Mark Barnes is a Rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

 coach and former professional Rugby league player from Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

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Barnes played professional Rugby league in Sydney for both the Parramatta Eels

Parramatta Eels

The Parramatta Eels are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta. The Parramatta District Rugby League Football Club was formed in 1947, with their First Grade side playing their first season in the New South Wales Rugby Football League...

 and the Eastern Suburbs Roosters

Sydney Roosters

The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League and is one of the oldest and most successful clubs in Australian rugby league history, having won twelve New South Wales Rugby League...

 over a seven year period from 1987-94. He then left to study at the Australian College of Physical Education

Australian College of Physical Education

The Australian College of Physical Education is an independent specialist tertiary education institution in Sydney, Australia. The college offers degree programmes in physical education, sports coaching, health and fitness, dance education, and sports management...

 at Homebush Bay

Homebush Bay, New South Wales

Homebush Bay was the former name of a suburb of western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia that took in the suburbs of Sydney Olympic Park, Wentworth Point and part of the neighbouring suburb of Lidcombe. Homebush Bay is located 16 kilometres west of the Sydney central business...

, Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, graduating as a PE teacher. He spent the next five years teaching and travelling, as well as both coaching and playing Rugby league. He went on to join the London Broncos as a community sports coach with the specific role of looking to increase the numbers of children playing Rugby league in schools in the area immediate to Griffin Park

Griffin Park

Griffin Park is a football ground situated in the London Borough of Hounslow, west London. It has been the home ground of League One side Brentford since it was built in 1904. It is known for being the only English league football ground to have a pub on each corner, and is situated in a...

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Barnes became a member of the coaching staff at Harlequins RL in December 2004, before linking up with Justin Morgan (his old Parramatta team mate) at Hull Kingston Rovers

Hull Kingston Rovers

Hull Kingston Rovers or Hull KR is an English professional rugby league football club based in Hull, England. The club formed in 1882 and currently competes in Super League, having won promotion from National League One in 2006...

 for the 2007 SL season in the role of Assistant Coach.

External links

• Mark Barnes Profile