West Wales Raiders RLFC have appointed the award winning Australian-born Kim Williams as their new head coach, starting from the 2019 season.
The former high performance manager of Melbourne Storm, Williams has built a strong reputation in Australia and is recognised as being one the best head coaches outside of the NRL.
Williams, who has Welsh roots, is a career coach who has worked in many parts of Australia. Born in Shellharbour in New South Wales, he began as a development officer in 1998 in Adelaide. He then had seven years as the development manager for the Western Australia Rugby League in Perth.
He joined the Storm in 2009 and was responsible for the management of the Victorian Rugby League representative programmes as well as the Melbourne Storm Academy, who he coached to the NRL Under 18 Grand Final in his first season where they lost out to Canterbury Bulldogs.
He moved to the Queensland Cup – the second best rugby league competition in Australia – in 2013, when he replaced former South Wales Scorpions coach Anthony Seibold to take charge of Mackay Cutters, leading them to finish top of the league table and to win the Grand Final in his first season. He remained there until the end of the 2015 season.
He has spent the last three years as head coach of another Queensland Cup side, the Rockhampton-based Central Queensland Capras, a feeder side to NRL club Brisbane Broncos.
Williams’ grandfather, Griffin Williams, was born in Swansea, emigrating to Australia with his family after he served in the Royal Navy in World War II. This has given him extra incentive to coach West Wales Raiders, the Llanelli-based club being based less than an hour away from his family’s roots.
Williams said: “I want to help establish West Wales Raiders as the premier rugby league club in Wales by building the foundations for sustained success.
“I will be bringing a high level of professionalism and knowledge into the club to develop strong and clear pathways for our junior and local players, and I want to create a culture at the club that meets the expectation of our supporters and stakeholders.
“I am very proud of my Welsh heritage and see a great opportunity to help develop our great game in Wales. I’m impressed with the passion and professionalism shown by Andrew Thorne and the board of the Raiders and I’m excited to be a part of their plans moving forward.”
Raiders’ director Andrew Thorne said: “The board and I are over the moon to have secured the full time services of a quality coach like Kim Williams.
“Over the past 12 months the club has been working hard to establish the grass roots and player pathways from juniors to under 19s all linking to the first team, and as a result we have taken a bit of a hammering both on the pitch and on social media for it.
“However we kept the course and now have a fantastic coach who will help develop the next phase of our strategy and that is to build a squad that the supporters and the sport can be proud of.
“Kim brings a wealth of experience and has coached at some of the most well-known clubs in Australia with the latest being Central Queensland Capras.
“I’m sure that Kim will have a completely different outlook on how the club can move forward and we are all excited to take things on. I know that the current player base are excited and are ready to turn things around both on and off the pitch. There are some exciting times in the club ahead and I’m looking forward to continuing to develop Rugby league in South Wales.”