The Tasman Rugby Union began its high performance development programme yesterday with an emphasis also on coach development.

Under the guidance of Tasman Academy mentor Gary Stevens, the union is encouraging potential coaches with position-specific knowledge and skills to become involved as part of future player development.

Around 20 Nelson-based players and division one club coaches attended yesterday's session, with Tasman Makos' assistant coach Leon MacDonald overseeing a similar operation in Blenheim.

Stevens said a meeting with Nelson Bays division one coaches last Friday indicated that the high performance development programme wanted to incorporate coach development.

He said the first six sessions would focus on "delivering to the players a structured skill development programme that club coaches can come and view and take away, utilise or add value to what we're doing at our level to all their club players, to try to close that gap between our age-group players and the run-of-the-mill club player".

"We're just trying to balance it out a bit better," said Stevens.

"Part of that is identifying coaches in our region and offering individual performance plans for them that's based on the individual performance plans that the players use, using six pillars of excellence; technical expertise, tactical, physical, nutrition, mental skills and a holistic view on the game of rugby as well.

"It's a long, hard road to get into a professional role, but if you do have those kind of visions, then we'd certainly be keen to help you along the way."

He said the Tasman Academy had traditionally drawn position-specific coaching expertise from the "Crusaders and other resources", but felt there was sufficient experience within the region for Tasman to develop its own coaching resource base which would ultimately "help all ages and all levels".

Stevens said they'd be approaching coaches who they believed had specific skills. "It's all about picking guys that have a passion for the game still and really do want to add value to the development of rugby in our region."

Yesterday's session was open to division one coaches, with the first of the positional specific training sessions scheduled for two weeks' time. Stevens said he'd be hand-picking around six coaches.

"We're just trying to get that excitement about coaching again because for a long time, ever since the introduction of professional rugby, it's all been about the players, so we're trying to get some support network around coaches.

"We'll bring them into [a] high performance framework before making them available to clubs and schools."

As part of the process, the academy will be producing session plans and video clips that will be available as coaching aids.

Stevens is a former Nelson Bays representative and has coached the Nelson senior club side, the Nelson College First XV and the Tasman sevens team. He's also been involved as a selector for the New Zealand under-17, under-20 and secondary schools teams.