As part of Girls and Women's Week we catch up with NZ U17 S&C Coach and Manawatu's Rachel Finlay. 

1. Could you tell us a bit about your Background ?
   I’ve played football since I was 4 and still play now! As a kid I always wanted to play professionally (for Manchester United – David Beckham had nothing on me) but alas the dream never quite made it to reality!
   I grew up in Hawkes Bay and moved down to Palmy for uni – after I finished my degree in Exercise and Sport Science I decided I wanted to be involved in football anyway I could career wise. In the last 2-3 years football in NZ has really come in leaps and bounds in terms of strength and conditioning and sport science for the athletes and opportunities are now starting to grow within the sport which is fantastic. I have a real passion for injury prevention and my inner nerd loves the athlete management side of the sport, using different recovery methods, periodised programming, GPS and other data analysis to analyse the players work load and how they are responding to training and games to ensure they’re playing at their peak and remaining injury free. This side of things has become my focus in the last year and is how I wish to continue my work within the sport.
   This season I am currently working with a Wellington and Palmy based club doing exactly this. Last year I opened my own performance gym in Palmy called The Performance Room which has been an incredible experience on its own. The stress of having your own business and ensuring it grows for the people within it has been a real character building exercise. We specialise in not only athlete development but general population health and wellness as well. I wanted to create a space that removed the quick fixes and fads that the fitness industry is littered with these days. I wanted to lift the standard of training being given to members and clients and thus all my trainers are degree qualified. Last year myself and one of my trainers, Angus Preston, were lucky enough to work with the Central Football NWL team which I absolutely loved. We provided game day support and had them training in the gym once a week with an emphasis on injury prevention through periodised strength training. I’m hoping to be able to work with them again this year in a more in-depth training role. Despite the results of the Central NWL girls this past season, I think the women’s game is definitely growing in the region. It’s always going to be hard to get the girls together for trainings with such a wide area to cover but the talent coming through the age groups is fantastic and will hopefully only become stronger as the years go on and I’m sure that CF will develop programs to ensure that the girls continue to develop as players so they can go on and play at a high level. I think going from when I played age group reps for CF it has come a long way.
   
    
2. What was your role with the NZU17 squad & how did it come about?
   I was lucky enough to be the Sport Scientist for the NZU17 squad at the World Cup in Uruguay – possibly something I never thought would happen! A good family friend of ours is the physio for the ferns squad and when she heard they were looking for a SS for the 17s she put my name forward. Even luckier that Leon happened to be the coach who coincidentally had coached me growing up in HB and the rest is history!
   The Sport Scientist/Strength and Conditioning role was a big one that covered almost everything to do with their prep prior to the WC, their nutrition while we were there, their recovery post trainings and games, strength work to ensure injury prevention, hydration and warm ups. While at the WC, and having such a smaller staff we all really had to work together and for each other which I’d like to think really contributed to the success of the team, not just how the girls played on the pitch and obviously Leon and Gemma’s coaching  but how we helped them off the pitch and enabled them to play to their best. We had a private Facebook group set up for the girls for communication which I think worked really well, considering the players were so widely dispersed around the country. The previous S&C I took over from had put in place a periodised gym program for the girls to perform in their own cities with weekly loading and additional fitness requirements with each player having to check in each week. When you have limited resources you do what you can and this seemed to be a really good platform to implement the S&C program for this age group.

3. It was your first time involved with a National Age group squad how did you find the experience?
   I knew going over that this would be the experience of a lifetime and possibly one that I might never get again – roles within Football are pretty hard to come by sometimes so I wanted to make the most of it. It most definitely did not disappoint – the result and how the girls played were just icing on the cake of what would have been an incredible experience regardless. Leon ran a tight ship but it was fantastic, professional yet fun which I think is the perfect balance and obviously had a huge impact on how the girls performed. I might hopefully get to be involved in a campaign again but we might not ever be in such a position on a world stage again so I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity and would 100% love to be involved in future campaigns (hint hint!). 

4. To be part of this historic campaign must have been amazing what was some of your favourite moments?
   There are so many to choose from! Obviously seeing the girls progress through the group stage, beat one of the biggest teams in the world in the quarter final and then get a medal was a top favourite! Initiations were an absolute highlight, I don’t think I’ve laughed so much – if some of the girls don’t make it in football they’ve got a career in rapping to fall back on that’s for sure. I think my other highlight apart from the great friends I made within the staff would be the treasure hunt I was sent on by two of the girls (Kelli Brown and Georgia Candy). They had a lot of downtime at the hotel and clearly boredom had set in – it was elaborate, cryptic and a lot harder than I expected it to be but the chocolate at the end was well worth it!
   
    
5. What opportunities do you now see for the federation with what you have achieved & learnt from the World Cup? 
   Obviously the success of the team will hopefully inspire the younger girls playing football and show the ones that are already in the FTC and NTC set up that success can be achieved on the world stage. I think it show’s that you don’t have to be from Auckland or live up there to be a great player and go far in the game. We have fantastic coaching talent within our Federation that can develop female footballers into world class players. It might be a wide spread Federation but if we can utilise the experience within myself, Leon and other staff within the region then there’s no reason as to why we can’t be a Federation that produces and develops talented footballers that go on to play at a high level.
   I think there’s huge opportunity within the Federation now to utilise the skills that I now have and of course Leon. I of course think that strength and conditioning and sport science are a hugely important aspect of football and need to be emphasised and implemented more within the clubs, the FTC, NTC programs and NWL. I would love to work with more youth footballers to ensure they are preparing themselves for the sport as best as they can. If they have dreams to play professionally or go overseas and play I would love to work with them to make sure they are physically ready and know what to expect so they can get that edge and help them make those dreams a reality. I am currently working with a few Palmy based players but am also just putting together a program so I can work with players outside of Palmy as well. I think my dream of playing professionally has now grown into one of helping others fulfil that dream because I couldn’t.