‘Talking Tactically’

with Lachlan Tighe..... 

(a weekly edition, commenced 12/9/2001, of thoughts, observations and commentaries on developments for bowls coaching and competition)

‘… self belief and winning ways: England world cup rugby lessons’

(edition 82  - 2004 of thoughts & observations on lawn bowls)

Go out and buy last weekend ‘Australian’ newspaper (Sat 22 Feb) and read the full article on England’s Rugby Union coach, Clive Woodward, titled ‘ …secrets of the mad professor’ that recently features in England’s newspaper ‘The SUNDAY Times’.

I read the article on Saturday morning before heading off to premier league bowls competition and as a fellow coach I found the content of the article inspirational.  However to paraphrase renowned Australian football coach David Parkin, inspiration lasts overnight, perspiration and motivation are the tools for success.

So here I am writing to you readers, hopefully appealing to the elite bowlers who may see this, and their coaches, asking you to consider seriously where you are compared to where Woodward would have you if his approach prevailed in your game, and for my ‘Elbows’ squad of ten bowlers, guess what, this article that I cite below is the definitive work on what and how we are comparably going to go about it as bowlers.

Might I duly credit the following paraphrasing to the journalist at the Times who wrote the full article, Alison Kervin.

Here then are the excerpts quoting or talking about WoodwardI which I ‘roared in appreciation to’ when reading this on Saturday:

‘…Woodward reacted to a book by a dentist named Paddi Lund who preached the virtues of a contented working (sports) environment to get the best from team members. Its hard to create a happy working environment but you have to do it.  Like Rod McQueen who also won a world cup as Australian coach we both know the limitation if the environment is a hostile one.

Woodward talks of self belief as being an important reason England won the world cup. He displayed publicly the same level of self belief that he has been engendering in his players.

I don’t think I take risks at all, I’m very conservative; I examine things very carefully and move things forward; when things don’t go right I get tarred with the mad professor brush, but I’m not taking mad risks.

What Woodward has done is think differently.  England has been transformed by his ability to think in this way.  Everything else that came – the coaches, the fitness levels, the visual awareness – was a result of one man’s ability to think differently.

He created a high performance environment in which no excuses were tolerated.  He recognized that players could not make a 40% difference to their game overnight, so they made small improvements – EVERYWHERE.

A 1% increase in everything will make a huge difference in the long run.

Their fluid levels are monitored, their fitness work is specific to their playing positions, they have access to specialists in every area, including a visual awareness coach.  All the tiny differences make a big difference, enough to win a world cup.  I t all makes perfect sense and it is not rocket science, so why is every sport not copying the model ?.

Many people in sport are scared of change, but I’m not scared of change, I like it; I think its important.  Its not always easy.  England winning the world cup did’nt go in a straight line, there were setbacks along the way.  Its how you recover from those setbacks that counts.  What I’ve always done is concentrate on success and not on failure.

When you lose – if it is just the odd game – don’t overreact.  In business if you are winning you tend to go down to the pub and open the champagne.  When you lose it’s the 8am crisis meeting.  To me, it should be the complete opposite – when you have done something really good have the 8am meeting, find out why. If you lose go down to the pub have a beer and stay cool.  If you keep losing you have to change things dramatically but if not carry on doing things right, carry on believing you can win next time out on the field.

Woodward describes the world cup as a benchmark. He has moved on since and has lots of plans. One of the biggest areas he wants to work on is leadership, not in terms of making someone the next captain but in terms of imbuing every player with leadership skills that will improve his game.

I think leadership is something you can coach as we have tended to believe that leaders are natural rather than coached, but I believe you can coach people to be better leaders and to develop a better understanding of the game.

Thinking under pressure can also be coached.  There will be some players whose thinking under pressure is great from the start.  Perhaps we can make it better.  There are players who would benefit from improvements in that area.

Imagine how much better the team would be if they could all just replicate the stuff we did on the training track in match situations.  It may take three years to see an improvement but we’ll start working on it straight away’.

Gee, you members of our ‘Elbows’ bowls squad should be ones who can see the merit of what we have been trying if you soak up what Woodward is on about, a familiar theme yet a long road ahead !!!

Will others in elite levels of bowls (and any sport for that matter) heed the words and do the deeds to reap the benefits ?

Lachlan Tighe