As the winter sport season approaches, Kale Herbert, Director of Football at St Paul’s Collegiate School is hopeful students will get a better opportunity to play a full season of sport in 2021. Last year the winter sports season was cut short because of the country’s Covid-19 lockdown and moving in and out alert levels 2 and 3.
Growing up with his infamous father, Ricki Herbert who played and coached the New Zealand All Whites for several years, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree with Kale.
Kale originally wanted to pursue playing football as his career but made the decision to retire and take up coaching in his early 20s. Almost instantly he went on to become head coach of Taupo Men’s Football, Hamilton Wanderers, Men’s Northern Premier League and the Wanderers U19 national tournament team.
In the lead up to his second year of coaching at St Paul’s, Kale is excited about the young group of players coming through the school.
“I’m very much looking forward to working with the players this season,” he says.
In the short playing season last year, the football coaches worked hard on changing the mindset of players and increasing their individual technical ability as well as their understanding of the game and how we wanted them to play. This was a big project but by the end of the season the attitude, application and the way we played football was an immense improvement,” says Kale.
Kale’s philosophy to football is simple, if the team is playing to an identity and spirit then the result is secondary.
“Wherever you end up in life you will be working within a team environment, getting that team spirit engrained into our athletes will not only help them in sport, but will also set them up for life beyond school,” says Kale.
Kale has completed his B License which is designed to provide higher level learning for coaches wishing to offer their players the best training environment possible. It looks at player and team management and creating a performance culture, enabling coaches to plan high level activities for a complete season.
Kale and Ricki Herbert also operate the Ricki Herbert Football Academy, which is based at Paul’s and provides a great opportunity for primary and intermediate aged children to learn new football skills in preparation for the upcoming season.
