Speaker 1: How are you doing? Welcome to episode two hundred and
Speaker 1: forty eight of the Rugby League Coach Podcast, and we
Speaker 1: are in season four of it. My name is Lee Addison.
Speaker 1: I am the owner of Rugby League Coach dot com
Speaker 1: dot au. I'll be telling you plenty about the end
Speaker 1: of financial year sales soon. You'd be silly not to
Speaker 1: have a look at it if you are a coach.
Speaker 1: I am also a coach mentor, a coach educator, a
Speaker 1: coach consultant, and the author of the first rugby league
Speaker 1: coaching book in about thirty years. I think that book
Speaker 1: is called Rugby League Coach Thirteen Game Changing Conversations to
Speaker 1: Transform Your Coaching. One of our sponsors on this podcast
Speaker 1: is the Global League Network and you can find them
Speaker 1: at Global League dot Network. That's the Global League Network
Speaker 1: at Global League dot Network. Many people want to succeed
Speaker 1: in sports. Many people want to succeed in rugby league,
Speaker 1: but not many know or are willing to go to
Speaker 1: the depths or are willing to do even what it takes. Now.
Speaker 1: This Rugby League Coach Podcast constantly covers these two areas.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're three areas. People that don't know what to
Speaker 1: do to succeed in Rugby league definitely covers that one.
Speaker 1: And then there's the lens you have to go to
Speaker 1: and what and just willing to do the basics. So
Speaker 1: maybe that's one topic separated into two specific sections. You see,
Speaker 1: rugby league's a metaphor for life. And have you ever
Speaker 1: wondered why so many people who have played rugby league
Speaker 1: in particular talk about it differently to any other sport.
Speaker 1: Rugby league teaches us lessons that stay with you for life,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. I think it's because ruby league is one
Speaker 1: of the great metaphors for life, because it strips away pretense,
Speaker 1: It exposes character, rewards resilience, and it has a way
Speaker 1: of knocking the nonsense out of people. Life eventually tests
Speaker 1: us all, doesn't it. But rugby league just does it
Speaker 1: earlier and more often. And this is why I've campaigned
Speaker 1: for years against these rules for juniors where we don't
Speaker 1: count points. It's the adults that need educating, the adults
Speaker 1: that need dealing with, not the kids. We need to
Speaker 1: teach them resilience through sport. In many areas of life,
Speaker 1: you can hide behind a title, a qualification, a social
Speaker 1: media profile, and you can hide behind opinions until they
Speaker 1: come back to bite you on the backside. I suppose
Speaker 1: rugby league doesn't care about any of that. Its us
Speaker 1: simple questions. Can you do your job, can you stay
Speaker 1: in the fight, can you get up when it hurts?
Speaker 1: Do you trust your teammates? And can your teammates trust
Speaker 1: you as a coach. For what is now nearly three decades,
Speaker 1: I've seen so many talented kids arrive thinking they're something special,
Speaker 1: and that's been put into them by parents, by agents,
Speaker 1: by supporters or pseudo supporters, and then when they experience
Speaker 1: their first tough session, their first setback, or their first
Speaker 1: genuine challenge, you realize they've not got the gumption, they've
Speaker 1: not got the constitution to go much further, despite everything
Speaker 1: suggesting on the outside originally that they were something special.
Speaker 1: And the game has a way of humbling people very quickly.
Speaker 1: And that leads us to one of the most important
Speaker 1: lessons and one of the most powerful lessons that rugby
Speaker 1: league can teach us that a rugby league field is
Speaker 1: one of the most honest environments you'll ever encounter. Where
Speaker 1: can you hide? Every player is exposed? How many of
Speaker 1: you put what you perceive to be the weaker players
Speaker 1: on the wing, yet they get exposed by high kicks,
Speaker 1: one on one tackles, grubbers that they find difficult to
Speaker 1: deal with. Every weakness eventually gets found in a team.
Speaker 1: If you're one of those teams, and you'll know these
Speaker 1: kind of teams, they're very good against most sides, but
Speaker 1: when they come up against the one or two best teams,
Speaker 1: they're beaten before they start. And that's because every weakness
Speaker 1: eventually gets found. And the other thing about rugby league
Speaker 1: is on a field, every player has to contribute. It's
Speaker 1: not like rugby union where the game can pass you by,
Speaker 1: or cricket, where you can miss out with the bat
Speaker 1: or not take any wickets as a bowler, or the
Speaker 1: ball mup comes to you in the field. In rugby league,
Speaker 1: the game always comes to you at some point, and
Speaker 1: if you miss a tackle, everybody sees it. If you
Speaker 1: don't chase hard enough for the kick chase, everybody sees
Speaker 1: that when the fullback steps through or the opposition wing,
Speaker 1: if you avoid the tough carries, your teammates will sniff
Speaker 1: that out. And the real world works in the same way.
Speaker 1: Characters get revealed under pressure, leadership gets revealed during adversity.
