SHERYLLE Calder’s capacity to make a difference as a visual skills coach can be measured by the three-year contract she has signed with England until after the 2019 World Cup. Eddie Jones rates the former South African hockey international so highly because he has been on the winning end, as well as the receiving end, of her work.
This week Calder started working with England backs like Anthony Watson, but she got her first big break when Clive Woodward’s obsessive search for marginal gains in the build up to the 2003 World Cup brought her into the spotlight.
It was not instantaneous. Woodward was extremely secretive about England’s preparations, with more security around the squad than at an American presidential rally, and requests for interviews with Calder were invariably turned down.
However, her innovative eye-training got an airing during England’s World Cup-winning campaign, and with the Wallabies, coached by Jones, beaten in the final, her stock rose. It did not take long before Jones saw her visual skills work at first hand, because at the same time that Jake White asked the Aussie to become a consultant to South Africa ahead of the 2007 World Cup, he also signed up Calder.
South Africa’s win over England in the 2007 World Cup final gave Calder added kudos as a backroom double World Cup winner. Jones is clearly hoping that her visual skills magic rubs off a third time, with Calder’s return to the England camp an integral part of his plot to overthrow New Zealand as world champions at the 2019 World Cup.
While Jones last week highlighted the influence of Calder in turning Springbok wing Bryan Habana into an intercept king through her peripheral vision training, England’s 2003 World Cup-winning centre Will Greenwood was also singing her praises.
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