Ludik And Ross To Assist Queen’s Promotion Bid

The Dub-based club has provided Ireland and the British & Irish Lions with some of their greatest players, including Jack Kyle, Cecil Pedlow, Dave Hewitt, Trevor Ringland and Tommy Bowe. Queen’s have also produced the likes of Gary Longwell, David Humphreys and Iain Henderson.

The club has four adult male teams and a female team that participate in IRFU, Ulster Branch Domestic competitions and Student Sport Ireland 15-a-side and Sevens competitions. Their main focus is on the holistic development of the student and athlete and to create a vibrant, enjoyable and collegiate club.

Ulster full-back/winger Louis Ludik will be helping Queen’s with their strength and conditioning with a view to going into that line of work when he finishes playing, while Bronson Ross is coaching the scrum.

“I’m busy doing my degree,” said Ludik. “I have done a course in South Africa and have got my certificate in personal training and I really enjoyed it. I wanted to explore that direction a bit more and fortunately with the system that IRUPA has in place I could study through college.

“IRUPA introduced me to Queen’s and the programme is to give me more experience about this type of thing, especially for after rugby, and as we know unfortunately rugby does last forever. I’m very excited by this opportunity and I just want to learn and be like a sponge and take everything in.

“The plan, the mindset and the vision they have for the university is very exciting. Guys like Mike (McGurn) have a lot of experience on the conditioning side and I am really looking forward to working with him. For me it is just about picking up experience and relationships and I’m really looking forward to it.”

Having suffered his fair share of injuries during his career, Ludik is very interested in strength and conditioning, adding: “I have seen with my career how big an impact that can have and that is why I was interested in it. The harder you work off the field and prepare your body to go on the field, the better player you are going to be and the less injury-prone you are going to be.

“It is to get your body fit and conditioned to be ready for on the field, because it is a contact sport, it is tough, and the guys are getting bigger and faster by the day.

“I just want to help kids from the beginning to get them the right training and make them a better rugby player at the end of the day.”

Ludik is enjoying working with the students even if he did not play much varsity rugby. He explained: “I didn’t play much rugby at university, I think I played one season at Under-19s and then I went straight into the Lions Under-21s and then on to the seniors.

“I felt in the beginning of my career I was a little bit behind the rest of the guys because they had three years at U-19, U-20 and U-21 to get that conditioning and I went straight into the seniors and never really had that base of conditioning

“Through the seasons I had to build my strength but I’d rather have that and get the experience from a young age.”

Anyone interested in playing rugby at Queen’s should contact Rugby Development Officer Darryl Callaghan on 07842375114.