Speaker 1: Commitment gets revealed when things become difficult, and rugby league,
Speaker 1: as a coach and as a player, teaches us accountability
Speaker 1: because accountability is unavoidable. When I think about my coaching career,
Speaker 1: the best teams always have somebody who puts their hand
Speaker 1: up and says, I got that wrong. The best teams
Speaker 1: have always had somebody in them that puts their hand
Speaker 1: up and say I got that wrong. And quite often
Speaker 1: it's the player that gets things right most of the time,
Speaker 1: and that creates and helps create a culture that goes
Speaker 1: through the team of accountability. And maybe that's why rugby
Speaker 1: league has always attracted a certain type of person. And
Speaker 1: maybe it's not just rugby league. Maybe it's successful rugby
Speaker 1: league because it's one of the toughest sports on the planet.
Speaker 1: If we're not hitting each other, we're wrestling each other.
Speaker 1: If we're not wrestling each other, the game is so
Speaker 1: fast and it's very hard to keep up. But the
Speaker 1: toughness of rugby league isn't just physical. We often focus
Speaker 1: on the collisions, the fatigue, the injury, is the speed,
Speaker 1: but the real challenge is getting up repeatedly, getting back
Speaker 1: the ten meters, staying disciplined. When disciplined, when you're exhausted,
Speaker 1: performing under pressure. At every level we play and every
Speaker 1: level we coach, there's some pressure and it's all relative
Speaker 1: and one of the toughest challenges, particularly in this day
Speaker 1: and age, where we deal in a lot of the
Speaker 1: here and now, with a lot of sound bites, a
Speaker 1: lot of instant gratification on social media and whatnot. The
Speaker 1: skill of turning up week in week out is even
Speaker 1: harder for us to coach, even harder for us to
Speaker 1: carry out as coaches and players. A lot of that
Speaker 1: comes down to how we deal with victory, how we
Speaker 1: deal with defeat, and I often refer to the twin
Speaker 1: impostas of victory and defeat. We don't play rugby league
Speaker 1: and we don't coach rugby league because it's easy. You
Speaker 1: play it and you coach it because somewhere deep down
Speaker 1: you enjoy testing yourself and success in sport and success
Speaker 1: in life often comes down to consistency, resilience and showing
Speaker 1: up week in week out, and they're exactly the same
Speaker 1: qualities that are required in rugby league. And that brings
Speaker 1: me to something else that has always made rugby league
Speaker 1: different from many other sports or good rugby league. Good
Speaker 1: rugby league teams different from other teams is that there's
Speaker 1: no room for egos. The game is bigger and the
Speaker 1: team is bigger than any individual. Rugby league is the
Speaker 1: ultimate team sport in many ways. You can't win a
Speaker 1: game on your own. You can lose a game on
Speaker 1: your own in many ways, but you can't win one
Speaker 1: on your own. And the best players still need teammates.
Speaker 1: The great outside backs need go forward from their forwards.
Speaker 1: The forwards need great delivery from dummy half. The dummy
Speaker 1: half needs quicker play the balls. Every try involves unseen work.
Speaker 1: People moving off the ball, people working off the ball,
Speaker 1: the kick pressure, the kickchasers, the tough carriers coming out
Speaker 1: of trouble. The best teams have the most people working
Speaker 1: off the ball. You know about eighty five percent of
Speaker 1: the game is off the ball, and the game has
Speaker 1: a way of exposing selfishness. And you might be coaching
Speaker 1: a player now who wants a spotlight, who wants the credit,
Speaker 1: who wants the pats on the back, Depending on what
Speaker 1: level you're coaching out, they may want the headlines, they
Speaker 1: may want the social media clicks. But if they're not
Speaker 1: contributing to the team. The group will quickly notice, and
Speaker 1: the group will eventually start to eat away at that
Speaker 1: or that will eat away at the group. The best
Speaker 1: players I've coached in my time haven't always been the
Speaker 1: most talented, but they've been the most selfless. They'll put
Speaker 1: the team first, and because of that, they became the
Speaker 1: players that everyone respected. Maybe these are the reasons that
Speaker 1: rugby league means so much to so many people. Rather
Speaker 1: than just being a game, it's a teacher. It's a
Speaker 1: metaphor for life. It teaches humility, resilient accountability. Team work
Speaker 1: teaches us that life isn't about avoiding hard things, it's
Speaker 1: about developing the character to face them. Imagine you speak
Speaker 1: to your team about some of these things this week.
Speaker 1: How would that change your team? How would that make
Speaker 1: your team feel? Because rugby league has always been a
Speaker 1: game for real people, people who are willing to work,
Speaker 1: willing to sacrifice, are willing to get back up after
Speaker 1: they've been knocked down. One of the most common questions
Speaker 1: or concerns to get from coaches is about transmitting the
Speaker 1: message that you have in your head through your mouth
Speaker 1: to the team. I don't know a better way of
Speaker 1: saying that that makes sense. But you've got it in
Speaker 1: your head. You've got a team in front of you.
Speaker 1: You know what you want to say, but it's about
Speaker 1: getting that message drive. And as you get older and
Speaker 1: more experience as a coach, you learn the skills of
Speaker 1: word economy and things that you used to say in
Speaker 1: ten paragraphs you can now say in three lines or
Speaker 1: two lines or three words. And one tip I will
Speaker 1: give you though, to help with your messages are using acronyms.
