"Rubbing the shine off the Baggy Green" - A coach's perspective

“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”
― Brené Brown

Steve Waugh has come out and expressed his disappointment and frustrations towards the actions at the Cape Town test match last week and I believe we should take note on his comments, being a noble Australian and cricketing legend. Whilst being best known as an attacking and sometimes ruthlessly efficient captain, he was also appointed 2004 Australian of the Year for his philanthropic work, inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2010, recognised as an Australian Living Treasure and awarded the Order of Australia making him as treasured in Australian shores as a jar of Vegemite!!

“The Australian Cricket team has always believed it could win in any situation against any opposition, by playing combative, skilful and fair cricket, driven by our pride in the fabled Baggy Green.

I have no doubt the current Australian team continues to believe in this mantra, however some have now failed our culture, making a serious error of judgement in the Cape Town Test Match.

In 2003, we modified the Spirit of Cricket document originally created by the M.C.C., to empower our players to set their own standards and commit to play the Australian way.

We must urgently revisit this document, re-bind our players to it and ensure the Spirit in which we play is safe-guarded for the future of the sport, and to continue to inspire the dreams of every young kid picking up a bat and ball and for every fan who lives and breathes the game.

A focused and balanced perspective is needed in the condemnation on those involved in this, with a clear and critical consideration to the social impact and mental health of all players.

I will support all positive action to ensure an outcome for the betterment of the game, regaining the trust and faith of every fan of cricket.”

Combining Waugh's comments with Brown's quote regarding authenticity, let's have a better look at the suggested reasoning behind the actions, looking at the leadership and coaching group in particular, plus the effects this may have going forward. 

Current coach, Darren Lehmann was hailed as a saviour when he took over in 2013, but critics now accuse him of overseeing a toxic culture that has dented the reputation of the famed Baggy Green cap. After being appointed, Lehmann’s response when asked to list his top three priorities was telling: “Probably win, win, win, for a start,” he told reporters.

Cricket Australia (CA) had other ideas when it gave him the job. “Discipline, consistency of behaviour and accountability for performance are all key ingredients that need to improve,” chief executive James Sutherland said at the time; “And we see that the head coach is ultimately responsible for that.”

If part of Lehmann’s brief was to improve the Australian team’s behaviour, there is little doubt he has failed. Players were once considered role models for children, but the situation has become so bad that CA is setting up an independent review into the team’s conduct and culture.

Former Australian cricket coach Mickey Arthur, whom spent two years as coach of the national mens team and was sacked from the job in 2013 in a pre-Ashes bombshell claims: 

“Despite generational change, independent reviews and too many behavioural spotfires to list, Cricket Australia and the national team had demonstrated no real willingness or desire to improve the culture within their organisation from season to season.

“A deterioration of standards that would culminate in an incident so bad, so ugly, that it would shame the leaders of the organisation into taking drastic action to change the culture, or risk alienating fans, sponsors, broadcasters and other stakeholders”

With all the difficulties, culture problems and behavioural issues outlined from past to current coaches, could they lead this emotionally evolving group or should they have taken a more authoritarian role? It is believed that it is beyond the capacity of any coach (or person in senior management or leadership roles in my opinion) to achieve full, predictable control over leadership and development processes. Therefore, coaches need to learn to cope with ambiguity and difficulty of their role, overcoming a sense of legitimacy or validation and the perceived expectations of others; how much would Lehmann give for greater insight into these tactics with his experienced leadership team?

The challenge of successful coaching is acknowledging social interactive dilemmas within individual and team goal setting and development, offering suitable scenarios and choices with all members’ involvement and collaboratively dealing with matters as opposed to eradicating them. Jones et all (2004) quotes coaching as “inherently fluid and multifaceted, militating against clean treatment, typified by pre-specification of a cumulative sequence of precise objectives and monitoring their achievement” (Jones et al, 2004). Other research noted expert coaches could be recognised as highly adaptive in nature and adopt flexible planning strategies, relative to the context offered, quoted by Cote as “coaching expertise requires flexible adaptation to constraints” (Cote et al, 1995). Therefore, these concepts should be adopted, explored and transferred for player learning and understanding, as Floden indicated this as an area needing worked on. He includes aspects needing addressed such as “how athletes perceive learning and how they learn foreign content” (Floden, 1989). Lehmann's tactics of "win, win, win" against Arthur's desire to desire to improve the culture within Cricket AUS' senior teams may have offered short term gains such as Ashes victories yet may have also dumped Cricket Australia's culture into the fire....

