HEREFORD Cathedral School's Assistant Headteacher Marcus Blackburn has recently returned from Australia’s Gold Coast where he was coaching Jamaica Rugby Sevens Team at the Commonwealth Games.

Blackburn, who has previously been national coach for the Singapore Rugby Union and is author of the book ‘Coaching Rugby Sevens’, was one of more than 15,000 volunteers who gave up their time to make the Commonwealth Games an entertaining and successful event.

The Hereford teacher helped Jamaica Rugby prepare for their debut at the Games, where the team benefitted from access to the world class facilities at both Bond University and the Commonwealth Games Athletes’ Village.

Jamaica, known to their global fan-base as ‘The Crocs’, were coached by Blackburn for their games against England, Samoa and Australia.

And while New Zealand won the overall Rugby Sevens tournament, Blackburn said Jamaica’s debut at the Commonwealth Games “showed the rest of the world that, with an improvement in programming, the country has the potential to advance up the World Rugby rankings”.

Jamaica are currently ranked 22 in the world and will compete in this summer’s Rugby World Cup Sevens in San Francisco.

Blackburn, who is former Director of Rugby at The Scots College in Sydney, also shined a spotlight on the volunteer effort and overall hosting of the event by the Gold Coast and wider communities.

He said: “The Games organisers provided a gold class service to participating athletes and teams, and the level of volunteer involvement at all events was truly inspiring.

Overall, it was a privilege to be part of the start of Jamaica Rugby’s Commonwealth journey and the Games as a whole was a memorable and rewarding experience.”