Speaker 1: How are you doing. Welcome to the Rugby League Coach Podcast,
Speaker 1: episode two hundred and fifty one and we're in season
Speaker 1: four of it. My name is Lee Addison, the owner
Speaker 1: of Rugby League Coach dot com to tay you. If
Speaker 1: you want some online resources, You've got two days from
Speaker 1: the release of this podcast to get everything that's online
Speaker 1: at Rugby League Coach dot com to tay you and
Speaker 1: it's courses website for thirty percent of the normal price.
Speaker 1: Thirty yeah, thirty percent of the normal price. So it's
Speaker 1: a ridiculously good deal. It's an end of financial year
Speaker 1: deal for those in Australia, but obviously in England even
Speaker 1: though your financial year is April to April, you can
Speaker 1: still take advantage of it. So if you listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast and you've always fancied some online resources, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you now now's the time to get everything for
Speaker 1: that price. But I'm also a coach mentor, coach educator,
Speaker 1: coach consultant and I authored a book called Rugby League
Speaker 1: Coach Team Game Changing Conversations to Transform your coaching. First
Speaker 1: of all, apologies, this isn't out Monday morning Australian time.
Speaker 1: Sunday evening in England, although I am now recording it
Speaker 1: on Monday morning, so I said it'd be out Monday afternoon.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you'll get it earlier if you're in Australia, and
Speaker 1: of course if you're in England, and I use those
Speaker 1: two countries as the opposite ends of the Earth. I
Speaker 1: know we have listeners all over the rugby league world.
Speaker 1: You will get that ready for your drive to work
Speaker 1: on Monday morning if you're in if you're in the
Speaker 1: Northern Hemisphere. As you know, the Soccer World Cup, the
Speaker 1: Football World Cup, they have something called an hydration break.
Speaker 1: Now when they use the term hydration brak, that leaves
Speaker 1: it open, doesn't it. They could be using pickles to rehydrate.
Speaker 1: It could be injecting liquids into themselves. But I assume
Speaker 1: it's a drink break and they have one all the time,
Speaker 1: even if they don't need one. You could also argue
Speaker 1: that's something I do on this podcast. But I'm lucky
Speaker 1: that I get my water sponsored by Global League Network
Speaker 1: and you can find them at Global League dot Network. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Andrew Johns listens to our podcast. Andrew Joey Johns gave
Speaker 1: an interview recently without even realizing it has probably supported
Speaker 1: something that we've been talking about on this podcast for years,
Speaker 1: so obviously he listens obviously. When asked about coaching New
Speaker 1: South Wales, Joey admitted that part of him would love
Speaker 1: to do it, but he believes that taking the job
Speaker 1: would be selfish and wrong because he doesn't possess all
Speaker 1: the skills required to be a successful head coach. Wow,
Speaker 1: thank you, Joey. Let's think about that the greatest player.
Speaker 1: Many of us have a scene or one of is
Speaker 1: saying that a great player doesn't necessarily automatically make you
Speaker 1: the right coach. And we think very highly of Joey
Speaker 1: as a player and as a rugby league mind. So
Speaker 1: it's a huge statement. Most of you listening to this
Speaker 1: the coaches. Coaching is a profession, not a reward, not
Speaker 1: something to do because you've got nothing else to do
Speaker 1: you can't play anymore. For many, coaching is the next
Speaker 1: step after playing. But playing rugby league and coaching rugby
Speaker 1: league are two very different things, whether you do them socially,
Speaker 1: whether you do them professionally. Being a player gives you
Speaker 1: knowledge of how to be coached, how to conduct yourself
Speaker 1: in a training session, and if you're minded in that way,
Speaker 1: then you'll be taking note, either mental or writing it
Speaker 1: about what the coaches are doing with you. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean those coaches are the best mentors. Even if
Speaker 1: you're at the elite levels or semi elite levels, doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you've got the best coaches.
Speaker 2: So you'll get your.
Speaker 1: Football knowledge, and you might get some knowledge of drills
Speaker 1: and games in training, but head coaching demands so much more.
Speaker 1: And I've never ever ever read out a list or
Speaker 1: read a list or heard a list that covers all
Speaker 1: the bases. I still don't know. I've been coaching for
Speaker 1: twenty seven years. I've been on the earth longer than that,
Speaker 1: I've been around rugby league longer than twenty seven years,
Speaker 1: and I still can't come up with a definitive list,
Speaker 1: because if I were to say to you things like leadership, communication,
Speaker 1: organization planning, emotional intelligence, staff management, media skills, player welfare,
Speaker 1: culture building, and long term program development, I still think
Speaker 1: there'd be other things that you could add to that.
Speaker 1: Football knowledge is only one part of the job, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Joey actually believes he can contribute more as a specialist
Speaker 1: and as the person running the whole program, and I
Speaker 1: guess that's how high performance sport is evolving. And I
Speaker 1: guess that's part of my role up clubs too. I
Speaker 1: specialize in coach mentoring, but also in identifying performance improvements
Speaker 1: within clubs, and it speaks to the fact that no
Speaker 1: one person can be an expert in every area that's sold.