Speaker 1: So an acronym, for those who don't know, is a
Speaker 1: way of using letters to spell a word. Or in fact,
Speaker 1: I want to get your dictionary definition, because I've probably
Speaker 1: just butchered. That is a shortened word from the initial components,
Speaker 1: usually the first letters of a multi word phrase, and
Speaker 1: pronounced as a single word. Ae I E fomo is
Speaker 1: fear of missing out right. So that's what an acronym is.
Speaker 1: Or you can go down the feelings route. So I've
Speaker 1: spoken plenty of time in the times in the past
Speaker 1: how Donald Trump is a great messenger and he appeals
Speaker 1: to certain emotions. But for those who remember the movie
Speaker 1: Coach Carter, he often had plays and phases of the
Speaker 1: game and related them to his past girlfriends and gave
Speaker 1: them names such as Diane and Ruth or whatever the
Speaker 1: names were in the past, and I would still do this.
Speaker 1: I've used a partner's name to suggest how you keep
Speaker 1: them happy, and I've used that as an analogy. This
Speaker 1: podcast is for all the families, so I ain't going
Speaker 1: into any detail right now, but I will give you
Speaker 1: the PG one. So I want players to tackle with
Speaker 1: their shoulders with an S shaped body with their studs
Speaker 1: in the ground, So there's an easy one s SS.
Speaker 1: I want them to have good line speed, so there's
Speaker 1: another S speed line speed, shoulder contact, S shaped body
Speaker 1: stoods in the ground. And then when they've got the
Speaker 1: player on the ground, I don't want them to just
Speaker 1: let go, so I asked them to squeeze. So there's
Speaker 1: five s is there? Okay. When I teach grip pass, catch, carry,
Speaker 1: I break it down into grip tip flick or clap
Speaker 1: grip tip flick, so very easy for players to remember,
Speaker 1: and the feedback I'm giving to the players while they're
Speaker 1: practicing is often just tip flick, tip flick. Okay, So
Speaker 1: have a think about how you can simply fire your
Speaker 1: messages in that regard and what you can then do
Speaker 1: is with one of your letters or one of your
Speaker 1: phrases that's like a headline underlined and then you can
Speaker 1: describe it a little bit underneath, but repeat your headline.
Speaker 1: Your headline is something that you can repeat constantly, or
Speaker 1: the letter. Say to your players, what are the five s's, speed, shoulder, contact,
Speaker 1: s shaped, body, stoods in the ground, squeeze. If I
Speaker 1: was to ask you at the end, could you remember them.
Speaker 1: I've been in Maitland this last week in New South Wales,
Speaker 1: near Newcastle, working with the coaches at East Maitland Juniors.
Speaker 1: You'll see some pictures on the Rugby League Coach socials
Speaker 1: this week at Rugby League Coach on every social media
Speaker 1: platform apart from x which is at rl Coach on
Speaker 1: the net. About to go through now is a review
Speaker 1: of maybe the last month of things I've seen with
Speaker 1: community coaches out there, and quite often it's the community
Speaker 1: coaches that feel that they can't be told anything because
Speaker 1: they know it all. It's the coaches who don't come
Speaker 1: to the seminars, who don't listen to this podcast. It's
Speaker 1: the ones who have been doing it this way and
Speaker 1: they know best and Unfortunately in many areas this is
Speaker 1: still very prevalent. Don't ever at me on social media
Speaker 1: with any reason to give your players a lap on
Speaker 1: the oval to warm up the people who say it's
Speaker 1: a chance to socialize. Surely you can be more imaginative
Speaker 1: than sending them on a lap. And there are an
Speaker 1: awful lot of hours and ways to socialize before and
Speaker 1: after the training session. I won't labor on that point.
Speaker 1: The next one is key. It's the amount of time
Speaker 1: coaches allow their players to just stand around, either standing
Speaker 1: around waiting for the next activity, standing around listening to instructions,
Speaker 1: and your instructions go on forever. Or it might be
Speaker 1: a drill of some kind where most of your players
Speaker 1: have stood still. They're either stood still because you've not
Speaker 1: measured how many people will be moving at any one time.
Speaker 1: You just put one drill on one version of it,
Speaker 1: and you've got twenty players and four people are active
Speaker 1: and the other sixteen aren't. Or it might be a
Speaker 1: drill where you need players to stand still for prolonged periods,
Speaker 1: and then you wonder when do things like that? And
Speaker 1: this sounds this sounds really harsh when I say this,
Speaker 1: but I am here to make a difference to you. Okay,
Speaker 1: you wonder why you player switch on and off during
Speaker 1: sessions where you always have to bring them back, Well,
Speaker 1: it's because you leave them standing around too much. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about drills where you know, two lines of players
Speaker 1: might be stood in a line and then a player
Speaker 1: from each line has to run all the way round
Speaker 1: the line and the other player on the other line
Speaker 1: runs the other way and one tackles the other. Things
Speaker 1: like that, Like all that standing around when there can
Speaker 1: be so many more repetitions of the tackling skill and
Speaker 1: the running skill, particularly as we get colder in Australia
Speaker 1: and in England, that's ten times more important during your winter.
