Plan the week, keep honest mates, own your game: Dylan Pledger's advice to young players

Dylan Pledger is a Highlanders halfback who is also partway through a Bachelor of Commerce in accounting. At the Highlanders' regional schools camp this week he sat down with Neil Brew to talk about how he fits the two together, and most of what he said applies to any teenager juggling training, school and a life.

Plan the week

Pledger's first point was the least glamorous and the most useful: plan the week so that training, study and time with friends all have a place. When the week is written down, the hard sessions and the assignments stop fighting each other.

Keep the right people close

He talked about friends who hold you accountable, the ones who ask whether you have done the work rather than just whether you want to hang out. And he was clear that asking for help is part of the job: talking to lecturers, and to the player development staff whose role is exactly that.

Own your own development

Nobody else is going to make a player better. Coaches set the programme, but the extras, the review, the recovery and the honesty about what needs work are the player's. That was the message to the camp.

Have something outside rugby

Pledger said having a life outside the game is what helps him play his best rugby, not a distraction from it. For him it is the commerce degree. For a school player it might be music, a part-time job, or another sport. The point is the same: a bad game is easier to shake when rugby is not the only thing you are.

None of this needs a professional contract. A written weekly plan, a mate who keeps you honest, a teacher you are willing to ask, and one thing you love that is not rugby. That is the list.