World Cup Winner 2003.

Today Dave is now involved in a diverse range of sports at the elite level, including Premiership Football, Australian Rules Football, Gaelic Football, International Judo, Polo, Cricket, Skiing, Rugby and Tour Golf.

He has coached Premiership Football including Newcastle United, Middlesbrough, Bolton Wanderers and Watford. He has also worked in Gaelic Football (Omar and Dublin County) and Australian Rules Grand Final winners – West Coast Eagles. He is also widely known for his work in Rugby League in England (Great Britain and Warrington); and Australia having worked with St George, Manley, Parramatta and Newcastle. Lately he has been working to develop both coaches and players in; British Judo, England Polo, ECB Cricket, Ladies Professional Golf, British Skiing and Munster Rugby.

As well as coaching teams, he focuses in developing the individuals’ performance and improving their ability to perform under pressure, believing that this is the foundation of a team’s success. Recently the most notable has been his work with Jonny Wilkinson, although his student list includes Rob Andrew, Stuart Barnes, Neil Jenkins, Ronan O’Gara; Stephen Jones, David Campese, Mathew Burke, Mathew John, in soccer Joe Cole, Shay Given, Mark Schwartzer and David James, to name a few.

His constant searching has led him through a diverse range of performance environments including dolphin training in Australia, fighter pilot selection in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Police strategies for managing confusion and chaos. Add this to his rich diverse elite sports experience with his research doctorate, and the result is a unique wealth of knowledge and practical experience for improving human performance.

Dave is a member of the UK Coaching Hall of Fame and awarded the Mussabini Medal in 2003 for outstanding success on the world stage whilst also honoured with an MBE. He completed his PhD at Loughborough in 2005.

On joining the RuckingBall revolution Dave said ‘I’m really excited about Ruckingball.com and what it could achieve for player development. The site gives me and the other experts the opportunity to share our knowledge & experience to a global audience of players, parents and coaches. The internet allows us a unique chance to share this to a much wider audience than we have ever done before. I’ve never seen a concept where this type of access to elite coaches has been done before’