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BIOGRAPHY
Damian McGrath played professional rugby league for Batley. He has coached professionally at domestic, national and international level across both codes of rugby. His first coaching opportunity came at Batley where he led the Reserve team to overdue success. This led to an invitation to join Leeds RL as Academy Coach. After several successful seasons he was appointed to be Assistant 1st team Coach at Leeds, followed by a similar role at London Broncos. During this period, he gained international recognition, firstly coaching the Great Britain Academy RL team then as Assistant Coach for the Great Britain U21s, before becoming the Assistant Coach for the Senior National Team at the 2000 Rugby League World Cup.
He became one of the first coaches to change codes when he joined the England Rugby Union set up at the turn of the millennium. He was appointed Skills and Defence Coach for the England 7s and England ‘A’ teams. Alongside this he held a similar role with Leicester Tigers 1st team. He was Assistant Coach for the England U19s who won bronze at the World Cup and was Head Coach of the Junior England 7s team that won a silver medal at the Junior Commonwealth Games in Australia. During this period England 7s appeared at the 7s World Cup and the Commonwealth Games in Manchester as well as winning the prestigious Hong Kong 7s on four consecutive occasions.
He was Skills and defence coach for the Spanish National Rugby team for three years before becoming Head of Rugby for the North Wales Rugby Region (RGC).
He returned to become Assistant Coach of England 7s, including another appearance at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. In 2014 he was Head coach of Great Britain Students team that won a gold medal at the World Student Games in Brazil.
In 2015 he became Head Coach of the Samoan National 7s team leading them to a Cup success in Paris. He then took over as Head Coach of the Canadian National 7s team leading them to a historic Cup success in Singapore. He also coached the team in the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane and the 7s World Cup in San Francisco.
On returning to Europe, he took over as Head Coach of the German National 7s team leading them to victory in the World Challenger Series in Chile followed by an unprecedented 5th place finish in a World Series event. He then took over as Kenya National 7s team coach leading them to the 7s World Cup in Cape Town and the Commonwealth games in Birmingham.
He attained a B.Ed degree whilst training to be a teacher and spent two years on Personal Development at Ashridge Business School.
He has been a key note speaker at several national and international events including the 2012 Olympics and written three, well-received, rugby skills books
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