Fisher continues his rise up ranks (From Worcester News)

Fisher continues his rise up ranks

12:00pm Saturday 4th February 2012 in Warriors By Tom Guest, @tomguestWN #WENsport

WORCESTER ladies’ head coach Luke Fisher is again one of the Rugby Football Union coaching team for the women’s super fours trials in early May.

The trials feature the country’s top 88 players, split into four squads, who face each other over two fixtures with the aim of making the England squad for the 2012-13 season.

They will include many of the England squad who defeated world champions New Zealand in 2011 and won last year’s Six Nations.

Fisher, a lecturer and coach at Gloucestershire’s Hartpury College, is delighted to take up prestigious position and train some of England’s best players.

This is another step up the coaching ladder for the 22-year-old, who has been working with several of the England elite group on their individual skills and strength and conditioning for the last three years.

Fisher said: “I coached a super fours squad last year and will be doing it again this year as we look to select the 44-player England squad.

“As coaches, we don’t find out which players we will have in our squad until nearer the time and after the divisional programme. From that, we will select them.

“I will be hoping a lot of my Worcester squad will be included, a few more than last time.

“We have 11 players in the international set-ups at the moment, including the full England squad, the age groups and one, Tracy Balmer, with Scotland.”

Fisher, who also plays for Jersey, is now under 15s girls’ head coach for the south-west region alongside his other coaching roles with Hartpury Rugby Academies, the RFUW advanced apprenticeship in sporting excellence scheme and Worcester.

He is working towards his level three coaching award, which he hopes to complete in early 2013.

On his Worcester side, Fisher admitted they have had an up-and-down campaign in the RFUW Premiership.

He added: “In rugby, you can’t blame injuries but we have been hit hard this season. At one stage, we had 10 of our first-choice XV ruled out through injury.

“Thankfully, we have a good squad and some of the youngsters from the Hartpury AASE scheme have stepped up to the challenge.

“We are comfortably in mid-table at the moment and had a good win over Lichfield in our first game after the Christmas break.”