Speaker 1: The best clubs and coaching staffs in specialists in attack defense,
Speaker 1: maybe kicking, performance analysis, leadership, strength and conditioning. I always
Speaker 1: laugh when strength and conditioning are in the same bracket,
Speaker 1: because some people are very good at strength and not
Speaker 1: good at conditioning, and some people are good at conditioning
Speaker 1: they're not good at strength. Then, of course there's the
Speaker 1: mental side of the game, the mental performance side, so
Speaker 1: sports psychology, and really a head coach of a club
Speaker 1: of any kind is probably in a place where they
Speaker 1: have to bring all those talents together. Humility is also
Speaker 1: a coaching strength. I mean, I'll be talking plenty about
Speaker 1: Lori daily, the new South Wales coach, and I want
Speaker 1: you to remember that word humility. If I get to
Speaker 1: that today, that topic that I told you about last
Speaker 1: week I was going to save, then I want you
Speaker 1: to remember that word humility.
Speaker 2: When I talk about Lori daily.
Speaker 1: But also Joey's comments in this humility were stand out too,
Speaker 1: saying he doesn't think he's the right person even though
Speaker 1: he'd love the job, and I think that's really refreshing.
Speaker 1: So many coaches out there, and you'll know, these coaches,
Speaker 1: they watch some Friday night football and they think they
Speaker 1: know the game. And recognizing limitations is one of the
Speaker 1: great qualities of great leadership. I always used to use
Speaker 1: the analogy that if you were an owner of a business,
Speaker 1: and an owner of a business and you couldn't type,
Speaker 1: because many people of certain generations couldn't type, right, you've
Speaker 1: got somebody to do your typing for you. Well, he
Speaker 1: dictated to them, that was you still ran the business
Speaker 1: just because somebody else wrote the letters. Regular listeners to
Speaker 1: this podcast will remember I wrote a column on zero
Speaker 1: tackle dot Com, which I do every week, called Recruited
Speaker 1: to Fail, where I argued that rugby league still doesn't
Speaker 1: understand what head coach actually does, and therefore it appoints
Speaker 1: people on playing reputation, name recognition, maybe even football like you,
Speaker 1: the questions that need to be asked and you need
Speaker 1: to ask yourself this as a coach, and if you're
Speaker 1: a committee member or a club president, you need to
Speaker 1: be asking your coaches this, can you build a program?
Speaker 1: Can you develop players? Can you manage staff? Can you
Speaker 1: create culture? Can your crisis manage? Can you improve people
Speaker 1: year on year on year? That list, as well, is
Speaker 1: by no means exhaustive. The problem in rugby league we
Speaker 1: still worship former players and then every time New South
Speaker 1: Wales lose a series, the conversation becomes, should George Johnes
Speaker 1: be the coach from Matthew Johns be the coach? Not
Speaker 1: who is the best coach? Who has the best development record,
Speaker 1: who consistently improves teams, who can demonstrate leadership, who's up
Speaker 1: to date with how to run a program, if even
Speaker 1: only for three times ten days, who can spot players,
Speaker 1: who can pick the right team. But our first instinct
Speaker 1: to support as a sport is to look at the
Speaker 1: greatest former player all the time, and that goes for
Speaker 1: every level. Every level we still have captain coaches running around.
Speaker 1: If somebody is high in the game, As Andrew Johns believes,
Speaker 1: playing greatness doesn't automatically qualify to be a head coach,
Speaker 1: then surely that would make every club in Australia and
Speaker 1: every coach in Australia at least there question that philosophy too,
Speaker 1: that the best players always become the best coaches. But obviously,
Speaker 1: if you listening to this podcast, you could be anywhere
Speaker 1: in the rugby league world and if you've listened to
Speaker 1: me for a while, that's what I've always said. Coaching
Speaker 1: deserves to be recognized that its own skill is its
Speaker 1: own profession. A few coaches I'm dealing with now on
Speaker 1: my coach mentor program Rugby League coach dot Com to
Speaker 1: to you for last coach mentor if you're interested, are
Speaker 1: in the middle of their seasons, so that the midway
Speaker 1: point and sometimes the analysis can be just a chat
Speaker 1: between coach and president or coaching other coaches. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: get time to present it to players. So I thought
Speaker 1: i'd go through some things that you should consider when
Speaker 1: you're doing a mid season review. What I do at
Speaker 1: this podcast each week is always try and get into
Speaker 1: your mind about where you are in your year. And
Speaker 1: I've got to thank you all for the really kind
Speaker 1: messages I've got about the quality of last week's podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope this one takes the same boxes for you
Speaker 1: when it comes to reviewing the season, Coaches often spend
Speaker 1: too much time analyzing what has gone wrong rather than
Speaker 1: focus on what's been achieved. This is at the midway point,
Speaker 1: right players already know what they've done wrong. A review
Speaker 1: really should be about building belief and not destroying confidence.
Speaker 1: So if you've won most of your games, for example,
Speaker 1: let's say you've played ten and you've won nine, don't
Speaker 1: begin by talking about the one. What's start with the
Speaker 1: achievement before the improvement. You'll have probably heard of a
Speaker 1: positive sandwich, or some people call it a shit sandwich.
