GREAT BRITAIN have called up Lee Speight to be the head coach of the Student Pioneers Rugby League squad touring Kazakhstan this month.
Speight, a PE teacher at Huddersfield New College, was delighted and said: “It is a great honour to be selected to coach a national team.
“I feel enormously privileged, the players are very talented and originate from universities across the country.
“I am really looking forward to the test matches and experiencing the vastly different culture that Kazakhstan has to offer .”
Speight’s own career was cut short by a serious back injury which saw him turn his attention to coaching, and he has worked in a coaching capacity with high-profile professional clubs such as Halifax, Widnes Vikings and Huddersfield Giants.
Since starting at the college in September 2008, Speight has set up a Rugby League Academy in association with the Giants.
In the first year of the Academy the team finished as Yorkshire Premier Division runners-up and qualified for the Carnegie Champion Colleges play-offs.
The team also toured France, beating a French representative side and narrowly losing to Catalan Dragons Academy at the Stade Gilbert Brutus.