Speaker 1: In New Zealand you have the same day, and you
Speaker 1: have four different seasons, so even more important there another one.
Speaker 1: And you'll get this with so many teams, particularly the
Speaker 1: younger ones. You'll have smaller groups. And I can't emphasize
Speaker 1: this enough. Just go to another coach and say can
Speaker 1: we train together? And if they're not willing to do
Speaker 1: it on that night, give them advanced notice and say, look,
Speaker 1: if we get under x amount, can we bring them
Speaker 1: over to you? And what you'd even do there? Without
Speaker 1: even trying it. You would work with another coach and
Speaker 1: pick up some other ideas, and the players would benefit
Speaker 1: from each other too. Another one of copped a bit
Speaker 1: for on social media is this obsession in rugby league
Speaker 1: about going down the middle. How dumb are some people? Right? Sorry,
Speaker 1: I can't think of a better way of saying this.
Speaker 1: How dumb are some people? There are other options rather
Speaker 1: than just running down the middle into an opposition's biggest players, right,
Speaker 1: There are other options. You can move them around for starters,
Speaker 1: or you can run at smaller players or players who
Speaker 1: don't like tackling. But there's an obsession in rugby league
Speaker 1: with going down the middle all the time. Think differently, guys,
Speaker 1: think laterally, think outside the square. Also, if you're doing unopposed,
Speaker 1: or even if you're playing and you go three three
Speaker 1: in and then halfback gets the ball and tries to
Speaker 1: do something, you're literally wasting fifty percent of your players.
Speaker 1: That three in has allowed the defense to read and
Speaker 1: get prepared for what's coming. So, for example, if you
Speaker 1: go from the left to the right or the middle
Speaker 1: to the right, let's say, and therefore you create alongside,
Speaker 1: the defense is probably going to be ready for your
Speaker 1: shift or you're half doing something, and we have this
Speaker 1: culture of halves who just want to touch the ball
Speaker 1: and they don't know why they're doing it. So there's
Speaker 1: my little rant over. For the past twenty seven years,
Speaker 1: I've had an incredible journey with rugby league coaching, but
Speaker 1: I do think that potentially the work I do right
Speaker 1: now and I've done for the last few years, is
Speaker 1: the stuff I'm most passionate about because the challenges in
Speaker 1: communities in the Bush in terms of rugby league, I
Speaker 1: think are huge, and they're getting bigger every year, and
Speaker 1: I think the game has really took its eye off
Speaker 1: the ball. I doubt how much of the game, and
Speaker 1: I don't think one visit every three years is a
Speaker 1: sign of care because the big problem is is how
Speaker 1: many talented kids miss opportunities simply because of where they live.
Speaker 1: I see kids in city areas miss out just because
Speaker 1: of where they live or what club they go to,
Speaker 1: So imagine in the bush what is happening. I've seen
Speaker 1: local coaches who work their backsides off, but they don't
Speaker 1: have access to the same development opportunities as anybody in
Speaker 1: their equivalency in the metropolitan areas and I've always believed
Speaker 1: that geography and costs should never determine a person's future.
Speaker 1: So many hurdles for so many of our kids and
Speaker 1: so many of our coaches to get to where they
Speaker 1: deserve to be just in the city, so it's even
Speaker 1: worse in the Bush. So I've taken steps through Rugby
Speaker 1: League Coach to work with a non for profit organization
Speaker 1: that is seeking to help exactly what I'm talking about
Speaker 1: and provide opportunities free of charge to those in regional communities,
Speaker 1: and I've helped them set up. They've made me a
Speaker 1: director of the Sydney and Brisbane based people involved. But
Speaker 1: this is absolutely for the areas that don't get help,
Speaker 1: so it's going to be free to the user. It's
Speaker 1: going to be free, free development for coaches, free development
Speaker 1: for kids. And obviously they've come to me because I've
Speaker 1: got an out I've got outreach, the abilities, I've got
Speaker 1: contacts I can use my channels to promote. Now there
Speaker 1: is an event already in Bush, New South Wales that's
Speaker 1: taking place and these guys want me there to do
Speaker 1: that to help. It will be free for all the
Speaker 1: kids and the coaches, and it's going to be many
Speaker 1: more come as a result of this. There is a
Speaker 1: GoFundMe right and I'm mentioning this. I don't profit from this.
Speaker 1: Rugby League Coach doesn't profit from this. The people running
Speaker 1: this thing don't profit from this. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: broadcast any more details about them. I want you to
Speaker 1: get in touch with me if you're interested. So at
Speaker 1: Rugby League Coach Socials, Facebook and Instagram for a message
Speaker 1: Admin at Rugby League Coach dot com to tell you
Speaker 1: over the email say Lee, we're interested in getting these
Speaker 1: guys to our area and we'll have a proper conversation
Speaker 1: about it. And the key is it's about remote communities
Speaker 1: throughout New South Wales and Queensland, but also Perth, Melbourne,
Speaker 1: any anywhere where the game isn't doing what it should
Speaker 1: like I said this week, I've been in Maitland in
Speaker 1: New South Wales to deliver exactly what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: And I've already this year been to Junine or Andre Young,
Speaker 1: Okie Clifton. Last year I was in war Hope, Bunderberg.
