Speaker 1: How are you doing? Welcome to the Rugby League Coach Podcast,
Speaker 1: Episode two hundred and fifty four and it's in season four.
Speaker 1: My name is Lee Addison. I am the owner of
Speaker 1: Rugby League Coach dot Com. Dotte you. I am a coach, mentor,
Speaker 1: a coach educator, coach consultant and author of Rugby League
Speaker 1: Coach Thirteen Game Changing Conversations to Transform your coaching. I
Speaker 1: drink a lot of water, and my water consumption on
Speaker 1: this podcast is sponsored by the Global League Network, who
Speaker 1: you can contact on Global League dot Network. For those
Speaker 1: who see the clips, you'll see I have a wanko wanko.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to say that, yanko. I'm keeping that
Speaker 1: in Yanko wamon. It's easy to see how I've done that. Though.
Speaker 1: Wangko your moon yang Ko wa moon Hawks. They'll giggle.
Speaker 1: They'll giggle. Kyle and Adam and all the guys there,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll giggle when they see that that's just an elite.
Speaker 1: And I did a ran a ran a coach seminar
Speaker 1: on the Tuesday night and then ran a clinic, but
Speaker 1: mentoring the coaches to do all the drills, et cetera.
Speaker 1: The day after with over fifty odd children. Look, it
Speaker 1: was very well received, very well attended, those of you
Speaker 1: who have been following me for a while. No, I
Speaker 1: used to do clinics back in the day that people
Speaker 1: paid for. Put it this way, the fifty five kids,
Speaker 1: I think there were fifty two of them paid zero.
Speaker 1: Three didn't come from the clubs that we invited to come,
Speaker 1: so they paid a very small fee. And the fifteen
Speaker 1: coaches that attended the coaching night didn't pay a cent either,
Speaker 1: So it's not a profit making thing. I want to
Speaker 1: hear from anybody passionate about growing country rugby league and
Speaker 1: anyone who feels the country and remote areas need more support,
Speaker 1: more coaching and more coach support. In Australia, the nrl
Speaker 1: OF just announced a new broadcast deal I think five billion,
Speaker 1: and as I record this podcast on Sunday the nineteenth,
Speaker 1: the Daily Telegraph says that clubs are going to get
Speaker 1: a share of five hundred million dollars of that. Now,
Speaker 1: whether that's a share of five million dollars or some
Speaker 1: of them are going to be getting a massive chunk
Speaker 1: of that, I don't know, but either way, there's no
Speaker 1: announcements about grassroots. There's no announcements about bush and remote areas,
Speaker 1: so at the start of this podcast, I want to
Speaker 1: hear from everyone of may have dealt with in the past.
Speaker 1: A rugby league coach. Rugby league coach is now eight
Speaker 1: years old the business, so anybody that I have dealt
Speaker 1: with in the past, particularly particularly in country and remote Australia.
Speaker 1: I also want to hear from you if you are
Speaker 1: in the following areas, because I know you listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast. In New South Wales, if you're in Sussex
Speaker 1: in Orange, Tormina and Coffs, Harbor, Wagga, Wagga Parks, Port mcquarie,
Speaker 1: Portland and the Central table Lands in general, Wamba and
Speaker 1: the Clarence Valley, Nawrah and the South Coast, Tweedheads, Queen Beean, mcdowie,
Speaker 1: Corlette and Port Stephens, Oldbury, Banara Point and the Northern Rivers.
Speaker 1: If you're based in any one of those areas, I
Speaker 1: want you to reach out to me. I'll give you
Speaker 1: the contact details soon. In Queensland, people in Cairnes your Anger,
Speaker 1: Touguan pi Alba, indeed anywhere in Harvey Bay, anyone in
Speaker 1: the Fraser Coast region, in the Mackay Region, Moreton Bay, More,
Speaker 1: anybody in the Luckier Valley, Murphy's Creek, Hamilton Island and
Speaker 1: the Witch Sundays in general. What I want you to do,
Speaker 1: guys is get in touch with me. No obligation, but
Speaker 1: get in touch with me. At Rugby League Coach on
Speaker 1: Facebook or Instagram. If you want to send me a message.
Speaker 1: Admin at Rugby League Coach dot com dot au is
Speaker 1: the email address. I'll repeat those At Rugby League Coach
Speaker 1: on Facebook and Instagram, I'm Rugby league coach on everything.
Speaker 1: Basically I don't do Snapchat, but I don't check the
Speaker 1: messages on anything but Facebook or Instagram. Admin at Rugby
Speaker 1: League Coach dot com doteyu is the email and let's
Speaker 1: see if we can work something out. That's all I'll
Speaker 1: say for now, but thank you to everybody at Yanko
Speaker 1: one Moon Hawk, particularly Kai, who was a coach I've
Speaker 1: mentored for four years now. He took a real lead
Speaker 1: role in the clinic, and Adam the president, and also
Speaker 1: Nick from the local club Norandra now Nick nicknamed Bundy
Speaker 1: use your imagination and all the kids were taking the
Speaker 1: P one double less. Whenever I said Bundy, he gave
Speaker 1: me a hoodie from the Norandra Hawk's Club, and I
Speaker 1: will wear that next week. And all I'll say is,
Speaker 1: you may need to turn the brightness down if you
Speaker 1: see the clips. We tend to reflect most when we lose,
Speaker 1: don't we Not just on the rugby league field, but
Speaker 1: in work and in life. If we miss out on
Speaker 1: something or something bad happens, we tend to reflect most.
Speaker 1: It's human nature. We may feel like we failed because
Speaker 1: of course we want to succeed. We want to win
Speaker 1: and reput results are important in so many aspects of
Speaker 1: our life. We may lose a game of rugby league
Speaker 1: by a solitary point a soldiery try, or we may
Speaker 1: lose a tournament based on points difference that work, we
Speaker 1: may fail to reach certain key performance indicators, or might
Speaker 1: fail to reach a deadline, or may make an error.
