Phillips revealed a new emphasis will be placed on coach development in Welsh Rugby in the immediate future.
He pointed to Warren Gatland and Rob Howley’s inclusion on the British & Irish Lions tour of New Zealand this summer as a significant opportunity for them to further fine-tune their own coaching credentials.
The appointment of three coaches from the Welsh regional game (Danny Wilson, Matt Sherratt and Stephen Jones) to lead Wales on tour of the Pacific Islands, is also singled out as direct evidence of the new strategy in place.
“We are keen to really elevate the importance of coaching in Wales,” said Phillips.
“If you take the top ten ranked professional teams in the world, seven of the coaches of those teams are from New Zealand or Australia
“That’s not by chance, it’s because those two nations are serious about coach development and that’s where we want to be.
“We’d like to see some Welsh coaches in there in 10 year’s time.
“We’ve been fortunate to be able to offer significant development this year in a number of areas in actually quite a compressed period of time.
“You have Warren and Rob going on the Lions tour and our belief is that they’ll get more benefit from coaching the Lions, going into probably the toughest tour in rugby than they would have on the South Sea Islands tour.
“They will have to progress, to learn and innovate to be successful there, but then the South Sea Islands tour affords us the chance to work with some of the regional coaches.
“Robin McBryde will head the tour, he brings the continuity, and he’ll grow as part of that process and then we have got three of the regional coaches involved as well.
“They’ll get very different experience in terms of how you gel a team from very different clubs who will possibly be unfamiliar to each other.
“How do they, in a short period of time get them to gel, in what will be a tough tour?
“Both Tonga and Samoa will want to win and we’ll have to play well to succeed out there.
“We believe that gives quite a lot, almost all of our professional coaches, an intense development period across the summer and then we will benefit in the years ahead.
“We don’t think there is any substitute for actually coaching, it’s a bit like playing. You can train all you want but you improve as a player when you play the game.”
Phillips’ vision is that in the years ahead Welsh coaches will be the most sought after in the world game, in much the same way as southern hemisphere coaches dominate the top sides today.
“They’ve done it in a really conscious way, if you look at those [successful southern hemisphere] coaches, many of them have had experience at club and country level around the world,” added Phillips.
“They have really gained from that experience and ended up back in their home nation coaching the national team or another team.
“Our Regions have been brilliant as have the coaches they are supportive because we have built a collective plan and everyone can see the value.
“We have a succession plan for players and a succession plan for coaches.
“Once people are involved and able to contribute to a plan, when you get to the execution, in my experience, it’s generally easier then to make progress more quickly.”
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