Speaker 1: I could go on and on and on. We're going
Speaker 1: to be working with local coaches to lead programs and
Speaker 1: I'll be men touring them. So again, if you've ever
Speaker 1: reached out to me, reach out again. If we couldn't
Speaker 1: do something for whatever reason, reach out again, because this
Speaker 1: group are keen to help, because it's about growing participation
Speaker 1: in the game and growing coach development in the game.
Speaker 1: Nobody apart from the players and the coaches will benefit
Speaker 1: from this or profit from this, I should say so.
Speaker 1: Nobody wins financially from this. Every dollar raised will go
Speaker 1: directly towards the delivery of the program. And if you
Speaker 1: do ask for that gofundmelink, you'll see I've put the
Speaker 1: first one hundred dollars in. So if you can contribute,
Speaker 1: no matter how big or small, one dollar, ten dollars, anything,
Speaker 1: please know it's going to be going to a really, really,
Speaker 1: really good cause. To help clubs that are struggling to
Speaker 1: keep juniors on the field, to help coaches that don't
Speaker 1: get any guidance. Last week I asked to we're producing
Speaker 1: athletes more than we're producing footballers. I asked how many
Speaker 1: teams genuinely play what they see? I need some water,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Global League Network. I spoke last week about
Speaker 1: rugby league's obsession with systems, physicality, and bliance structure and
Speaker 1: how there's not enough focus on creativity, vision decision making
Speaker 1: with Football IQ. And last week I wrote something on
Speaker 1: zero tackle dot com about what Origin one taught us
Speaker 1: about structure, instinct technique. New South Wales won because Queensland
Speaker 1: had twelve men, didn't they or did the win because
Speaker 1: they finally realized they had an overlap in the defense,
Speaker 1: even though that overlap existed throughout the game. Most analysis
Speaker 1: has focused on the sendoff. This analysis is going to
Speaker 1: focus on the coaching lessons hidden inside the game, mainly
Speaker 1: that structure can become a straight jacket and technique still matters.
Speaker 1: So New South Wales played for an hour like a
Speaker 1: team stuck in the nineteen nineties. They're constantly played in
Speaker 1: a shape, in a structure. They were waiting for the
Speaker 1: perfect picture. They looked organized but weren't necessarily dangerous. How
Speaker 1: many times did Queensland have defenders on the ground after
Speaker 1: a tackle? How many times Queensland have players not back
Speaker 1: in the defensive line after a tackle? Because of the
Speaker 1: speed of the rocks. All the metrics in the game
Speaker 1: right now suggest you can get quick play the balls
Speaker 1: very easily. They tend to mean there's gaps in the
Speaker 1: defense around about the halfway line. They're slow retreating, defenders,
Speaker 1: lazy markers, defensive lines aren't set, and their space everywhere.
Speaker 1: But New south Wales just weren't looking at it, weren't
Speaker 1: seeing it because Lorie Daily and Nathan Cleary had them
Speaker 1: in this structure. So you can either play what you
Speaker 1: see on the field, or you can play what the
Speaker 1: playbook tells you, or you can have a good mix
Speaker 1: of the two. Are your players in your team learning
Speaker 1: football or they're learning patterns of play? Are they learning structure?
Speaker 1: That's what origin can teach us from that point of view.
Speaker 1: The second thing is when Ponger got sent off, New
Speaker 1: south Wales suddenly found their eyes. Do not underestimate. Sometimes
Speaker 1: players go, we're not playing to that structure anymore. It's
Speaker 1: not working for us. They go against their coach. Because
Speaker 1: New south Wales had an immediate, immediate attacking mindset shift,
Speaker 1: they started to have the confidence to move the ball.
Speaker 1: They started looking for opportunities. So people say New South
Speaker 1: Wales won because they had an extra man, and that's
Speaker 1: only partly true. But the extra man only matters if
Speaker 1: the defense has been moved backwards and compressed defense create opportunities.
Speaker 1: Tired defenses create opportunities, and you get those tired defenses
Speaker 1: and you get the more compressed defense from direct running,
Speaker 1: winning the rooking attack, generating quick play the balls and
Speaker 1: creating defensive uncertainty, some chaos and the defensive line and
Speaker 1: the extra man wasn't necessarily the reason New South Wales scored.
Speaker 1: It was because the opportunities were eventually impossible to miss,
Speaker 1: but they were there throughout the game, is what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say. Queensland were vulnerable before the sendoff, but
Speaker 1: New South Wales weren't looking at it. They were playing
Speaker 1: safely rather than instinctively. Why is it a fear of
Speaker 1: making mistakes? Is it over coaching? Is it reliance on systems? Guys?