Speaker 1: Does that make us a bad person? Player? Team, work group?
Speaker 1: Bringing it to rugby league? The best coaches and players
Speaker 1: critically analyze the victories as much, if not more than
Speaker 1: they analyze the defeats. Quite often, the seeds of a
Speaker 1: defeat can be seen in many victories. If you, as
Speaker 1: a coach or as a player, win a game thirty fourteen,
Speaker 1: a good coach gets concerned with the fourteen. I've seen
Speaker 1: so many coaches who get this wrong. In this particular department,
Speaker 1: A twenty two twenty win can be treated like a
Speaker 1: turning point in a season or a massive achievement. If
Speaker 1: it's a Grand final, it is, or if it's a
Speaker 1: game that you just have to win, it is. But
Speaker 1: the dangers are there in that result, and you've got
Speaker 1: to highlight them. And if you're not careful, before you
Speaker 1: know it's a week or two after, you'll be on
Speaker 1: the wrong end of a similar score line and wonder why.
Speaker 1: And I have a saying that you will have heard
Speaker 1: me use before that nothing fails like success. And if
Speaker 1: you lose a tight one, learn the lessons. Know you've
Speaker 1: played your part in a great game, and just focus
Speaker 1: on what you do. And that will be a theme
Speaker 1: that comes through in this podcast. It will be a
Speaker 1: different pod today. You will know that one of the
Speaker 1: sections on this podcast has been what we can learn
Speaker 1: from another sport. And one of the reasons I have
Speaker 1: that in this podcast is most of my study and
Speaker 1: most of my development as a coach has come from
Speaker 1: other sports. And I think that's why I have a
Speaker 1: slightly different view on the way the game should be
Speaker 1: played and whatnot. And of course the FIFA World Cup
Speaker 1: has dominated a lot of our narratives and discourse in
Speaker 1: media and television sets and social media, etc. So the
Speaker 1: gist of this podcast is going to be about everything
Speaker 1: you can apply to your coaching and rugby league from
Speaker 1: learnings from the FIFA World Cup. I do have a
Speaker 1: question from a follower in the middle of this, and
Speaker 1: we will break in the middle to talk about some
Speaker 1: other things, but I really want you to approach this
Speaker 1: with an open mind. Football is something that's huge in
Speaker 1: terms of informing my coaching. I've always believed that rugby
Speaker 1: league should be an eyes up game. It should be
Speaker 1: a game where you'll look to find space. Football soccer,
Speaker 1: by its very nature, you control the ball, the first
Speaker 1: thing you do is look up and see where you
Speaker 1: pass it. So it's informed an awful lot of my
Speaker 1: coaching philosophies. So what can rugby league coaches learn from
Speaker 1: what we've just seen over the last few weeks. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe there's something for administrators. First, England won the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six World Cup right sixty years ago, and did
Speaker 1: you know the Rugby League Challenge Cup that year was
Speaker 1: bigger at the same stadium that the World Cup was
Speaker 1: played at the World Cup final. That is so sixty
Speaker 1: years ago rugby league was bigger than the football World Cup.
Speaker 1: I cannot believe that soccer is now huge in Australia
Speaker 1: compared with two thousand and three when I first visited.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was in the Cudji Bay Hotel
Speaker 1: in the eastern suburbs of Sydney and stayed there to
Speaker 1: watch the FA Cup final at one am in the morning,
Speaker 1: and I think there was me and three other people
Speaker 1: around the television at the time. I can only imagine
Speaker 1: what was watching World Cup games recently. But one of
Speaker 1: the problems in Australia with soccer is that registration is
Speaker 1: very expensive. So that's one thing for the administrators to
Speaker 1: think about. But let's think about coaching now. I think
Speaker 1: one of the first things we can look at is
Speaker 1: that identity its talent. Let me explain that identity beats talent.
Speaker 1: The World Cup often proves that the most talented team
Speaker 1: rarely wins. Instead, the teams that know exactly who they
Speaker 1: are go the deepest. So I mean this podcast could
Speaker 1: age quite quickly. But Spain have gone through the whole
Speaker 1: World Cup up to the final, conceded one goal. Argentina
Speaker 1: have been very flexible tactically and including against England this week,
Speaker 1: have been good at comebacks towards the end and honestly,
Speaker 1: for all the critique of England's approach, there's not enough
Speaker 1: qu'dos and credit being given to the Argentinian team for
Speaker 1: the way they played. So Spain and Argentina are in
Speaker 1: the final. So the two things there are positional play
Speaker 1: and tactical flexibility. How technically, how tackedly flexible is your
Speaker 1: football team, your rugby league team? How positionally focused is
Speaker 1: your rugby league team. I know that I'm obsessed with
Speaker 1: attacking shape and attacking field balance, so that would speak
Speaker 1: to Spain's positional play tactical flexibility. My game plan allows
Speaker 1: me room for maneuver when I coach teams, whether we
Speaker 1: want to play through them, around them, play patiently, build
Speaker 1: pressure or take risks, whether we want to go directly
Speaker 1: down one channel, or we want to work across and
Speaker 1: work them laterally. In rugby league, we often chase more effort,
Speaker 1: don't we. Instead, instead of giving players a crystal clear
Speaker 1: game model and a great system, can make average players
Speaker 1: look really good, and a poor system makes great players
Speaker 1: look ordinary. The second thing I'd like to bring up
Speaker 1: is that coaching isn't about controlling everything. And if you
Speaker 1: look at elite football coaches in the World Cup and
Speaker 1: in the Premier League and whatnot, it's down to the
Speaker 1: players a lot to solve problems. They don't send water
Speaker 1: runners on every five minutes. There's no time outs every
Speaker 1: five minutes. They can't stop the game. What also happens
Speaker 1: is their players constantly scan, and they communicate and adapt.
