Favourite piece of coaching equipment? This is a tough one, I guess my hands would say a catching mitt! 
When did you start playing? Any standout moments from your early cricket days? Started playing as an 11 year-old at a local club and at school.  I had a lot of good moments as a junior cricketer, but I guess representing Sunderland in a national final would probably be the highlight...even though it got rained off!

Previous job with young offenders - Tell me more!  Well I'm a qualified school teacher (PE) and my last job before moving here was as Head of PE and Sport in a referral unit.  It is basically a school for kids who have been excluded and expelled from mainstream school.  It wasn't a young offenders centre, but a large number of the kids were serial offenders and regularly in trouble with the police.  There was no PE in the school when I started so I got them going in a number of different things, cricket never really took off with them if I'm honest, but they did a lot of adventure sports, table tennis and soccer.  It was great to see a change in kids once they were given the opportunity to perform and do something physical outside of the classroom.

You worked with Durham CC, what was your role with in the club? My first job at Durham was as the Community Coach for the club.  Basically it was my responsibility to run all the coaching and activities for the club that were not part of the academy player pathways.  This involved running matchday events and coaching, summer camps and the PE side of the education centre at the ground.  As well as that I was involved as one of the coaches in the player pathway system and county age group squads.It was a great experience as there was also a lot of behind the scenes work away from coaching, from starting and running social media at the club, to organising and running a test match that you can't really do unless yo're at a County club.I also worked as a Club and Coach Development Officer for a season after a break from the club to go travelling.  Same kind of thing but with less of a focus on the matchday and community events and more on club specific coaching.

Major changes within Durham CC that you were part of? There was a lot going on at Durham while I was there, and the club as a whole, on and off the field went through some huge developments. It was the kind of place where you were involved in almost everything as there was only a small core of full time staff, and that was great.  In terms of things I had responsibility for, I guess running events like the Bowl Out Cup and some other match-day activities for juniors really helped to bring about the creation of their cricket foundation, making the club a little more family and community friendly.

What's your coaching style?  I'd hate to think of myself as a coach that only has one style, but I'd say recently I use a lot more game based learning and guided discovery in my coaching than I used to.  

What should we be watching out for in the Malahide CCC in 2014?  I think the main things to look out for are building blocks. The club has a strong base and it's now time to start building towards producing top quality senior players from that base.

What would you change in cricket in Leinster?  This is my first full season here in Ireland so I can't really say much.  

What would you like Cricket Leinster to be doing to help your club more? I think this is a difficult area, as there are not unlimited resources in terms of people or money to help all clubs.  I think in the long term as cricket develops it would be great to have more cricket development officers and coaches working in smaller areas, helping clubs to run school programmes and club coaching.   

How did you rate Leinster Lightning's first year, and will you be following them in 2014?  I didn't move to Dublin until August last year, so missed the season, although I'm already looking forward to seeing the Lightning in 2014.