Speaker 1: Good systems should help players see opportunities, not stop them
Speaker 1: seeing them. And then the next big issue out of
Speaker 1: that game was Calen Ponger send off. And the irony
Speaker 1: is that the player who changed the game through his
Speaker 1: actions probably highlighted another bigger issue in rugby league. So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about judiciary here, referee in
Speaker 1: or send off versus symbin. I'm going to focus on
Speaker 1: head placement of the tackler, the body position, the lack
Speaker 1: of a rap of the arms, and contact mechanics. If
Speaker 1: you showed that tackle that a coaching clinic, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: use it as a demonstration of good technique, would you.
Speaker 1: And again that comes back to modern coaching obsessions with
Speaker 1: systems with catching and controlling as opposed to tackle technique,
Speaker 1: and also a massive emphasis on the structure, which I'm
Speaker 1: not saying they shouldn't be, but it's nothing without sound
Speaker 1: tackle technique. We've become experts at coaching where players stand
Speaker 1: unless effective at coaching what players do in many places,
Speaker 1: and that's why you will hear so much in juniors
Speaker 1: about not practicing too much shape, not doing too many
Speaker 1: set plays, doing more time on contact technique or movement skills,
Speaker 1: decision making. And I'm asking you, if I was to
Speaker 1: watch your last two or three training sessions, how much
Speaker 1: time would I see spent coaching tackle technique? Answer that
Speaker 1: question honestly in your head, because reducing contact isn't the
Speaker 1: same thing as coaching contact. Origin one talks two important things.
Speaker 1: Structure is valuable, but when it becomes a straight jacket,
Speaker 1: it limits our players less than to is that technique matters,
Speaker 1: and in an era obsessed with systems, data and tactics,
Speaker 1: the game's oldest skills remain its most important. And that's
Speaker 1: what every coach should be thinking about right now. As
Speaker 1: a coach, what you let go is what you allow.
Speaker 1: What you walk past is what you allow. That means
Speaker 1: you will either win as a coach lose as a coach,
Speaker 1: and that happens each weekend and it might continue. What
Speaker 1: seems to be quite common right now around the rugby
Speaker 1: league world is your season is on the tipping point.
Speaker 1: So you may have lost your first game of the season,
Speaker 1: maybe the second game of the season when you thought
Speaker 1: you were going to have a run for the premiership,
Speaker 1: and if you lose many more you might be out
Speaker 1: of finals contention. So if you win, you want to
Speaker 1: keep winning and ensure that your team maximizes their twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six. And if you're losing, you want to change
Speaker 1: it fast. Won't you come and work with a coach
Speaker 1: who's worked at the highest levels and I'll look at
Speaker 1: your game with you, give you a fresh pair of
Speaker 1: eyes and a clear perspective on what's going on. I
Speaker 1: can analyze your videos, and I need to also tell
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Speaker 1: week's quote between the ages of five and twelve, it's
Speaker 1: better to have no coach than a bad one. We
Speaker 1: need to train coaches better. That was from Arson Venger,
Speaker 1: the old Arsenal manager. I can't believe I've said the
Speaker 1: word Arsenal on this podcast. I've got so many mates
Speaker 1: who are Arsenal fans. Congratulations, That's all I'm saying. Reflecting
Speaker 1: on that quote for Marson Wenger, have you noticed at clubs,
Speaker 1: they're the last coaches that get picked. They picked the
Speaker 1: A grade coach, They picked the seven, the nineteens or seventeens,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, and then they go, shit, we
Speaker 1: need to pick some sixes and sevens and eight and nine.
Speaker 1: I do work for state league teams and I put
Speaker 1: in development plans, and the most important work is, like
Speaker 1: Carson Wenger says, between the ages of five and twelve,
Speaker 1: Mitchell in the Gold Coast wrote to me and said, hi, coach,
Speaker 1: I've recently come across your website and have been working
Speaker 1: my way through your YouTube and podcast content. I'm really
Speaker 1: enjoying it and have already taken a shitload of notes.
Speaker 1: I coach under thirteen's Division one league team. We have
Speaker 1: a strong core group of players and can compete with
Speaker 1: most teams skills wise, but there is a noticeable drop
Speaker 1: off in confidence, experience, and game understanding throughout the rest
Speaker 1: of the squad. Our biggest challenges that the boys performed
Speaker 1: shape and structure really well at training, but when game
Speaker 1: day pressure arrives, it all seems to disappear. We constantly
Speaker 1: work on exit sets, working to a point good ball
Speaker 1: shape and building pressure, but once fatigue, scoreboard pressure, or
Speaker 1: opposition pressure arrives, the boys tend to abandon the plan,
Speaker 1: become frantic, and revert to individual football. My main questions are,
Speaker 1: how do you help young players stay composed under pressure
Speaker 1: and consistently transfer what they do at training into games.
Speaker 1: Number two, how much structure would you coach at under
Speaker 1: thirteen level versus simply teaching principles and letting players play
Speaker 1: Number three. We recently lost our first game against a
Speaker 1: team that was much bigger and more physical than us.