Speaker 1: And this is exactly what I've been talking about to
Speaker 1: rugby league coach people and rugby league coaches listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast for years. Constantly scan, communicate and adapt to
Speaker 1: what's in front of you. The fee for World Cup
Speaker 1: has just rewarded football intelligence more than robotic execution. And
Speaker 1: in rugby league, can we develop more thinkers instead of robots.
Speaker 1: We're still quite a robotic sport in some parts, aren't we. So,
Speaker 1: like I say, you're going to have to use your
Speaker 1: lateral thinking skills to listen to this pod today. I
Speaker 1: think because instead of talking about Nathan Cleary or Joey
Speaker 1: John's or Jonathan Thurston, I might be talking about football
Speaker 1: is like Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, Earling Harland and the
Speaker 1: skills that they develop. Number three countries developed coaches, not
Speaker 1: just players. Germany did a complete rebuild of their coach
Speaker 1: education system after the Euro two thousands, where they performed
Speaker 1: really poorly. Now Germany have been pouring the last decade
Speaker 1: in the World Cup. But that program of just telling
Speaker 1: you about after the year two thousand, well, first of
Speaker 1: all it culminated in them winning the World Cup in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. But secondly, the quality of German coaches out
Speaker 1: there and they're working at the top clubs in the world. Spain,
Speaker 1: who were in the final, invested heavily in coach development
Speaker 1: and Argentina is the fifth oldest football association in the world.
Speaker 1: And I'll talk about them later because if they win
Speaker 1: the World Cup, that you will no doubt have heard
Speaker 1: about when you're listening to this podcast, that will be
Speaker 1: four tournaments. The last four tournaments they've won, the last
Speaker 1: two World Cups and the last two Copper Americas, which
Speaker 1: is their continental tournament. If they don't win, it's one
Speaker 1: of the last three and came runner up in this one.
Speaker 1: What a fantastic record, and because of these efforts in
Speaker 1: coach education by Argentina, Spain and Germany, the result was
Speaker 1: better players because they produced better coaches. It's just it's
Speaker 1: a more long term thing. As I said right at
Speaker 1: the top of this podcast about the NRL broadcast deal,
Speaker 1: we looks like we're going to spend a millions and
Speaker 1: millions more on players while spending comparatively little on grassroots
Speaker 1: and educating grassroots coaches. And that's why my business exists.
Speaker 1: Number four, team selection is about balance. The World Cup
Speaker 1: is a perfect example of how the best eleven isn't
Speaker 1: always the best team. So in rugby league, you're best
Speaker 1: thirteen isn't necessarily the best team. It has to be
Speaker 1: the ones that work together. The best coaches in football
Speaker 1: is soccer tend to pick runners, ball winners, organizers, leaders,
Speaker 1: creators and workers. Go through those go through again with
Speaker 1: rugby league in mind. Runners. Do you want people who
Speaker 1: run constantly who work all winners is a bit different,
Speaker 1: but we can certainly have great defenders instead of that.
Speaker 1: Organizers you certainly want that from your halves or other
Speaker 1: players who've got some football IQ. You definitely want leaders.
Speaker 1: Do you want creators. Yes you do, and you definitely
Speaker 1: want workers. The importance of specialists is number five. Football
Speaker 1: at the highest level embraces specialists, so we have set
Speaker 1: piece coaches, goalkeeper coaches, video analysts, throwing coaches, transition coaches.
Speaker 1: Our model in rugby league below the NRL tends to
Speaker 1: be we want the one coach to know everything, but
Speaker 1: modern coaching is becoming an awful lot more collaborative. I
Speaker 1: can guarantee you whatever you see at this World Cup
Speaker 1: be in rugby league in the next ten or twenty years.
Speaker 1: I can almost guarantee that budgets permitting. Number six. There
Speaker 1: has to be patients with development. Countries like Spain and
Speaker 1: France don't expect every eighteen year old to dominate immediately.
Speaker 1: Many elite players don't kick on until they're twenty three,
Speaker 1: twenty four, twenty five, twenty six. In rugby league, we
Speaker 1: often label young players as stars or failures, sometimes still
Speaker 1: in their teens, sometimes not even mid teams. Development isn't linear.
Speaker 1: Number seven. Defending is a skill. Football celebrates defending. A
Speaker 1: perfectly time tackle, gets a standing evasion and great defensive
Speaker 1: shape can win a tournament. Rugby league is obsessed with
Speaker 1: attack and our recruitment models are obsessed with attack. Yet
Speaker 1: if we were to put as much defense on defending
Speaker 1: the football as we do attacking the football as coaches
Speaker 1: and as teams. There's an old saying that defense wins championships,
Speaker 1: and we could argue with that scoring more points on
Speaker 1: the opposition wins games that win championships. But I can
Speaker 1: promise you every big competition I've ever won as a coach,
Speaker 1: my team have had to defend their goal line like
Speaker 1: their lives depended on it for long periods. Number eight adapted.
Speaker 1: I'll try and say that adaptability wins championships. World Cup
Speaker 1: winners rarely play exactly the same way every game they
Speaker 1: ad just they have different tactics. So in soccer it's
Speaker 1: different pressing tactics, different defensive heights of players, or moving
Speaker 1: up the field, how high up the field, of different
Speaker 1: build up patterns, different substitutions. Rugby league is I've often
Speaker 1: heard it described as being a cookie cutter approach. Every
Speaker 1: rugby league team plays in a very similar way. You'll
Speaker 1: find the best coaches own a plan, a B and
Speaker 1: a seat. Keep applying this to your rugby league. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're going to have to do some mental gymnastics. Number nine,
Speaker 1: Winning moments matter in football. It can be one turnover
Speaker 1: of possession, one set piece, a goal to finish, or
Speaker 1: one defensive mistakes and the margins are tiny. When we
Speaker 1: coach rugby league, there will be key periods of games
Speaker 1: where we really need to switch on, and quite often
Speaker 1: in rugby league I find it's when we've scored a
Speaker 1: try or if you've scored a couple. We tend to
Speaker 1: get over excited and end up giving the opposition some
Speaker 1: possession where we don't want them to have the ball,
Speaker 1: So these margins are crucial. Number ten. What we've learned
Speaker 1: from the World Cup is the culture is bigger than
Speaker 1: the coach. Look at the nations that consistently perform. Their
Speaker 1: playing identity often survives different managers and the system outlasts
Speaker 1: the individual. Imagine if every junior team in Australia, every school,
Speaker 1: every club, and an ROL pathway system in Australia and
Speaker 1: the UK taught the same principles of scanning, support, play,
Speaker 1: decision making, communication, game understanding and some basic principles of defense.