Speaker 1: You hit them with positives first, and then you come
Speaker 1: in with way that you can improve, and then round
Speaker 1: off with positive. So it's a very arbitrary system, but
Speaker 1: there's merit in it. Players definitely perform better when they
Speaker 1: feel there's progress happening rather than failure. One loss or
Speaker 1: any loss shouldn't define your season. Momentum matters, and you
Speaker 1: should celebrate what's been achieved and then work out why
Speaker 1: you've been successful. I always remember reading Clive Woodward, the
Speaker 1: old England rugby coach when they won the World Cup
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, and he dined out on
Speaker 1: that and wrote books and did leadership stuff and got
Speaker 1: paid a lot of money for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: And he's still alive, so I assume he's still earning.
Speaker 1: And he also had something that stuck with me that
Speaker 1: when you work in a company and you've got deadlines
Speaker 1: to reach or quote us to meet, or time I
Speaker 1: gets to read them. On a Friday, everyone goes out
Speaker 1: and celebrates the week. If you don't reach them, if
Speaker 1: there's a mini crisis, you will sit there and review
Speaker 1: it and have a power wow. I always say to
Speaker 1: coaches it's more important to look at your winds and
Speaker 1: look at the warning signs in your winds as to
Speaker 1: what could cause you to lose further down the line.
Speaker 1: Also have a look at why you've done good things,
Speaker 1: what those good things are, and if they're successful, why
Speaker 1: you've been successful. It's obviously a coaching habit and it's
Speaker 1: a natural thing to do to focus on things that
Speaker 1: you need to improve, but we probably need to get
Speaker 1: that balance right between making people feel confident too tell
Speaker 1: you something else coaches do too much of as well
Speaker 1: as you just talk, which is ironic considering I sit
Speaker 1: here on the Rugby League Coach podcast talking sometimes from
Speaker 1: up to one hour. Well, if you're having a meeting
Speaker 1: with your players, If you're having a chat with your
Speaker 1: players and you're talking for an hour and nobody else
Speaker 1: gets a word in, the players will be learning very little.
Speaker 1: They'll be drifting off into their own headspaces. Great coaches,
Speaker 1: great teachers, great social people facilitate discussion. So you've got
Speaker 1: to ask questions questions. You've got to let your players
Speaker 1: own the standards. And examples of this can include, instead
Speaker 1: of saying, here are our standards, ask your players, what
Speaker 1: should our standards be? Instead of saying, here's what we
Speaker 1: need to improve, ask your players what's stopping us becoming
Speaker 1: a better team or where do we need to improve.
Speaker 1: A lot of coaches will put emphasis on the presentation,
Speaker 1: and it always strikes me that many clubs who recruit coaches,
Speaker 1: particularly the highest levels, get blown away by PowerPoint presentations.
Speaker 1: And I do PowerPoint presentations all the time, but they're
Speaker 1: just words to remind me what to say. So my
Speaker 1: presentations are quite simple. Quite often in terms of the
Speaker 1: visual I have key words on the screen, but I
Speaker 1: talk around them too. Many coaches have overload slides with
Speaker 1: words and players stop listening. They'll either try and read
Speaker 1: them if they can read, or they'll just drift off.
Speaker 1: Your slides should contain themes that you want to discuss.
Speaker 1: The coaching, the inter action comes from the discussion and
Speaker 1: simple will always beat clever. Instead of paragraphs, just have
Speaker 1: simple words things like standards, culture, accountability, preparation, and then
Speaker 1: talk around them for example, or exit and then talk
Speaker 1: about exit goodbae, and then talk about my friend who
Speaker 1: is a Courier male or was a Curier male. Journalist
Speaker 1: always said that the Courier Male in Brisbane is written
Speaker 1: with a grade three primary school level person in mind
Speaker 1: as the reader. And that's really interesting because you would
Speaker 1: think most people in society can read very well, but
Speaker 1: they can't. So you don't want your place to read.
Speaker 1: You want them to hear and learn things and see
Speaker 1: things and basically coach to something like a year three level,
Speaker 1: because I can almost guarantee that your team is not
Speaker 1: full of Oxford scholars unless you are coaching Oxford University
Speaker 1: or so if a grade three student couldn't understand your
Speaker 1: slide or your presentation or your piece of paper that
Speaker 1: you give or anything like that, or anything that you're delivering,
Speaker 1: it's too complicated and avoid coach language. So many coaches
Speaker 1: think that if they can come up with catchphrases that
Speaker 1: coaches use such as, I don't know. There's a few
Speaker 1: that's that have crept in, such as we've got to
Speaker 1: ice this moment or we've got to do this in
Speaker 1: this space. Well, when I think about ice, I think
Speaker 1: about an ice cube. When I think of space, I
Speaker 1: think about astronauts going on the moon. But we hear
Speaker 1: them on the telly, and then you hear them in
Speaker 1: dressing rooms from coaches or or on TV or in
Speaker 1: the media. They all repeat them. They didn't ice that
Speaker 1: moment is in the recruitment space. Things like that are
Speaker 1: coach language, and I can come up with others such
Speaker 1: as knowledgeable assists. What's one of them? Well, what I've
Speaker 1: just told you about is somebody coming in and finishing
Speaker 1: off the rout control. What is a defender, B defender,
Speaker 1: C defender? Sometimes people don't know that. Sometimes if I
Speaker 1: say three in defender, somebody doesn't know what that means.
