Where future Sharks are born

Proud to be one of the best academies in the country, taking the best northern talent and developing them into elite athletes and role models. With a fearless coaching team here at Carrington and across our region, we continue to grow the academy and develop more young players, rising Sharks who dream of one day, joining Your Sharks first team.

A world-class Player Development Pathway

We have a simple ambition: support and nurture future Sharks. And to borrow a famous Manchester quote, we do things differently here. The Sharks Academy aims to provide the best player development pathway and best academy program in England, through a holistic model that focuses on four key areas. The pathway coaches our unique Sharks DNA combined with the development of mental discipline around confidence, challenge, commitment, control.

Our Academy Sharks DNA:

Creative Attacker: The ability to combine technical skill & tactical decision making to create attacking opportunities during game play.

Defensive Warrior: The ability to repeatedly make effective decisions in defence which will disrupt the opposition and win back possession.

Relentless Athlete: The physical capacity of a fast, robust player to repeatedly perform high-intensity effort and recover quickly.

Best Teammate: The ability to self-organise, take responsibility, and build relationships in order to perform effectively as part of a team.

We make every effort to immerse our players in a professional environment, with a schedule that reflects that of our first team. The training includes a balance of rugby, strength and conditioning, education, life skills alongside mental health and wellbeing workshops. Our education partner links provide further education and scholarship opportunities for our players, alongside combined apprenticeship schemes and vocational opportunities.

Although we eat, sleep, drink rugby, and love nothing more than being out on the pitch, we work hard to also give young Sharks the tools for life beyond rugby, with a scheduled programme of workshops, charitable events and community engagements. Senior Academy players mentor their peers and younger players in the pathway programme, with support and position-specific coaching.

The values of our club make us who we are. A team, community, family. Being part of our Sharks Family means embracing our culture and it’s vitally important for our young Sharks to have the support of their parents.  As a parent, we understand you might feel nervous and worried, but we’ve got you, because that’s what families do. You’ll have parent workshops throughout the season specific to age groups and challenges your children might face. We’ll help you navigate through that (powered by brews and our northern charm), so don’t worry, you aren’t on your own.

Our Player Development Pathway runs alongside our Coaching Development Plan to ensure we constantly enhance the delivery of our program and have the best possible talent development environment for our young Sharks (and our coaches) to grow. This paves a clear pathway into professional rugby from the grassroots game.