Speaker 1: Imagine that. Imagine there was an Australian way of playing,
Speaker 1: or a British way of playing, or a key week
Speaker 1: way of playing, or whatever country you want to think about. Instead.
Speaker 1: What we have here here is that every coach tends
Speaker 1: to start from scratch, whether it's the NRL head coach
Speaker 1: at a club or a brand new coach at a
Speaker 1: community club who comes to a club where they don't
Speaker 1: have a collective coaching approach. We all start from scratch,
Speaker 1: don't we And that's why football nations build cultures. We
Speaker 1: often build personalities of teams. So there's how many things
Speaker 1: did we do? Did I say? Ten? Yeah? Ten things
Speaker 1: we can learn from the rugby League. The FIFA will
Speaker 1: cup and we'll have a bit more late I'm going
Speaker 1: to get a bit more passionate. I think about the
Speaker 1: things I say in the second part of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Remember each week I'll say this as a coach, what
Speaker 1: you let go is what you allow and what you
Speaker 1: walk past is what you allow. If you want help
Speaker 1: with that. Right now, I'm doing loads of deals because
Speaker 1: it's the second half of the rugby league season and
Speaker 1: if you want to jump on and do things with
Speaker 1: me or online resources, I can't do much more than
Speaker 1: I'm doing at the moment to get you on board
Speaker 1: many things of fifty percent off coach mentoring. I did
Speaker 1: a scheme a couple of years ago where I said,
Speaker 1: you don't pay unless you win, and I'll give you
Speaker 1: a little hint. You probably have to pay a small retainer. Right,
Speaker 1: I'll show you the coach mental prices and then I'll say,
Speaker 1: pay a small retainer, and then we'll set a target.
Speaker 1: And you might say, well, we've not been in the
Speaker 1: finals before and we've got six games left and we
Speaker 1: need to win at least five of them. I'll say, right,
Speaker 1: and we'll set a target. So I don't set the
Speaker 1: target now, I have a chat with you, and if
Speaker 1: we reach that target, you pay the full coach mental
Speaker 1: price that it would have been and it won't break
Speaker 1: the bank. One of the best coaches I've ever mentor
Speaker 1: would actually won ac comp this weekend. He came on
Speaker 1: board in this way, and I think I'll be employing
Speaker 1: him in the next six to twelve months to do
Speaker 1: some things. He came in because he jumped on this
Speaker 1: program a couple of years ago. So get in touch
Speaker 1: admin at Rugby League Coach dot com to you at
Speaker 1: Rugby League Coach on socials, Facebook and Insta and If
Speaker 1: you go to Rugby League Coach dot com to tear
Speaker 1: you forward slash contact, you'll act to see my phone
Speaker 1: number on there, so give me a bus. If you're
Speaker 1: a listener to the podcast, I see you our loyal supporters,
Speaker 1: If that makes sense, and all you have to do
Speaker 1: is pick up the phone. I'll do you a good
Speaker 1: deal on something, particularly if you're at a club and
Speaker 1: you want some resources for your club. Now's the time.
Speaker 1: Pick up the phone or get in touch. I'll give
Speaker 1: you an offer you can't or you'll find very hard
Speaker 1: to refuse. Put it that way, And I'm just going
Speaker 1: to tell you about that on this podcast because you're
Speaker 1: helping us so much online the offers. Right now, you
Speaker 1: can get a coach yearly membership to the Rugby League
Speaker 1: Coach website, hundreds of drills and games videos, PDFs, discussion videos, etc.
Speaker 1: That's only ninety nine dollars per year and you can
Speaker 1: cancel at any time right now, so that's just the
Speaker 1: coach section. Go to Rugby League coach dot com to
Speaker 1: tear you forward slash register forward slash coach one year
Speaker 1: membership with some hyphens in. It's probably easy to go
Speaker 1: to Rugby League coach dot com to tay you forward,
Speaker 1: slash shop and look for these things right yearly. Full access,
Speaker 1: so full access gives you access to the whole website.
Speaker 1: So coach Player Strength and Conditioner. So the player section
Speaker 1: has so many programs for players, programs that you can
Speaker 1: give your players when you can't take them, programs you
Speaker 1: can give to your players when you can take them,
Speaker 1: weights programs, strength programs, bodyweight strength that is, cardio programs,
Speaker 1: the s and C strength and conditioning one exactly the
Speaker 1: same as well with when I say exactly the same,
Speaker 1: the same ideas and more programs. You can get that
Speaker 1: for a year. So everything that's on that Rugby League
Speaker 1: Coach website for one hundred and ninety nine Australian dollars.
Speaker 1: So knock these prices in half and that's what you're
Speaker 1: paying in pounds for example, for full access to the
Speaker 1: website for you for life three hundred and sixty nine
Speaker 1: dollars for full access to both the websites, so the
Speaker 1: Rugby League Coach dot Com to tay you website and
Speaker 1: the courses dot Rugby League Coach dot Com to tay
Speaker 1: You website, which is a load of online courses all
Speaker 1: that normally costs over one thousand dollars. You can now
Speaker 1: get that for four hundred and forty nine dollars, so
Speaker 1: it's over half price. The Coach Accelerator is probably the
Speaker 1: best value program I've ever done. So that includes what
Speaker 1: I've just told you about, the Coach Update Package, so
Speaker 1: all the online things we can offer, but you'll get
Speaker 1: four mentoring sessions as well. Now the four mentoring sessions
Speaker 1: when you do that will come to something like was
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty I added for it's not allow
Speaker 1: isn't So that's a great deal. You can actually find
Speaker 1: that Rugby League Coach dot COMBATAYU Forward Slash Register Forward
Speaker 1: Slash Coach Accelerator. But what I would do if I
Speaker 1: were you is one of two things. I've go to
Speaker 1: Rugby League Coach dot coma tay you forward slash shop
Speaker 1: or Rugby League Coach dot Com to tay you Forward
Speaker 1: slash coachmntor so that's the first thing one of those two.