Speaker 1: And the other thing you should never do if you've
Speaker 1: got a good team, don't over coach them. Coaches always panic.
Speaker 1: If a teams winning, you probably don't need to invent
Speaker 1: new systems, because your players will then start to get confused.
Speaker 1: Your best coaching is coaching less, and many coaches lose
Speaker 1: premierships because they tried to be clever. One of the
Speaker 1: good analogies is that coaching is like parenting. If you've
Speaker 1: got an eighteen year old and you're still wiping their
Speaker 1: ass and brushing their teeth for them, then they've got
Speaker 1: a problem some kind, haven't they. You teach your kids
Speaker 1: to be independent, and you want your players to be
Speaker 1: independent too. You need your players to own your team.
Speaker 1: A review or any coaching full stop only has value
Speaker 1: if your players get a chance to speak and contribute
Speaker 1: and decide and commit to things. And when you're videoing review,
Speaker 1: you're doing a video review, be careful of your words
Speaker 1: because you want them to own what they see too.
Speaker 1: Let the players discover, let the player. A good coach
Speaker 1: can bring the genius, for want of a better term,
Speaker 1: of their players together. The goal of your coaching is
Speaker 1: not to get players to rely on you every week.
Speaker 1: Is to create players who can solve things without you,
Speaker 1: because they always will. They always will. They will do
Speaker 1: things in the game and you think, why the hell
Speaker 1: have they done that? And that's because when they were
Speaker 1: in that game, they thought they could see something better
Speaker 1: than you were thinking. A great coach doesn't build dependence,
Speaker 1: they build independence. And when your players own the standards,
Speaker 1: when your players own the game, your team then becomes
Speaker 1: truly coachable. I need a hydration break, Thank you, Global League.
Speaker 2: Don't it work? It's not even hot here in Brisbane
Speaker 2: right now. I've got a hoodie on.
Speaker 1: Rugby league is quite thin skinned, isn't it. One of
Speaker 1: the things I've always loved about our sport is it
Speaker 1: it's a blue collar game. It's a working class game.
Speaker 1: Always full of big personality, strong opinions and used to
Speaker 1: be full of healthy debate. But more and more I
Speaker 1: wonder if we've reached the point where the game is
Speaker 1: becoming too sensitive to criticism. In this last week, former
Speaker 1: NRO player ready Mateya Matua lost in New South Wales
Speaker 1: Rugby League community ambassador role after publicly criticizing the New
Speaker 1: South Wales Blues on his podcast, and he was told
Speaker 1: that that led to the decision his comments. He's done
Speaker 1: four years working in community programs and he was very
Speaker 1: passionate about them. Again, if you've listened to this podcast
Speaker 1: for so long, you will know that I'm all about
Speaker 1: rising tides, lifting all boats and uncomfortable conversations can create
Speaker 1: better teams and groups and everything else. But unfortunately our
Speaker 1: administration struggle with that. The unwritten rules seem to be
Speaker 1: don't criticize selectors, coaches, administrators. You've got to stay inside
Speaker 1: the tent. And when someone steps outside that line, they
Speaker 1: often find themselves outside the organization. And that's a dangerous
Speaker 1: culture for any sport. And I want to once again
Speaker 1: talk about I am still getting comments on my Facebook
Speaker 1: in particular, which is at Rugby League Coach Socials at
Speaker 1: Rugby leg Coach a little clip whereas I asked the
Speaker 1: question why do we always go down the middle, I'm
Speaker 1: still getting comments of people who can't understand that there's
Speaker 1: other ways of creating go forward or exiting your own
Speaker 1: area of the field rather than just going down the middle.
Speaker 1: And that is a perfect example when we talk about
Speaker 1: being inside tents or just following the crowd. The best
Speaker 1: organizations for the best clubs, the best teams, the best
Speaker 1: coaching groups ideas improve when they challenged. If everything has
Speaker 1: to be a positive all the time and wrapped in
Speaker 1: cotton wooln warm and fuzzy, then nobody says what they
Speaker 1: really think are we Are we trying to improve our team,
Speaker 1: Are we trying to improve our sport, or we're just
Speaker 1: simply protecting reputations. And I'm not saying this always happens,
Speaker 1: but Rugbyley has got a long reputation where outspoken folken
Speaker 1: figures find opportunities disappear. It happened in the podcast world
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago with somebody from Paramatta. Of course,
Speaker 1: people in the media that reported it, or one person
Speaker 1: did took Paramatter side didn't even look or listen to
Speaker 1: the full thing. And this informs most of what you
Speaker 1: lot do out there, because you're scared to speak openly
Speaker 1: in case that affects your team or affects your club.
Speaker 1: The amount of people who write to me about Shonky trials,
Speaker 1: the amount of people who write to me about shonky
Speaker 1: practices with regards to transfers. But fans as well want
Speaker 1: honest analysis, don't they. You don't tune into this podcast
Speaker 1: or any others, or read anything to hear everyone agree.
