Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring is your weekly deep-dive into the often-overlooked “softer skills” of coaching—cultural innovation, communication, empathy, leadership, dealing with stress, and motivation. Each episode features candid conversations with the world’s top international rugby coaches, who share the personal stories and intangible insights behind their winning cultures, and too their biggest failures and learnings from them. This is where X’s and O’s meet heart and soul, empowering coaches at every level to foster authentic connections, inspire their teams, and elevate their own coaching craft. If you believe that the real gold in rugby lies beyond the scoreboard, Coaching Culture is the podcast for you.
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
Latest Episodes
They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, So He Built the Asia Pacific Lions
A packed stadium, free entry, a brand-new team built across borders, and a cold email that ends with Northampton Saints landing in Colombo. We talk with Saabir Cader, the founder behind the Asian Pacific Lions, about how Sri Lanka rugby became ...
The New Rugby Team That Could Change Asian Rugby | Jamie Henry
A captain’s job gets real when the message is hard and the stakes are higher than one person’s pride. Jamie Henry joins us to talk about the uncomfortable side of professional rugby: selection, disappointment, and the quiet way a results-driven...
The Culture Behind 54 All Blacks | Auckland Grammar School
What if the strongest teams aren’t built by hype, slogans, or “high performance” talk, but by a few clear rituals everyone can count on? I sit down with Dave Askew, deputy principal and First XV coach at Auckland Grammar School, to get a behind...
Paarl Boys High School | Inside the Program with Sean Eramus
Rugby can fill a stadium. Culture can shape a life. We sit down with Sean Erasmus, head coach at Paul Boys High School, to unpack what it takes to build a values-led rugby program inside one of the most tradition-heavy environments in the world...
How Ryan Martin led Northland’s Historic Ranfurly Shield Win
The Ranfurly Shield isn’t just a trophy. It’s a pressure cooker that turns every home match into a final, pulls entire towns into the story, and asks players to carry something heavier than a scoreboard. After Northland’s first Shield win since...
Fan Mail
Hi Ben. Thanks for the show and the reflections. Picking up on your 10 Jun pod on coaching your child, I was left wondering about how you would approach my situation? You touch on a parent projecting what a child could be. In my case, the child is clear to everyone she will be a really good player as a young adult (in 6 years time) but isn't prepared to admit that would need work and to commit time she thinks she doesn't have available. As a coach (and dad) I've had to back off from trying to help her with the practice and accept she isn't ready to do the work to fulfil her potential and there is a mismatch between what she could do if she tried, and what she is doing. Am waiting for the penny to drop but interested if you have any thoughts on coaching your own child who wants to play but is less keen on the practice? Many thanks. First time messenger. Dave J
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