Speaker 1: Or get in touch at Rugby League Coach on Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram admin at Rugby League Coach dot coma tay
Speaker 1: you on the email and let's see if we can't
Speaker 1: do you a great deal at this time of year.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's been a better time to come
Speaker 1: on board. Weekly I host the Super League three sixty
Speaker 1: podcast with John Davidson from the UK, but is an
Speaker 1: Australian journalist based in the UK. And all the grief
Speaker 1: I get for being born and raised in England, the
Speaker 1: wap pople talk to me, You'd think I've been here
Speaker 1: for five minutes, not twenty years. John gets that in
Speaker 1: the UK. I'm also a regular weekly guest on the
Speaker 1: Loose Carry podcast with Zero Tackle and do a coach's
Speaker 1: corner analysis on there. So this week I'm going to
Speaker 1: be looking at Joey John's and I get an awful
Speaker 1: lot of grief for my opinions on Nathan Cleary. And
Speaker 1: I'll just clarify to my most loyal listeners, which is you, guys,
Speaker 1: or which are you guys? I believe Nathan Cleary is
Speaker 1: a very very good player. I just don't think he's
Speaker 1: anywhere near somebody like Andrew Johns or even Jonathan Thurston
Speaker 1: for that matter. And I do a weekly column at
Speaker 1: zero Tackle dot com as well. I also want you
Speaker 1: to get ready for another podcast if you like rugby
Speaker 1: league history there's going to be something good coming soon.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get sick of listening to me. Somebody wrote
Speaker 1: to me said, hey mate, not sure if you remember me,
Speaker 1: but I'm someone's dad from Melbourne and he went to
Speaker 1: your course down here. Just a quick one. He is
Speaker 1: unbelievable in a tackle this year, but he's hopeless in defense,
Speaker 1: and I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: get him tackling. His footy IQ is special, but I
Speaker 1: find him scared of tackling. Would love to hear what
Speaker 1: you think about making him better. Cheers. I've hidden the
Speaker 1: I've hidden the identity. This is one of the most
Speaker 1: common questions, and people who've listened to my podcast for
Speaker 1: a while will have heard me target this several times.
Speaker 1: People are either scared to tackle or they're not. Now
Speaker 1: without seeing your boy, I don't don't know that. Only
Speaker 1: he that probably knows that, to be quite frank. And
Speaker 1: if they are not scared to tackle, that's brilliant. So
Speaker 1: tackling shouldn't be a problem. If they don't tackle, it
Speaker 1: could be a laziness thing. But if they have a
Speaker 1: fear of tackling, which I'm guessing your boy might It
Speaker 1: all comes down to technique, and they need to be
Speaker 1: coached properly in technique, and technique comes down to the feet.
Speaker 1: It comes down to where the shoulders go. But foot
Speaker 1: placement is the most important. Getting the body in front,
Speaker 1: that's the biggest hurdle with players who don't want to tackle.
Speaker 1: But the third thing is it's counterintuitive. The most scared
Speaker 1: somebody is of tackling, They have to go into a
Speaker 1: It is hard because if they don't and they're scared
Speaker 1: and they back off, they look even worse. So the
Speaker 1: only thing that's going to get your boy over the
Speaker 1: line here is an awful lot of practice tackling somebody bigger.
Speaker 1: And you start it, and you approach it just like
Speaker 1: riding a bike in the sense that you might start
Speaker 1: with stabilizers and then eventually you take the stabilizers off,
Speaker 1: get somebody bigger to run at your boy from one
Speaker 1: meter away, and get the technique right there and do
Speaker 1: this under proper coaching instruction and practice bilaterally on both
Speaker 1: shoulders in equal measure, and then gradually move that big
Speaker 1: human further back. Now, this process might take you six months,
Speaker 1: but that's probably the only way to turn this around.
Speaker 1: Depending on the level of how scared your boy is
Speaker 1: to make a tackle. If you get in touch again,
Speaker 1: if you send me a little clip or two of
Speaker 1: him tackling, I'll be able to diagnose it a lot better.
Speaker 1: You know how to get in touch with me because
Speaker 1: you had my number and you texted me. Let's go
Speaker 1: back to what we can learn from the FIFA World Cup.
Speaker 1: Argentina or in the finals, I record and they'll either
Speaker 1: win it or they'll be runners up. And we talked
Speaker 1: about coach education earlier in Argentina. I've been there to
Speaker 1: coach rugby league as well. By the way, so you
Speaker 1: my friend bought Joe from Argentina and you went on
Speaker 1: Chat GPT and put me in an Argentina shirt hosting
Speaker 1: a podcast with zero tackle about five minutes after the
Speaker 1: game ended against Argentina. England versus Argentina.
Speaker 2: That is.
Speaker 1: One phrase often used in Argentina about football is the
Speaker 1: street is the first academy children play football everywhere, or
Speaker 1: play any sport everywhere, And that certainly dropped off in
Speaker 1: England over the years, and some people in Australia say
Speaker 1: that's dropped off a little bit more too, But Australia
Speaker 1: still got an abundance of opportunities sports wise. But in
Speaker 1: Argentina children play everywhere streets, parks, concrete courts, five A
Speaker 1: side picture school playgrounds. I always tell the story on
Speaker 1: this podcast about the time I was in Mornington, Ireland
Speaker 1: and they had nothing. They were the most talented players
Speaker 1: that have scene very mind of coach the two n
Speaker 1: RL club, three World Cups, three elite high schools, wherever
Speaker 1: it is. They're the most talented players I ever seen.