Speaker 1: If everyone says the same thing, the conversation that dies,
Speaker 1: and we're becoming an echo chamber. As a sport. And
Speaker 1: the irony of all this is that rugby league exists
Speaker 1: because it wasn't an echo chamber. Rugby league was born
Speaker 1: because a group of people in the North of England
Speaker 1: disagree with the status quote. And we pride ourselves on
Speaker 1: being tough, tough players, tough coaches, tough communities, tough sport.
Speaker 1: Quite often it can feel like the toughest game on
Speaker 1: the planet can be one of the most sensitive off
Speaker 1: the field. It can be one of the toughest to
Speaker 1: navigate off the field.
Speaker 2: But if we're.
Speaker 1: Serious about making the game better, making our teams better,
Speaker 1: we need to challenge status quote. We can't send our
Speaker 1: teams down the middle all the time. We need to
Speaker 1: think differently. We need more honest conversations, not fewer, because
Speaker 1: the moment people feel afraid to disagree is the moment
Speaker 1: innovation stops. I will be in Yanko in Leyton in
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. If you're interested in a coach
Speaker 1: development night, please get in touch admin at Rugby League
Speaker 1: Coach dot com and I use my email at Rugby
Speaker 1: League Coach on socials. Message me on Instagram or Facebook.
Speaker 1: The day after there is a player's clinic and I
Speaker 1: will be overseeing the coach who is running that for us,
Speaker 1: who's one of the coaches I've mentored for four years,
Speaker 1: Carl Longford, and players from everywhere within Cooey welcome to
Speaker 1: come to that. Please get in touch on those contact details.
Speaker 1: I've just mentioned.
Speaker 2: What should we talk about next?
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find what to Sorry that was an
Speaker 1: awkward silence, wasn't it? Trying to find what I'm scrolling through?
Speaker 1: I've got I've got a quote for you. Jurgen Klop said,
Speaker 1: I know I'm good at a couple of things, and
Speaker 1: really good at a few things, and that's enough. My
Speaker 1: confidence is big enough that I can really let people
Speaker 1: grow next to me. That's no problem. I need experts
Speaker 1: around me. That was Jurgen Klop, the former Liverpool manager,
Speaker 1: very successful manager. So that ties in with what said
Speaker 1: at the start about Joey's comment vis a v not
Speaker 1: being good enough to be the coach in his eyes,
Speaker 1: or not being qualified enough. Somebody wrote to me and said, hey, mate,
Speaker 1: can I stay hidden on this one. At under twelves,
Speaker 1: my boys execute a set of six structure in training,
Speaker 1: but it's like they know what to do without knowing
Speaker 1: why i e. Why do we get to this point
Speaker 1: of field to then set ourselves up for that specific
Speaker 1: thing in a game. So under real game pressure, with
Speaker 1: crowd noise, fatigue, familiar combinations, the structure falls apart because
Speaker 1: they're not actually reasoning through it, just following steps. And
Speaker 1: this person asks is that a normal development stage at
Speaker 1: this age or is there a specific way to coach
Speaker 1: the why? So it holds up under pressure like maybe
Speaker 1: a post sessions against another team. So, mate, you've answers
Speaker 1: your own question. Okay, So when you are teaching your players,
Speaker 1: we need to get to this point of field of
Speaker 1: the field. They need to know why, and you need
Speaker 1: to explain why, i e. If we go here, the
Speaker 1: defense will do this nine hundred and ninety nine times
Speaker 1: out of one thousand. Okay, if you don't explain that
Speaker 1: to them, they've got no chance of knowing why. Even
Speaker 1: if you do constantly explain that to them, they have
Speaker 1: some chance of knowing why, but many of them might
Speaker 1: not because they're only under twelves. The other thing is
Speaker 1: a post sessions. Yes, do a post sessions, but what
Speaker 1: you've got to do with a post sessions stop when
Speaker 1: you get to that point and then the next action
Speaker 1: you don't you want doesn't happen. You need to stop
Speaker 1: the game and say boys, that's what I needed to
Speaker 1: see next. I assume it's boys. Oh yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: said boys. And then you can also replay that play
Speaker 1: the ball, go back to the play the ball and
Speaker 1: try again, or you can turn over in the post session,
Speaker 1: well start the whole set again, whatever you want to do.
Speaker 1: And you also spoken there about real game pressure, crowd noise, fatigue, etc.
Speaker 1: I always say constantly on this podcast, if all you
Speaker 1: do is train and play against fresher the minute somebody's
Speaker 1: in front of you, you'll not work it out because
Speaker 1: that's a different, completely different challenge. So if all you
Speaker 1: do is shadow box, you'll get very good at shadow boxing.
Speaker 1: You won't be good at boxing. The original super Coach
Speaker 1: was credited Jack Gibson was credited at saying that winning
Speaker 1: starts in the front office. And I think you all
Speaker 1: agree with me that everything needs to be forensically reviewed
Speaker 1: and changed. In Australia, in particular special folkus on junior
Speaker 1: trials where selections are premeditated or done in a relaxed way,
Speaker 1: or both. A junior rep system that keeps changing every
Speaker 1: year in terms of format. What's a long term development plan?
