HP Coach Development Team

Bill Davoren

Bill has been involved in High Performance (HP) sport within Australia for over 30 years in a range of leadership, management, and coaching roles across both the Olympic and professional sports environment.

After beginning his career as Sports Performance Manager at the Tasmanian Institute of Sport, Bill relocated to the Gold Coast in 1999 to coach Triathlon fulltime and in 2002 became Performance Director and Head Coach for Triathlon Australia. Bill led the Triathlon HP program and coached multiple medallists across a period considered to be Triathlon’s “golden” era.

Post Beijing, he joined the AFL environment as a Performance Manager and over a 9-year period he worked with players and coaches at the Western Bulldogs, St Kilda and Collingwood. In 2018 he returned to Olympic sport as Pathways Manager for Hockey Australia. In 2021

Bill assumed his current role as AIS HP Coach Development Manager, where he is charged with leading the development of the AIS HP Coach Development program.

Heidi Auricht-Doyle

Heidi Auricht-Doyle is an executive coach, facilitator, strategist and culture change specialist with over 10 years’ experience, working with organisations and senior leaders in a range of industries and settings to overcome obstacles and achieve goals/maintain high performance.

Specialising in stakeholder engagement and coaching individuals and teams, she has wide experience collaborating with teams and coaching them to achieve high performance. She has a key interest in having conversations that influence change, drive motivation and build resilience and is passionate about driving change processes at all levels, coaching individuals, teams, and NSO’s to improve the way they work and the results they achieve.

She has an undergraduate degree in Psychology, Masters in Business Administration and is currently completing the Masters of Coaching Psychology program at the University of Sydney. Heidi is also an accredited Motivational Interviewing trainer,  an approach that looks at building motivation for change, and has written and delivered programs on positive psychology and resilience, neuroscience, cognitive behavioural therapy/approach, and neuro-leadership.

Heidi joined the AIS in 2021 and has been focused on partnering with NSO’s to deliver their coach development strategies.

Michelle De Highden

Michelle is an experienced high performance coach and coach developer, passionate about facilitating coach development at the high performance level. Coaching at both the development and World Championships level has enabled Michelle to understand both the athlete and coach development pathway from grassroots to international success. With over 40 years’ experience coaching, she is also a qualified teacher and coach developer; working in educational, club, state and national sport settings. Michelle has led the collaborative design and implementation of athlete-centred development systems and blended learning designs for coach learning.

Michelle’s thirst for continual learning has driven her to complete a Masters of Sport Coaching, undertaking a thesis on Utilising a 360° coach profile to design bespoke development plans for high performance coaches. More recently she had the privilege of attending the ICCE NSSU Coach Developer Academy in Japan (2019-2020) to enhance her own facilitation skills and become certified as an ICCE Trained Coach Developer.

Michelle’s role within the AIS High Performance Coach Development Team is to collaborate with sports to support the strategies and systems for development of their high performance coaches. She is leading the Women in High Performance Coaching Project which aims to investigate the narratives and experiences of women in high performance coaching to guide interventions and recommendations for future-led system wide impact.

Lúcás O’Ceallacháin

Lúcás is driven by his ikigai, or purpose, to live every day with love in order to help others.  His values of play, love and care have led him on a career trajectory that is highlighted by success on the field of play and off it. A former rugby player he spent more than 10 years in rugby development and high performance in Kazakhstan, Russia and Ireland. His time in wrestling is best known for building a global talent ID and scholarship program for 114 athletes with a 50% qualification rate for the Rio 2016 Olympics, successful delivery of the wrestling competition at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast and a record breaking World Championship campaign for Wrestling Canada as their High Performance Director.

He holds an MSc in Sport and Exercise Management from University College Dublin as well as diplomas in sports law, athlete performance pathways, sports psychology and sports journalism. He is a certified Hintsa Performance Coach and believes that wellbeing is fundamental for sustainable performance.  His interests include motivational interviewing, LEGO Serious Play and psychological safety. He is a certified Fearless Organisation Scan Practitioner in the area of psychological safety.

David Joyce

David is a sports and performance strategist who has worked in and led elite sporting teams around the world for more than two decades. After having helped with the development of the National High-Performance Coach Development Strategy, he is now consulting to the Coach Development team to help facilitate the implementation phase.

He holds an MBA and Masters degrees in both Sports Physiotherapy and Strength & Conditioning, and has written and co-edited three internationally best-selling textbooks on high-performance and rehabilitation that have been translated into seven languages around the world.

Sue Jenkins

Paul Perkins

Dr Paul Perkins is a dedicated, passionate and experienced coach, educator and researcher, who has a passion for helping others and seeing people succeed.

He has worked with athletes and coaches across all levels of the pathway and has extensive experience in the design and successful delivery of coach educational training courses, and the preparation of supporting materials.

Over the past few years, Paul has undertaken part-time post graduate studies through the University of Canberra and recently graduated with a PhD in Sport Science and Human Movement. His research was cross-disciplinary, covering areas extending from design and evaluation of sport-based development initiatives to identification of coaching practices that contribute to long-term participant adherence and success. Through the associated reading, Paul has become familiar with a broad range of scientific literature pertinent to coach learning and development and the various ways in which coaches acquire their knowledge.

Paul now sees himself as a coach/scientist who is ideally placed to assist others in applying scientific principles to coaching practice and integrating them with the art of coaching. He believes in the power of collaboration and has a strong desire to help other people realise their potential through the provision of positive, rewarding, and transformative sporting experiences.

Luke Major

Luke Major is the Project Officer in the AIS HP Coach Development Team. Luke has a breadth of project management experience from disciplines such as biomedical research, diversity and inclusion, and sport and exercise medicine. These roles have seen Luke manage and deliver on projects in areas such as research, digital education, communications and event management. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons Class I) and is nearing the completion of a Master of Public Health.

As an athlete, Luke has won national medals and gained Australian team selection in the 400m hurdles. At the AIS, he is currently leading the National Coach Database project and assisting in several other areas such as the National Coach Network and Coach Wellbeing.

HP Coach Development Task Force

The HP Coach Development Task Force provide guidance and feedback to the HP Coach Development team on our activities and we thank them for their involvement.

Task Force members

• Adrian Hinchliffe
• Barry Dancer
• Brett Murdoch
• Cameron Tradell
• Chelsea Warr
• Geoff Lipshut
• Louise Sauvage
• Matti Clements
• Michael Blackburn
• Stacey Marinkovich
• Tim Walsh

More information

For more information, please email hpcoachdevelopment@ausport.gov.au.