Speaker 1: Is because they without structured coaching. Because coaches can ruin
Speaker 1: people sometimes by over coaching them. These players develop creativity, deception,
Speaker 1: close control of the football, improvisation, vision, competitive instincts. So
Speaker 1: what's the what's the lesson for us? Let me have
Speaker 1: a swig of the old H two O. The lesson
Speaker 1: for us is, instead of overstructuring our training, let's have
Speaker 1: some of the street football mindset with our coaching. Unstructured
Speaker 1: play matters. Do more games instead of drills to fix
Speaker 1: your issues in your team, Encourage creativity, allow mistakes, Let
Speaker 1: the players learn through play players and best when they
Speaker 1: don't realize they're learning right. And if you really overstructure someone,
Speaker 1: it takes them more into their brain rather than their
Speaker 1: subconscious brain, takes them more into their conscious brain. You
Speaker 1: don't want that, you want the concept of flow, which
Speaker 1: I'll talk about soon again. Technique of players in Argentina
Speaker 1: comes before tactics, and in Argentina they tend to coach
Speaker 1: that they want every player to become technically excellent before
Speaker 1: systems dominate. That does not happen in Australia. It happens
Speaker 1: at some of the bigger clubs, ie the NRL clubs,
Speaker 1: But there's nobody in this country seas as much coaching
Speaker 1: as I do. And I can tell you now the
Speaker 1: place isn't full of technicians. It's all about systems. Technique
Speaker 1: is never finished and it needs quality repetitions in training
Speaker 1: to be perfected. And you need to play in tighter
Speaker 1: spaces and master the football in your hands and master
Speaker 1: the art of tackling, and then of course when you
Speaker 1: get tired. Another example, and I do consult for some
Speaker 1: big clubs in rugby league, and one big thing I'm
Speaker 1: doing for a very big state league club at the
Speaker 1: moment that have actually nearly finished. I talked to them
Speaker 1: about small sided games. Most Argentinians grow up playing five
Speaker 1: on five, six on six seven on seven rather than
Speaker 1: the full field version. And when you do things like
Speaker 1: this and this is the same in rugby league, you
Speaker 1: get more touches, you make more decisions, you make faster decisions.
Speaker 1: You play under more pressure because the game's moving quicker
Speaker 1: and you have to think faster all games. Big improvements.
Speaker 1: Think about your pitch sizes, Think about your rules constraints.
Speaker 1: Think about your scoring systems. If you want your team
Speaker 1: to move the ball more, think about awarding tries out
Speaker 1: wide or sorry, awarding more points for tries out wide
Speaker 1: than through the middle. Manipulate the numbers, design your games
Speaker 1: to get the outcomes that you want. In Argentina, decision
Speaker 1: making is everything. They value intelligent players instead of robotic players.
Speaker 1: They're more likely to ask a player in training what
Speaker 1: did you see? Rather than why didn't you run there?
Speaker 1: So do we coach rugby league intelligence? Do we teach
Speaker 1: our players to read cues, to scan, to make the
Speaker 1: right decision, to recognize patterns, to solve problems themselves, and
Speaker 1: to play what they see? Do you do that as
Speaker 1: a coach? When I was doing my coach an Hour
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, I actually gave away a little bit of
Speaker 1: something tactical from one team to another, and they were
Speaker 1: a bit worried about it, and I said, don't worry
Speaker 1: about it, because in about thirty seconds in the game,
Speaker 1: they'll know what it is, and if they've watched the video,
Speaker 1: they'll know what it is. And we're very secretive in
Speaker 1: rugby league as coaches in Argentina, many coaches are encouraged
Speaker 1: to spend enormous amounts of time discussing, analyzing the game
Speaker 1: and debating it and asking questions about it, and it's
Speaker 1: a real part of their less formal coaching development. Many
Speaker 1: Argentinian coaches are obsessive students too. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go through all the names, but they focus on lifelong learning.
Speaker 1: They focus on observing matches, They focus on reflective practice.
Speaker 1: That's one of the most important things every coach can do.
Speaker 1: Reflect on a game, what could I have done better? First?
Speaker 1: Before you start blaming your players. Curiosity leads to growth.
Speaker 1: So all this brings me to England and this is
Speaker 1: where I might get a bit more passionate. And for England,
Speaker 1: I want you to think a club that might be
Speaker 1: in your area that were traditionally very good or the
Speaker 1: most arrogant club in your area, the club everyone seems
Speaker 1: to hate. So England got beat in the semi final
Speaker 1: to Argentina, and that part of our culture is we
Speaker 1: will give outrageous criticism of the coach in our media
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And that coach happens to be German. So
Speaker 1: the first things we need to look at there is
Speaker 1: England as a country had to go outside the country
Speaker 1: to find what they thought was the best candidate. So
Speaker 1: what does that say about how they're developing coaches Now?
Speaker 1: The narrative in the media is that his tactics went
Speaker 1: defensive when they shouldn't have after going one nil up.
Speaker 1: But let me give you some context. All through his reign,
Speaker 1: Thomas Took, who was the England manager, has been talking
Speaker 1: about mentality. So he is a very high profile soccer coach,
Speaker 1: but he kept referring to mentality from the very first
Speaker 1: interview he did. He said that at the last tournament,
Speaker 1: English players seemed more afraid of dropping out of the
Speaker 1: tournament than having the excitement and hunger to win it.
Speaker 1: In other words, the pressure got to them. I've dealt
Speaker 1: with this when I coached at Ipswury State High in
Speaker 1: the first few years of when we're in the top division.