Sports coaches of elite athletes act as pedagogues and adopt comprehensive and holistic roles in the moral development of their athletes through their adopted and shared practices, languages and beliefs. Whom they are coaching shall also effect choices and reasons for processes adopted; as defined by Leach and Moon (1999), the pedagogic process is “when participants create, enact and experience together and separately”. This addresses areas including yet not exhaustive to knowledge and ways of knowing, rules of discourse, roles and relationships and values and expectations. If coaches are to develop knowledgeable athletes, capable of performing learned tasks when under pressure and not under direct instructions, I believe this shall require bidirectional transfer of knowledge or total ownership by athletes of their development, with support from the coaches as “more capable other”.

Having coaches adopt supporting roles, such as an orchestrating role, allows them to support their “leading actors” through methods such as offering practical guidance with limited control, focusing attention on aiding development through decision making for players and practices from observations, evaluations with positive and honest feedback whilst displaying understanding and care towards players. Kidman’s research (2001) addressed ideas such as coaches developing player’s complex skills and tactical knowledge through encouraging abstract thought processes by asking high order questions, which require athletes to apply, analyse and synthesise information. This style of leadership has the coach steering as opposed to controlling decisions and actions, encouraging player discovery through evolutionary planning and organising of tasks whilst keeping sight of overall objectives and showing empathy to get the best from the athletes.

Supporting the comments offered from Waugh, coaches should act as orchestrators whilst attempting to create a successful pedagogic setting which requires a coordination of activities to investigate, monitor and respond with honesty to players. This may require some transparency from coaches to offer rationale for processes. It may also require negotiation of processes with players to meet individual and collective performance measures of those being coached whilst matching evolving circumstances for learning and development against attempting keeping sight of overall objectives, something a clearly distraught Steve Smith could have tapped into on the fateful lunch on day three of the Third Test. 

Wallace (2001) looked at shared leadership through “promoting cultural transformation for followers through articulating vision of desirable future state, empathising dialogue, team work and mutual support”. Therefore, coaches such as Lehmann shall look to incorporate a greater degree of follower power, gaining an overall system of collective relations between activities, agents and objectives. As defined by Gibb (1954), this form of leadership would be recognised as collaborative, “accomplishing group tasks with leadership as fluid (state) as opposed to fixed phenomenon”. This should enable intrinsically satisfying experiences for all involved, enable personal development through informal and incidental learning opportunities and increased levels of skill and knowledge retention due to increased input into leadership.

However, as indicated, this suggests that group or team consensuses may not be reached by team or informal leaders or contradictory or conflicting beliefs developing amongst players shall result in conflicting micro-politics with players selecting personal over collective interests (Hargreaves, 1994), such as reported by Smith v Warner. With these ideas in mind, coaches could acknowledge and support their team as a community of practice or local learning system to teach players within athletic environment socially appropriate cultures of practice, related to their sport. Within this, players can develop shared repertoire, where routines, tools, gestures and concepts become adopted and pat of standard practice by playing members, creating joint enterprise within teams through mutual engagement, therefore finding common goals and reasons for participation in groups. Therefore, a realistic conceptualisation of shared leadership in sports team scenarios would see coaches promoting shared leadership with benefits to all stakeholders but setting boundaries and taking ownership of decisions when disagreement between players arise. Therefore, could it be perceived that Lehmann while acquitted really failed the leadership group and players involved? 

