Last week, The Rugby Union Players' Association (RUPA) visited the Melbourne Rebels at IKON Park as one of our regular team visits.

These visits present a great opprtunity for RUPA to catch up with our members face to face and let them know what we are doing to help them be better people, better players and live better lives.

It's also a wonderful chance to find out what's happening behind the scenes at every Club, as well as hear directly from the players as to what they think about the state of the game and the challenges facing Australian Rugby.

Whilst in Melbourne, RUPA/Rebels Player Development Manager (PDM) Cameron Yorke also gave us some insight into some recent achievements of the Player Development Programme (PDP).

The first actually involved Cam himself, who recently took three days' away from the Club to lead an intensive class on Athlete Management as a guest lecturer at Deakin University. Cam, a former University lecturer with over ten years experience at Perth's Curtin University, was able to both present and facilitate the class, which incorporates part of Deakin's Master of Business (Sports Management) degree.

Cam said that presenting the class was valuable for his own professional development, as it required him to "reflect upon the last five and a half years at the Rebels in terms of what has, and hasn't worked", as well as opening him to feedback from the students regarding his approach.

Wallaby and Rebel trio James Hanson, Mike Harris and Sean McMahon took advantage of their day off on Wednesday by learning barista skills, while for Cruze Ah-Nau, Ryan Cocker, Pat Leafa & Reece Hodge this week marked the end of their Diploma of Business course.

Congratulations to all the players in Melbourne for continuing to think about life after Rugby, and to Cam for continuing to look for opportunities to continue his own development, and we wish you all the best to the move to new training facilities at AAMI Park.

Next up for a RUPA team vist, the Queensland Reds!