Speaker 1: Sometimes at finals we fluffed our lines and the players
Speaker 1: it meant so much to them because they had other
Speaker 1: goals in rugby league and they felt this was their
Speaker 1: last chance, and sometimes they played the game too much
Speaker 1: in the head. So this has been Thomas Tuckles, Thomas
Speaker 1: Tuckle's thing that has been talking about all the time.
Speaker 1: And as somebody born and raised in the UK, I
Speaker 1: can give some insight into that mentality. So we're raised
Speaker 1: as a people who were superior. So if England ever
Speaker 1: win the Ruby League Ashes or the Rugby League World Cup,
Speaker 1: we will approach it as if it was our god
Speaker 1: given right and that the world is back on its access.
Speaker 1: We're given this through so many of our media outlets,
Speaker 1: political talk and even in our education system. I'd say
Speaker 1: it permeates through our society that we're better than most
Speaker 1: other countries. Class and the class system is a huge
Speaker 1: thing in English society and it's not the same as
Speaker 1: in Australia. So when I took my dad to the
Speaker 1: fifth Test match of the last Ashes series in the UK,
Speaker 1: I took him into the hospitality area, so I was
Speaker 1: paying just as much as everybody else in there. But
Speaker 1: because we both had Northern English accents. A lot of
Speaker 1: the Southerners were looking down on myself and my dad
Speaker 1: and I felt that tangibly. And that's some of the
Speaker 1: snobbery that can happen in England for you. And this
Speaker 1: will explain so much to so many Australians who think
Speaker 1: the which can be arrogant. Sometimes we think we started football, Well, sorry,
Speaker 1: we did start football. We started rugby league as well. Therefore,
Speaker 1: if we win the World Cup in either of them,
Speaker 1: it's coming home. It's our rightful World Cup because it's ours.
Speaker 1: But the problem is for a long time we haven't
Speaker 1: and it's an inherited UK arrogance. We still cling on
Speaker 1: to the Empire, rule Britannia and all that. Yet the
Speaker 1: reality is economically, lifestyle wise, politically and right now sporting
Speaker 1: we are far from a best practice example in the world.
Speaker 1: And you're probably thinking, what does this relate to coaching,
Speaker 1: what does this matter? Well, so many of you will
Speaker 1: be at clubs that are still living twenty years in
Speaker 1: the past in terms of their expectations, in terms of
Speaker 1: their models of work. And I know somebody who's got
Speaker 1: this arrogance about how they do things in rugby league,
Speaker 1: Britain and England dominated before the nineteen sixties, yet lost
Speaker 1: our way hugely as the world became more enlightened through
Speaker 1: many things, but one of them was television and then
Speaker 1: color television. Australia kicked away from us in the seventies
Speaker 1: and we finally realized in nineteen eighty two when the
Speaker 1: Kangaroos went through one beaten and flogged every British and
Speaker 1: French side and went through undefeated for the first time
Speaker 1: in history. It took the English twenty plus years to
Speaker 1: realize their biggest opponents had got better than them, and
Speaker 1: that was due to arrogance and ignorance. Remember what I
Speaker 1: said at the start, nothing fails like success. The British
Speaker 1: and the English were always good at these sports until
Speaker 1: they weren't. In football, we didn't enter the World Cup
Speaker 1: until nineteen fifty because we thought it was a timpot
Speaker 1: tournament and beneath us, and then got the shock of
Speaker 1: our lives when teams like the USA and Hunger started
Speaker 1: beating us in it. But we managed to win it
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six on home soil. And there's enough
Speaker 1: people who will tell you there were some dodgy things
Speaker 1: going on there too, So in England and the way
Speaker 1: we look at things, the world was back on its
Speaker 1: axis then as far as the mood in the country
Speaker 1: was concerned because of all the arrogance and the empire
Speaker 1: that the UK hard. Remember the opposite to that, the
Speaker 1: opposite to conquerors is conquered, the opposite to owners is owned,
Speaker 1: the opposite to favorites is underdog. Right, and we can
Speaker 1: apply this to our own coaching context. Northerners like me
Speaker 1: in England, and again this is why it's relevant we
Speaker 1: formed rugby league. We've got a historical problem with Southerners
Speaker 1: because based on that class system, we've had huge historical grievances,
Speaker 1: whereas Northerners have been ignored, downtrodden, sometimes killed. But in
Speaker 1: rugby league we were so fed up with what people
Speaker 1: down south were doing we formed our own game and
Speaker 1: called it rugby League in September nineth eighteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: But because England as a nation has that arrogance about it,
Speaker 1: overseas countries hate us and go twice as hard against us. Again,
Speaker 1: when you're successful and you're coaching, everyone's going twice as
Speaker 1: hard against you. Nothing fails like success when Norway beat
Speaker 1: England for the first time ever in a World Cup
Speaker 1: qualified in the early eighties. I think it was then
Speaker 1: the legendary Norwegian commentator delivered the following on live TV.
Speaker 1: He said, quote, we are the best in the world.
Speaker 1: We are the best in the world. We have beaten England, England,
Speaker 1: the birthplace of giants, Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, so winstant Churchill,
Speaker 1: Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Atley, Henry Cooper, Lady Diana. We
Speaker 1: have beaten them all. We have beaten them all. Maggie Satcher.
