The Kent Crusaders have announced the latest addition to their coaching staff, England U15 Girls Head Coach Cristina Stanciuca.

Stanciuca joins Crusaders from Surrey Goldhawks where she was the club’s Head Coach and ran their ABL and WEABL academy teams. She has been involved with the National Team for a number of years and was recently appointed as the Head Coach of the U15 Girls National Development Programme. She has just returned from the Copenhagen Invitational Tournament, having led them to their highest placing in a number of years.

She will take a role with Crusaders that will include player development with Crusaders’ AASE Academy at Canterbury High School, coaching within Crusaders’ Junior Academy at Canterbury High, head coach of Crusaders U14 National League programme, building the club’s profile in the community and with a long term view to creating and establishing a girls and women’s programme.

Stanciuca is looking forward to the new role, saying, “I am excited by this new chapter as I will not just get to coach but my role will be to build a community programme that will run under the Crusaders brand which will help us extend the Crusaders family by adding new players to our programmes. I am grateful for this opportunity as I have been doing this with my previous club and it is a process that I truly enjoyed doing.”

She added, “Alongside leading the community project, I will be part of a professional coaching environment that I am convinced will support my coaching and challenge me to keep developing in this field.”

Finally, she thanked Goldhawks for the role they have played in her development, “For last few years I have had a blast from a professional point of view leading the boys programme, running the community projects and leading the academy. All this has helped me develop as a person and coach and for that I am grateful. This decision hasn’t been an easy one to make. I am sad that I will have to let that go but I felt a new start is due and am excited for what September has to bring.”

Canterbury Head Coach and Crusaders’ Director Jesse Sazant is very excited about the appointment. “It is great to be adding a coach with Cristina’s extensive experience with boys and girls, elite and grassroots coaching. We know that she will fit into our culture and make a big difference to the programme.”