Speaker 1: We felt we were the more skillful team, but struggled
Speaker 1: to stick to our process and game plan once the
Speaker 1: pressure arrived. Are there any coaching strategies you would recommend
Speaker 1: when facing bigger, stronger teams. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1: I want to go slowly through this questions it was detailed.
Speaker 1: Number one, how do you help young players stay composed
Speaker 1: under pressure and consistently transfer what they do at training
Speaker 1: into games? Mitch, The first thing I would do is
Speaker 1: look at how you're coaching. Okay, so please, if you
Speaker 1: want some help out, I'm there to help you, but
Speaker 1: I'll try and summarize it quickly here on this podcast
Speaker 1: every week I talk about how game specific your training is,
Speaker 1: and if you're doing too many drills that only have
Speaker 1: a semblance of reality in the game, that will reflect
Speaker 1: on the field. If you don't do enough repetition, if
Speaker 1: you don't do enough quality repetition, and when you've nailed it,
Speaker 1: you don't repeat it and repeat it and repeat it,
Speaker 1: repeat it and repeat it, it will crumble on the field.
Speaker 1: So what I'm guessing based on what you're telling me,
Speaker 1: and that's all I can work on, is you might
Speaker 1: be coaching trying to coach too many things, and you're
Speaker 1: not nailing enough of them. So how do you nail them?
Speaker 1: You nail them with truly game specific activities. It's very
Speaker 1: hard for a drill to be absolutely game specific. That's
Speaker 1: why I'm such a big exponent of game related training
Speaker 1: as in games, small sided games, and thirteen versus thirteen
Speaker 1: games to help you with that transfer. The next question
Speaker 1: you ask me is how much structure would you coach
Speaker 1: at under thirteen level versus teaching principles and letting players
Speaker 1: play mate. I'll tell you what I do. With the
Speaker 1: best teams I've ever coached. I give them three sets,
Speaker 1: an exit set, the J option and a and a
Speaker 1: good ball option that also includes one of the hardy
Speaker 1: J options. And I give them three plays or four
Speaker 1: plays max a block, a faceball, an inside option call,
Speaker 1: and then something that puts a couple of them together.
Speaker 1: In other words, instead of a one person block, a
Speaker 1: double lead block one you know, one lead runner on
Speaker 1: a normal block, double lead runner. That's the fourth play.
Speaker 1: That's all I give my teams, And then there's some
Speaker 1: structure in defense, but I coach them how to do
Speaker 1: those things and how to do them very well. So
Speaker 1: there's no point letting you players play if they don't
Speaker 1: know how to play. You've got to teach them how
Speaker 1: to play and give them the environment to learn how
Speaker 1: to play, and you best achieve that with a good
Speaker 1: balance of training where their instincts are being honed. Like
Speaker 1: I said, my instinct from reading your thing is that
Speaker 1: you might be coaching too many things, and that's why
Speaker 1: it's breaking down the pressure. The third thing you talked
Speaker 1: about losing a team against a bigger team. Now he
Speaker 1: said they struggled stick to the game plan. Would the
Speaker 1: pressure arrived if your game plan didn't involve moving the
Speaker 1: opposition around, turning them back inside, didn't involve specific kicks.
Speaker 1: That might be early kicks to get the opposition to
Speaker 1: turn back and and chase after the ball, or it
Speaker 1: might be kicking to a certain place on the field
Speaker 1: to restrict their go forward. If you didn't get into
Speaker 1: your players about really muscling up in defense, and if
Speaker 1: your defense wasn't compressed to deal with the bigger body,
Speaker 1: then you've probably not done the right game plan. But
Speaker 1: this answer is also linked to the previous two. How
Speaker 1: many things are you trying to teach you players. So
Speaker 1: your questions are fantastic, Miich, They really are, and they
Speaker 1: deserve a lot more than I can give them in
Speaker 1: this podcast, so make sure we speak basically for further advice.
Speaker 1: Weekly I host the Super League three sixty podcast It's
Speaker 1: back this week, and I'm also a weekly guested on
Speaker 1: the Loose Carry podcast with Zero Tackle. I do a
Speaker 1: coach's corner analysis, So last week's was the new South
Speaker 1: Wales examples have just spoken about, and they also write
Speaker 1: a weekly column for Zero Tackle on this podcast. Sometimes
Speaker 1: go on a bit more about the NRL in a
Speaker 1: bit more depth than might do in some of the
Speaker 1: Zero Tackle things. And first of all, I call the
Speaker 1: NRL the National Ping Pong Rugby League right now because
Speaker 1: of the high scoring. Anyway, Brisbane Broncos is interested. Isn't
Speaker 1: it five straight losses right now? Lost to the Titans
Speaker 1: and the Dragons in recent weeks, battered off the Warriors
Speaker 1: and battered off one other team. I think who was it?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. It wasn't the Roosters, it was somebody else.
