NEW Bridport coach Lee Burdett is relishing the “new challenge” of leading the Blues ahead of their opening pre-season training session on Thursday.

Bridport return to the Brewery Ground under the direction of Burdett, who started his rugby career in his home county of Leicestershire at John Cleveland College.

He played alongside former England internationals Ollie Smith, Sam Vesty and Harry Ellis with all of them enjoying spells with the Leicester Tigers Academy.

And Burdett revealed Bridport supporters can look forward to a bigger influence on possession during his tenure.

He told Echosport: “I’m looking forward to it, it’s a new challenge.

“I think I’ll bring more of a structured game, a possession-based sort of game and see where we go.

“It’s nice that they’re investing in people’s coaching careers.”

After moving to Bridport in 2012, Burdett’s son started to play in the under-7s. He was then asked to be one of the coaches for the juniors and started to play again for the Blues’ first XV.

Burdett admitted it was positive to already have a “familiarisation” with the club.

He said: “Every club, big or small, have their own culture and going in already knowing what that culture is, is nice. It’s a good start to have that familiarisation.”

In the summer of 2014, Burdett passed his RFU Level One coaching course, followed in summer 2017 with the Level Two.

In the same year he spent the day at Pennyhill Park under the tutelage of former England under-18 coach John Fletcher and England coach Eddie Jones.

It was there he was introduced to CARDS (Creativity, Awareness, Resilience, Decision Making and Self Organisation) which forms the cornerstone of his coaching philosophy, allowing both coaches and players greater freedom in their roles and encourages learning through exploration of the game.

Training sessions are every Tuesday and Thursday up to the start of the season in early September.

Tuesdays will focus on fitness and open play while Thursdays will be more structured and focus on elements of Burdett’s philosophy in both offensive and defensive strategies.

There are plans to have joint ‘live’ sessions with other local clubs, at Puddletown on Tuesday, August 7 focussing on scrums and Weymouth on Tuesday, August 14 focussing on line-outs.

Burdett will also be running the Return to Rugby programme, which begins tomorrow for three weeks.

New players can contact lee-burdett@hotmail.co.uk or club captain Tom Gamwell tomgamwell@gmail.com