Speaker 1: Nepotism when it comes to players, selections of junior rep
Speaker 1: teams and coaches, and we probably need to do more
Speaker 1: stuff through our schools because every kid goes to school only.
Speaker 1: We need to remove any lack of transparency and openness
Speaker 1: when it comes to recruitment and selection of key people
Speaker 1: for key positions as well. We need to get rid
Speaker 1: of the old boys club and we need to find
Speaker 1: genuine best options for any job that needs doing. And
Speaker 1: we also need to sort our spectator behavior out of
Speaker 1: something that came from England this week, but certainly Australia
Speaker 1: has been guilty of this in the past two Poor
Speaker 1: sideline behavior at all levels of the game and winning
Speaker 1: starts in the front office. Another problem that we're dealing
Speaker 1: with as a sport, and this comes from the NRL
Speaker 1: and Super League, but you're responsible for it if you're
Speaker 1: not coaching at that level. We're all part of the
Speaker 1: same ecosystem. So you'll have players that one day want
Speaker 1: to be in the NRLW or the NRL or Super
Speaker 1: League or the Women's Super League, and they will get
Speaker 1: to a point where they think they need to train
Speaker 1: in a certain way. Okay. Last week the Daily Telegraph
Speaker 1: did an injury analysis. The Daily Telegraph in New South
Speaker 1: Wales addies and said that a thousand games have already
Speaker 1: been missed through injury after seventeen rounds, and half of
Speaker 1: the competition's twenty highest paid players have spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time on the sidelines. It's not bad luck. It's
Speaker 1: something we've been walking towards for years. And again, if
Speaker 1: you've been listening to this podcast following rugby league coach,
Speaker 1: you know have been going on about it all the time.
Speaker 1: You will be doing things in your training just because
Speaker 1: people used to do that with you when you were
Speaker 1: a kid, doesn't mean they were right, doesn't mean they
Speaker 1: were qualified, doesn't mean they were trained. And even if
Speaker 1: they were trained and qualified, doesn't mean that qualification or
Speaker 1: that training was the right training.
Speaker 2: Go qualification.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just all copy each other, don't we him?
Speaker 1: And we follow the ecosystem because nobody thinks outside the box.
Speaker 1: And with normalized this injury epidemic, how many of you,
Speaker 1: whatever level you're coaching, how many of you get injuries
Speaker 1: and your players are doing too much? The question shouldn't
Speaker 1: be who's injured. It should be wise, this become normal.
Speaker 1: We need prevention, not rehabilitation. If you've coached kids coming
Speaker 1: through the system, you'll know there's pressure on them to
Speaker 1: do significant weight training. By its very definition, a coach
Speaker 1: can't be with a player and do a proper weights
Speaker 1: program for the required number of hours in a week
Speaker 1: under direct supervision unless their father or mother is a
Speaker 1: strength expert, when they've got a gym at home. Right,
Speaker 1: we do very little in the game about reducing injuries.
Speaker 1: Now I've seen it go to the nth degree too.
Speaker 1: I saw one bloke a couple of years ago who
Speaker 1: did a warm up. He had an hour's session and
Speaker 1: thirty minutes of it was a warm up trying to
Speaker 1: avoid injury. Well, that's going too far. But availability of
Speaker 1: players is very much a coaching key performance indicator a KPI.
Speaker 1: If you lose a game, it'll likely be because of
Speaker 1: if nothing else, you're missing a key player or two.
Speaker 1: We need to rethink training and player management. And it's
Speaker 1: not about rapping players in cottonwall. It's about asking better questions.
Speaker 1: They're things called commulative fatigue. So in the community game,
Speaker 1: if your players are still at school, what I have they've
Speaker 1: done in pe that week? What have they've done during
Speaker 1: the breaks? What other sports do they do? What do
Speaker 1: they do in their social time? If they get to
Speaker 1: something resembling an elite level, they have big school commitments too.
Speaker 1: They have big rep commitments through Cyril Connell malmon Inger
Speaker 1: in Brisbane and Queensland SG ball and Harold Matthews in
Speaker 1: Sydney in New South Wales. They'll be navigating congested calendars,
Speaker 1: workloads and training isn't individualized enough. We're not identifying risk
Speaker 1: and then players break down and we can't eliminate injuries,
Speaker 1: but we can certainly reduce a number of preventable ones.
Speaker 1: Winning starts on Sunday or Monday, not Saturday. You will
Speaker 1: be judged on what happens over eighty minutes or sixty
Speaker 1: minutes if you're a junior coach, or fifty minutes. But
Speaker 1: winning is about what happens during the week. We tend
Speaker 1: to pray for a clear deck of injuries, don't we?
Speaker 1: Oh if we keep everybody on the field, we can
Speaker 1: win this comp How often do we look at what
Speaker 1: we do and what we can tie together? Just because
Speaker 1: you train on a Tuesday and Thursday with your team
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you should just give them a program based
Speaker 1: on what you think they should do without looking at
Speaker 1: other things. Even a grade footballers and open age footballers,
Speaker 1: what jobs do they do? Some of them could be
Speaker 1: doing really physically demanding jobs. You've got to research your
Speaker 1: players and find out what they're doing. And there's enough
Speaker 1: knowledge out there now in terms of sports science, strength
Speaker 1: and conditioning, medical stuff that you can find that can
Speaker 1: all help to contribute to a good outcome. And if
Speaker 1: you want an example of how bad it gets, have
Speaker 1: a look at what's happening at the top levels in
Speaker 1: Super League.