Speaker 1: Can you hear me, Maggie Thatcher, Your boys took a
Speaker 1: hell of a beating. Your boys took a hell of
Speaker 1: a beating. When Argentina beat England last Wednesday, the Argentinians
Speaker 1: unfilder fan banner at the end saying Las Malvinus on Argentinas,
Speaker 1: which means the Falklands are ours. But guess what, we
Speaker 1: got hold of them over one hundred years ago and
Speaker 1: the UK owned them. So the you step up and win,
Speaker 1: the minute you step up and dominate, and the more
Speaker 1: you dominate. And there's a lot of coaches I know
Speaker 1: out there who are winning games fifteen erl every week,
Speaker 1: there'll be somebody who's trying to get you, and one
Speaker 1: day they might if you're arrogant. So let's that brings
Speaker 1: us to the present day. In the last decade in football, now,
Speaker 1: this one is about how you package successful failure. In
Speaker 1: the last decade in football with England have made a
Speaker 1: semi final in twenty eighteen, a quarter final in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two and a semi final and then third place,
Speaker 1: so the highest finished since nineteen sixty six in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, and they also made the final of the
Speaker 1: Your Roles in twenty twenty one twenty twenty four. So
Speaker 1: that's the English equivalent of the sorry, the European equivalent
Speaker 1: of the Copper America that I mentioned earlier. But because
Speaker 1: our coach is German, just like me being a pomme
Speaker 1: over here, you know, the the people still like to
Speaker 1: call me that. They've been going to town on him
Speaker 1: over the tactics he used against Argentina and the fact
Speaker 1: that he was meant to be a winner and a
Speaker 1: well paid winner at that. But remember earlier I said
Speaker 1: he was worried about their mentality as a playing nation.
Speaker 1: He kept referring to it. So for sixty years England
Speaker 1: haven't won a World Cup. How many of you are
Speaker 1: coaching teams and you're just struggling to get them over
Speaker 1: the line. Right now, based on what I've said, results wise,
Speaker 1: England are roughly top four in the world and top
Speaker 1: two in Europe as I sit here right now. They
Speaker 1: are top three in the world because they finished third
Speaker 1: in the World Cup and Spain are the only other
Speaker 1: European team above them in the World Cup. So the
Speaker 1: top two in Europe is that not par achieved as
Speaker 1: a minimum? They've actually just had one of the best
Speaker 1: decades in English soccer history, but because of the pressure
Speaker 1: from the media, it's being treated like the end of
Speaker 1: the world. So which one's true? Glass half full or
Speaker 1: glass half empty? Thomas Tuckle is also the most successful
Speaker 1: foreign coach in the history of English football, and he's
Speaker 1: the third one that's been foreign and he's now improved
Speaker 1: on England's best return since nineteen sixty six. Two other
Speaker 1: times they've made a semi final under two other managers
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety and twenty eighteen, but Thomas has took them
Speaker 1: one further. So which one is true it's a massive
Speaker 1: failure or its improvement? Have a think about that when
Speaker 1: you're thinking about your team's development. Now, let's have a
Speaker 1: look at how Thomas Tuckle picked aside. You picked one
Speaker 1: that was tall and tough physically. In the game against Argentina,
Speaker 1: there went one up in and then it seemed after
Speaker 1: that they went into a shell. And let me tell
Speaker 1: you this, it's not for the first time, by the way,
Speaker 1: in the last decade, or indeed the last sixty years.
Speaker 1: So within another seventeen minutes, the coach decided to put
Speaker 1: more defenders on and double down on the defensive stuff
Speaker 1: that had worked in previous rounds. But what nobody in
Speaker 1: the media is acknowledging is that the players didn't do
Speaker 1: their job. The fear of failure crippled them. The fear
Speaker 1: of failure crippled sportspeople, and some of your teams will
Speaker 1: suffer that. Sometimes if you ever coached a team where
Speaker 1: you're playing against somebody really good and they'd twenty four
Speaker 1: nil down at halftime, and then they realize at half time, h,
Speaker 1: we're not playing against monsters, and then play a little
Speaker 1: better in the second half. That comes down to mentality.
Speaker 1: Or you might play against a team that you should
Speaker 1: be but you keep fluffing your lines. The fear of
Speaker 1: failure can cripple sports people. You've heard of fight or flight.
Speaker 1: Blood rushes to your limbs when that happens. Well, imagine
Speaker 1: an English footballer or imagine one of your players. You're
Speaker 1: ahead with thirty minutes to go, you start to overthink
Speaker 1: every action, don't you, and then the fear of failure
Speaker 1: in everything that comes with it. So for English footballers
Speaker 1: it's the absolute abusefu'l cop on social media and in
Speaker 1: the media if they make an error that leads to
Speaker 1: them blowing this lead. And you know what happens when
Speaker 1: you do that as a supportsperson. More blood rushes to
Speaker 1: the brain to process your thoughts, which means less slightly
Speaker 1: less in your limbs means your legs don't move in
Speaker 1: the same way. So there's an actual physiological reason how
Speaker 1: the pressure of performance impacture and impacts our teams. You've
Speaker 1: heard of the concept of flow in sport. This is
Speaker 1: the opposite. And like I said, I encountered this when
Speaker 1: I was coaching it which stay high when I brought
Speaker 1: them up the divisions. The players knew in big games
Speaker 1: that potentially they had to perform if they were going
Speaker 1: to pick up an an RL contract and in many
Speaker 1: cases it was the last chance. And like the English
Speaker 1: coach or the German English coach said about his football team,
Speaker 1: my team were more afraid of dropping out the tournament
Speaker 1: than having the excitement and hunger to win it. Because
Speaker 1: under pressure we revert to type. Type is what we know.
Speaker 1: So guess what gets us out of these problems? And
Speaker 1: this is the coaching lesson. I finally got to it.
Speaker 1: Through this podcast, I've talked about the importance of technicality
Speaker 1: and making decisions yourself as a player rather than having
Speaker 1: them spoon fed by a coach. If technically as a
Speaker 1: player you aren't an absolute expert level, under pressure, you
Speaker 1: won't perform at expert level. Sometimes when things are going
Speaker 1: your way, you will perform at something that looks like
Speaker 1: expert level. When they're going really poorly, you won't. The
Speaker 1: absolute best sports people are disciplinarians when it comes to
Speaker 1: their technicality, and they ignore outside noise always. Throughout this
Speaker 1: and other podcasts I've done over the years, there's been
Speaker 1: many examples of how you can improve technically and mentally
Speaker 1: as a rugby league player and how you can improve
Speaker 1: it as a coach. If you are listening, You'll know
Speaker 1: exactly where I've been coming from in this podcast. I
Speaker 1: love your work, Take care, Speak to you next.
Speaker 2: Week, SA say