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.
Episodes
151 episodes
Choose What You Inherit
My dad is about to turn 80, and it’s made me think hard about the quiet stuff we pick up from our parents: the phrases, the reflexes, the way we decide what’s “possible.” Some of that inheritance is gold. Some of it needs to be left behind. I s...
Lost 7 Finals By One Point. Then Won | Club Newman
A rugby club with 1,500 players shouldn’t feel personal, yet Newman Club in Buenos Aires somehow does. Alfredo Cordone explains how Argentina’s club-first rugby pathway creates a level of belonging most countries have lost, where the club becom...
The Welsh Rugby Programme Punching WAY Above Its Weight | Coleg Sir Gar
A lot of talent pathways talk about “development,” but few are honest about what it really takes to build better players without losing the person. We sit down with Euros Evans, Director of Rugby at Coleg Sir Gar and Head Coach at Llandovery RF...
Building A British And Irish Expat Rugby Team
A lot of people talk about “culture” like it’s a slogan. Dan Elsom lives it, by building a brand-new representative rugby team for the British and Irish expat community in Australia, then turning it into a real platform for players who want mor...
Inside Canada’s Rugby Factory | Shawnigan Lake School
Watching pro rugby on TV can make school rugby look intimidating, but the truth is far more hopeful and far more practical. We’re joined by Tim Murdy, Director of Sport at Shawnigan Lake School, to talk about how a youth rugby program becomes a...
Campese Ma’afu’s Incredible Road Back to Professional Coaching
A lot of people talk about “culture” like it’s a slogan on a wall. We wanted something more real, so I sat down with Campese Maafu, a three-time Rugby World Cup prop and 63-test Flying Fijian, to hear what actually holds teams and people togeth...
Merchiston Castle School | Inside One of Scotland’s Great Rugby Schools
Winning is loud. Development is quiet. And in school rugby, the noise can crush the very kids we are trying to help. I sit down with Roddy Dean, one of Scotland’s leading schoolboy rugby coaches and longtime Director of Rugby at Merciston Castl...
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...
Why Winning Teams Still Have Culture Problems | Ross Neal
If someone had to “explain” your culture to a new hire, would it fall apart the moment pressure hits? Ross Neal joins us to get brutally practical about what culture actually is: what you do and how you do it, so clear that a person could sit i...
Newington College GPS Champions | Inside the Program
A championship season can tempt coaches to talk only about tactics, but the real story sits in the spaces between school, sport, and growing up. We sit down with Tim Rapp, head coach of Newington College First XV and Australia U16 head coach, t...
Why So Many Good Coaches Are Struggling | The Invisible load
You can spot a coach on the sideline in seconds. What’s harder to see is everything they carry home afterward: the player who’s struggling, the conversation they should have handled better, the pressure from parents or committees, the fear of j...
Ex-Wallaby Reveals How Culture Is Really Made | Ben Darwin
“Culture” is the most overused word in sport, and we’ve both heard it used as a lazy explanation for everything from blowout losses to surprise championships. So we put the uncomfortable question on the table with Ben Darwin from Game Line Anal...
Ex-All Blacks Analyst Reveals the Danger of Statistics | Al Rodgers
You can know the “right” answer as a coach and still miss the point if your environment pushes people in the wrong direction. That’s the thread we pull on with Al Rogers, who spent nine years as an All Blacks analyst during a golden run, then m...
Why Good Coaches Don't Always Pick the Good Players
The hottest debate in any team sport is selection, and we get why it drives people crazy. From the stands, it looks like a simple list of the most talented players. From the coach’s seat, it’s risk management, culture building, and performance ...
Pressure Made Me Forget Who I Was | Joey Mongalo
Pressure doesn’t usually change a coach with one big blow. It changes you slowly, one compromise at a time, until the season ends and you realize you’ve been walking around in fog. Joey Mongalo joins us for a contrarian round of questions on co...
How to Break Through as a Coach (Without a Playing Career)
A Champions Cup-winning rugby attack coach who never played professional rugby should not make sense and that’s exactly why Noel McNamara’s story matters. We sit with the uncomfortable truth that the “perfect CV” is often overrated, and the rea...
How a maths teacher became a world class coach | Noel McNamara
Winning a major trophy is supposed to be the moment, but Noel McNamara doesn’t romanticize it. He explains why a title can feel like relief for ten minutes, and why the harder, more meaningful work starts immediately after: rebuilding energy, s...
What 23 Years at Leicester Taught Me About Leadership | Geordan Murphy
Some teams win because they have better players. Leicester Tigers, at their best, won because they had a culture that could survive anything, including brutal training, relentless internal competition, and the pressure of living up to an identi...
THE NEW MASCULINITY OF COACHING Craig White
Most teams don’t lose because they lack information. They lose because pressure hijacks attention, connection, and decision making. Craig White joins us to unpack a simple truth that too many coaches miss: your team feels your nervous system be...
How the Hurricanes Value Culture. Tom Kindley
A 60-5 final score makes headlines, but the real story is what has to be true inside a team for that kind of performance to show up when it matters most. We’re joined by Tom Kinley, General Manager of the Hurricanes, to break down the culture s...
