Following the recent resignation of Director of Rugby, Martin Whitcombe, Bradford and Bingley RFC have undertaken a review of their Coaching and Management team and have decided not to replace Whitcombe with a direct successor. The Bees have instead decided to shuffle their existing coaching resources, with former Welsh International, Colin Stephens taking up the role of Head Coach. Working with Stephens will be Stuart Dixon looking after the backs with Ronnie Kelly looking after the forwards. 42 year old Stephens played in over 200 games for Llanelli and stands fifth on Llanelli’s all time scoring list with 663 points. Another change to the Bees management structure is former Northampton, West Hartlepool, Otley and current Bees player, Phil Greaves, takes up a role within the management team to facilitate communications between the Club’s Committee, coaches and players.
Chairman of Rugby, Peter Rae, commented “We are delighted to have all three of our coaches on board so quickly and able to immediately focus on the job in hand which starts with Saturday’s game at home to Beverley. Martin did a great job for us and brought some real stability to the club. This can be seen by the fact that we have a Second Team who sit second in their league and a Third Team who are top of their league. We fielded a fourth team on Saturday for the first time in a few years and there is a really positive feel about the club as a whole. But, we cannot stand still, we have to move on. We hope Colin and his team can build on those foundations and get The Bees playing some attractive winning rugby for the rest of this season. We are already starting plan for next season and we really believe these are exciting times for the Club.”
Highlights of Colin playing for Llanelli against Australia in 1992