Speaker 1: Talent is overrated. Brist Broncos has got an awful lot
Speaker 1: of talent, and talent gets you attention, but character is
Speaker 1: what gets your results. Every NRL club has talent. The
Speaker 1: difference is what happens when things get hard, and the
Speaker 1: Broncos are almost the embodiment of that. When they're riding high,
Speaker 1: they can play well, but anybody can play when confidence
Speaker 1: is high. What separates teams is how they respond when
Speaker 1: the momentum swings against them. And I think as coaches
Speaker 1: and recruiters, we spend so much time looking for talent
Speaker 1: and identifying talent, and not enough time identifying character. And
Speaker 1: like I said right at the top of this podcast,
Speaker 1: the game will eventually expose both of them. The best
Speaker 1: teams are player led. You can't outsource your standards to
Speaker 1: the coach. All the time. Coaches create the environment, they
Speaker 1: create accountability systems, and they can select and de select,
Speaker 1: But eventually the players have got to own the culture.
Speaker 1: They've got to own the standards and the effort. And
Speaker 1: when a team performs consistently, there's a certain type of
Speaker 1: people in that team. When they perform inconsistently or they
Speaker 1: underperform consistently, is it really a coaching issue or is
Speaker 1: it a leadership issue with the playing group. The ladder
Speaker 1: also doesn't always reflect commitment. The St George La Warre Dragons,
Speaker 1: for example, and then Jorge a miserable run before they
Speaker 1: finally got a win, and their coach, Dean Young, spoke
Speaker 1: about a month of hard work and sticking to processes,
Speaker 1: and success often arrives after the work has already been done.
Speaker 1: Improvement isn't always immediately found on your scoreboard or on
Speaker 1: your score sheet. And the best clubs, the best organizations,
Speaker 1: the best teams, they stay committed when results aren't coming.
Speaker 1: And too many teams want the confidence before the effort. Well,
Speaker 1: the reality is effort often creates that confidence. As a coach,
Speaker 1: would you rather tackle a team with average talent and
Speaker 1: exceptional standards or a team with elite talent and average standards?
Speaker 1: And I think most coaches of a certain level know
Speaker 1: the answer. Culture beats talent over time, accountability beats reputation,
Speaker 1: teams beat individuals. So really, that Broncos story isn't just
Speaker 1: about Brisbane Broncos is it's a lesson for every coach,
Speaker 1: every player, business, and work and organizations out there. You
Speaker 1: don't rise to the level of your talent, you fall
Speaker 1: to the level of your standards. You fall to your
Speaker 1: level of your your worst. It's just that Brisbane Broncos
Speaker 1: are a team that have to answer that right now,
Speaker 1: rewind this up soon, won't get to an hour again.
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of good feedback for the short
Speaker 1: podcast last week. Actually, I'm not always going to push
Speaker 1: for an hour. I heard news this week of an
Speaker 1: under thirteens comp that's been rearranged into four divisions without
Speaker 1: consultation with clubs or some clubs anyway, and that's also
Speaker 1: amalgamated with the fourteens team competition fourteen's teams competition. Yet
Speaker 1: they only play a certain amount of games all around
Speaker 1: the country. Now teams aren't playing a lot of games
Speaker 1: seniors and juniors. And I wonder is it to save
Speaker 1: money on insurances and referees and whatnot while REGOs are
Speaker 1: going up, while people are paying more to register, or
Speaker 1: is it to reduce incidents? So, for example, let's say
Speaker 1: every region has cut twenty percent of its fixtures. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's say twenty percent. Imagine if the Prime Minister of
Speaker 1: the country banned people from driving on roads for twenty
Speaker 1: percent of the year, two months of the year something
Speaker 1: like that, there'd be a lot less fatalities on the road.
Speaker 1: The statistics would be better, wouldn't they. And I just
Speaker 1: wonder if this push around the country is to reduce
Speaker 1: incidents and save money. No doubt they'll refer to some
Speaker 1: research where people have said that there's some benefit and
Speaker 1: only play an X amount of games, and that's probably
Speaker 1: research that's been done by people who aren't necessarily fully
Speaker 1: qualified to deliver that research academically. It could probably be
Speaker 1: absolutely destroyed in terms of integrity. But also they will
Speaker 1: often come from the view of an elite footballer as
Speaker 1: opposed to the kid who just wants to play football.
Speaker 1: Ask your players what they would rather do, train or play? Players?
Speaker 1: Would you rather train or play? Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: wrap it up there. Like I said, have a think
Speaker 1: if you're out there in the bush and you want
Speaker 1: some free coach development and free clinics for your kids
Speaker 1: and things like that, We've got ways and means now.
Speaker 1: Also have a think about that end of year and
Speaker 1: a financial year sale. We're not the end of the
Speaker 1: year yet, blood bloody hell. It's going quick. Seventy off
Speaker 1: everything that's on rugby league coach. Something that should be
Speaker 1: oneenty twenty two dollars is now three hundred dollars until
Speaker 1: June thirty. Get in touch at Rugbylly Coach on socials,
Speaker 1: Message me on Instagram or Facebook Adam at Rugby league
Speaker 1: coach dot com to tell you is the email I
Speaker 1: love you work. Coaches and officials and players take care.
Speaker 2: Thing in A name, A name, A