Speaker 2: And an RL.
Speaker 1: Why do we just accept these things are just part
Speaker 1: of the game. Surely the healthiest team wins a competition.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should make that in the next frontier as coaches,
Speaker 1: I said, I might delay this Lorry Daily thing. Should
Speaker 1: I do it now? Let's have a look at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it now. I'm in the mood. Okay,
Speaker 1: As I record this week and a half away from
Speaker 1: Origin three, Lorrie Daily just picked his the game team
Speaker 1: changed it again and obviously many people think why was
Speaker 1: Lorrie Daily picked US coach? He's not done much coaching
Speaker 1: at all. It seemed to be a celebrity appointment and
Speaker 1: now it's really being questioned.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: We need to think about what a head coach does.
Speaker 1: When we talk about coaches, we talk about attacking, defending.
Speaker 1: Can they make the right interchange? Can they make the
Speaker 1: right selections? Modern coaching, you're more like a CEO. And
Speaker 1: this could be the case even if you're managing a
Speaker 1: community team as a coach, because you'll have your parents
Speaker 1: pressuring you, you'll have your committee having certain ways of
Speaker 1: doing things. But of course, Lorrie Daily and the conversation
Speaker 1: around Lourie Daily is about being a rep coach where
Speaker 1: you don't have daily contact, you don't have a pre season,
Speaker 1: You have months and months to think about something that
Speaker 1: might happen in a week or two. So you've got
Speaker 1: to be more of a leader. You've got to create alignment,
Speaker 1: belief and clarity. Do you remember when Craig Bellamy coached Origin?
Speaker 1: Wasn't very good at it?
Speaker 2: Was he?
Speaker 1: Do you remember when Martmininger coach Club Originally he wasn't
Speaker 1: very good at it? And what's interesting is does coaches
Speaker 1: tend to be the only ones who get judged on
Speaker 1: outcomes all the time? Most of the coaches I mentor
Speaker 1: if we go a few weeks without speaking because they're busy,
Speaker 1: they'll of the time get back in touch with me
Speaker 1: when they lose. Why Probably because of the pressure they get.
Speaker 1: A player can miss tackles, but they'll still be praised.
Speaker 1: Assistant coaches make mistakes, but they avoid scrutiny. People who recruit,
Speaker 1: or the cost of your club to register something like that,
Speaker 1: that gets avoided in criticism avoided from that gets that
Speaker 1: avoids criticism. I was involved with something at the weekend
Speaker 1: wear the fullback selected just didn't turn up for the game.
Speaker 1: People will look at that result and go, oh, they
Speaker 1: got beat by the stories behind every team, But the
Speaker 1: responsibility always go those to the head coach, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: Many of the things you're responsible for as a coach
Speaker 1: aren't tactical at all. Their leadership things, their management things,
Speaker 1: their people things. So was Laurie Daey the wrong appointment? Well,
Speaker 1: what I want you to all be aware of right
Speaker 1: now is I think Lourie Daly is accepted.
Speaker 2: He has to put more.
Speaker 1: Onus on the players being leaders, and I think they'll
Speaker 1: perform really well in Origin three because nobody's expecting them
Speaker 1: to win are they The buckets are offering great odds
Speaker 1: on a two horse race. And everyone used to criticize
Speaker 1: malmon Inger and say, well, the only one origin because
Speaker 1: they had great players. Well, I've seen plenty of coaches
Speaker 1: with great players who haven't won things. But Mao was
Speaker 1: very good, and he's very good at pulling everybody together
Speaker 1: in the same direction, getting people to perform at their best,
Speaker 1: building trust, creating belief, unifying the group, and getting the
Speaker 1: right people on the bus. And the more coaching things
Speaker 1: that you consume, including this podcast or books, it'll keep
Speaker 1: talking about those things now. So whether you're coaching under
Speaker 1: tens a grade, opens, university side, police side, whatever you're coaching,
Speaker 1: your job is becoming less and less about controlling everything too.
Speaker 1: It's becoming more about influencing everything. You're coaching players that
Speaker 1: are the most educated in history because of the things
Speaker 1: that they can consume about the game, tactically and in general.
Speaker 1: The best coaches don't need to be the smartest in
Speaker 1: the room. You need to build rooms full of smart people,
Speaker 1: create environments where your players can thrive, so they know
Speaker 1: when they can lead, when they know they can delegate,
Speaker 1: when they understand that they're part of the process as
Speaker 1: well as you are. And the good coaches know that
Speaker 1: the coaching of now isn't what it was twenty thirty
Speaker 1: years ago, where every level of the game, the game
Speaker 1: has evolved, players have evolved, people have evolved, society has evolved,
Speaker 1: expectations have evolved. Maybe Laurie Day hasn't quite caught up
Speaker 1: to the reality in game one and Game two because
Speaker 1: they looked like they're in a straight jacket.
Speaker 2: Didn't they.
Speaker 1: Again, this links to other things too, So we tend
Speaker 1: to think in sets of six, right, and you'll put
Speaker 1: together a structure where we'll do this on play one,
Speaker 1: we'll do this, and play four will.
Speaker 2: Have scored or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: And one of the biggest mistakes I see across all football, junior, senior, whatever,
Speaker 1: is teams believing that every set has to end with
Speaker 1: a try or a try scoring opportunity. And what that
Speaker 1: leads to his players getting a balls in a half gap,
Speaker 1: throwing a miracle pass, trying to force it offload, or
Speaker 1: trying to manufacture something that isn't there. The reality is,
Speaker 1: unless you're chasing points because you're chasing points because you're behind,
Speaker 1: or you're in the final throes of the game. You
Speaker 1: don't need to score in that set. What you need
Speaker 1: to do is build pressure, win territory, create fatigue players
Speaker 1: can be impatient with. Right now, we live in a
Speaker 1: highlights culture, don't we Your players will be watching clips
Speaker 1: of NRL and Super League and seeing the exciting things
Speaker 1: on social media, the spectacular moments. They won't be seeing
Speaker 1: the one percenters. They won't see the five boring sets
Speaker 1: that have led to that try or that opportunity. And
Speaker 1: you've got to coach your players about not wanting the
Speaker 1: reward before doing the work. Don't chase the line break
Speaker 1: before you've earned field position, Don't chase the try until
Speaker 1: you've built some pressure. Patience isn't passive, it's a weapon.
Speaker 1: Most defenses eventually break. And one thing I've learned over
Speaker 1: nearly three decades now of coaching is that every team
Speaker 1: at every level will collapse defensively if you make them
Speaker 1: defend enough at someplace. In some competitions it's two consecutive
Speaker 1: sets and others it's ten. But eventually people will get tired.
Speaker 1: Communication will drop, line speed will drop, decision making suffers,
Speaker 1: effort areas disappear. Somebody in their assignment all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: and the challenge is to create enough opportunities for those
Speaker 1: mistakes to happen. And every time you force pass early
Speaker 1: in a tackle count or hand over possession cheaply, you're
Speaker 1: relieving that pressure. You might have worked hard to create
Speaker 1: some and then just one silly player and you've and
Speaker 1: you've you've popped the balloon. Think about the best attacking
Speaker 1: teams you've coached against. Often their tries don't come from brilliance,
Speaker 1: they come from pressure. Repeat sets, four dropouts. You've made
Speaker 1: an error coming out of trouble, or one of your
Speaker 1: markers or defenders has been lazy, or your edge hasn't
Speaker 1: been connected. I always say most tries are scored by
Speaker 1: the defense because they make a decision that they don't
Speaker 1: need to. And sometimes the scoreboard we'll always reward patience.
Speaker 1: Are you coaching your players to build pressure or chase highlights?
Speaker 1: They're very different things. Good teams complete sets or hold
Speaker 1: onto the ball. You know, the Ipswich Jets used to say,
Speaker 1: we want time on the ball. If you look at
Speaker 1: the history of the game, St. George la Warrior used
Speaker 1: to hold the ball forever because there was unlimited tackles
Speaker 1: and sorry St George, they weren't called Saint George la Warry.
Speaker 1: Then that's why they won eleven straight premierships in New
Speaker 1: South Wales. So then they brought in the four tackle
Speaker 1: and the six tackle rule to stop Saint George. So
Speaker 1: there's some truths in the game that have always gone
Speaker 1: through it all the time, and one of them is possession.
Speaker 1: Next time your team has consecutive sets, don't be obsessed
Speaker 1: with scoring, but be happy if your team gets another
Speaker 1: tackle or a quick play the ball, because eventually a
Speaker 1: defense will give you something that you're looking for. Remember,
Speaker 1: you don't have to score in this set. You just
Speaker 1: need to make sure the opposition keeps defending until they
Speaker 1: can't anymore. I reckon, I'm gonna call it a day there.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed this podcast a little bit different.
Speaker 1: We focused a bit more on an RL type things today,
Speaker 1: but I always try and compare them and relate them
Speaker 1: to something that you might be doing. I think last
Speaker 1: week many of you really enjoyed the fact that we
Speaker 1: talked about the game. But again I always say on
Speaker 1: this podcast, it's not just about x's and o's. It's
Speaker 1: a chapter in my book Too Rugby League Coach, Thirteen
Speaker 1: game changing conversations to transform your coaching. Remember, go to
Speaker 1: Rugby League Coach dot com to tay you forward slash
Speaker 1: shop and look up the Coach Update package for that
Speaker 1: thirty off of that seventy percent off offer. It's only
Speaker 1: a couple of days. If you get there late and
Speaker 1: it's changed, drop me a message admin at Rugby League
Speaker 1: Coach dot com to tay you, or at Rugby League
Speaker 1: Coach on socials. If you get paid Thursday or something,
Speaker 1: get in torch and will sort it. And if you're inlited,
Speaker 1: reach out to coaches officials of rugby league apart from
Speaker 1: the ones that are too scared and banned people who cancel.
Speaker 1: I love your work, Take care speaking