Issues surrounding the ideas of shared leadership appears to stem around coaches attempting to take the “lead role”. Actions such as controlling behaviours as opposed to self-rule for decisions in fear of becoming redundant, coincided with coach-athlete relationship not being treated as interactive or dynamic in nature could result in poor coach-athlete relations. The argument remains that the perceived democracy of athlete-supportive coaches only offers players an illusion of empowerment; the official focus and directions as determined through group or team goal setting originate with the person or people of most authority, which is inherently the coach. However, coaches forcing ideas and issues in forceful or authoritarian manner, alongside lack of information or honesty between all involved stakeholders shall result in absence in effort or damaged relationships.

Autocratic styles, being prescriptive in nature with unidirectional transmission of information results in athletes or players feeling undervalued due to lack of opportunity to voice ideas and experiences with coach and other athletes. Therefore, this disengages players and reduces chances to collaboratively learn and resourcefully develop decision making, problem solving and creative skills. Cognitive development is a social, historical and cultural process, where higher mental functions such as problem solving, planning and communication, are developed through interaction and collaboration as opposed to direct instruction. Direct instruction results in slightly extended form of recitation as opposed to genuine cognitive development. Coaches should recognise and acknowledge that there should be a “dynamic power relationship between the athlete and coach for effective education (and development) to occur” (Jones et al; 2004). I believe coaches can only call upon influence in expert or legitimate power, having no control over social domains of players. Therefore, coaches whom try to “lead” through controlling the education process have a reliance on expert or specialist knowledge, which in turn enhances or negatively reinforces legitimate power. But for #sandpapergate, where would have been the happy medium before the "walkie talkie" questions came too late?

Coaches attempting to control every situation creates an understandable strain on responsibility and accountability; therefore, under a “backstage” leadership style of mentorship or athlete led learning, the coach is required and called upon for detailed observation and analysis whilst offering little direct leadership. Offering player or athlete autonomy “positively corresponds to a number of desirable (player) outcomes” (Gagne et al, 2003); these include task perseverance through developed intrinsic motivation and physiological well-being. Coaches can still have impact through supporting athletes through suitable use of expert power. They can offer meaningful rationale for completing tasks, offer support for choices made and empathy and acknowledgement as part of feedback, as explored by Mageau and Vallerand (2003).

One of the areas of research surrounding this applicable to individual and team sports is Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This theory has the coach standing as a recognised more capable other to the athlete with their requirement being to engage in contextual collaborative and learning relationship with athletes to ensure optimal psychological functioning for maximal sporting performance. The coach or more capable other plays a significant role in transitioning athlete from other’s assistance to self-assistance through ideas such as leading questions or prompting higher cognitive thoughts to assist independent problem solving and improved performance in next similar situation. Having three stages in shifting from assistance by others, transition stage and assistance to self, this supports the theory that “development appears twice”. This theory believes development firstly occurs interpsychological between peers or playing group for this context, prior to occurring intrapsychological, where we internally process and develop.

As previously mentioned, we recognise coaching as acknowledging social interactive dilemmas within individual and team goal setting and development, offering suitable scenarios and choices with all members’ involvement and collaborative dealing with matters as opposed to eradicating them. Lemert (1997) discussed that coaches “define themselves and their role by their perception of what it means to be a coach with the influence of occupational socialisation and subculture, which provide a sense of others expectations”. However, it is believed coaches whom relationships with players respect their knowledge or expertise in athletic or sports based contexts, cultivate learning without exercising legitimate power and do not influence social aspects or relations can lead to new shared understandings with their athletes. Jones and Standage discuss the ideas that “empowering athletes by transferring decision making to them is gathering momentum” yet I believe within high performance sport, we need to speed this up for concepts including higher levels of player retention, greater satisfaction at all skill and development levels whilst being committed to develop better people when offering scenarios to create better players as a wider community of practice.

However, indications from this scenario would be Lehmann may have allowed player based leadership get away from his core values; I believe a shift in player autonomy to allow self-rule in their actions, offering greater consideration and allowance for their decisions shall make the shift by coaches from “being an authority as opposed to in authority” (Bergman Drewe, 2000). This shall in turn gain closer, more impactful relationships with their players whilst creating player volitional control and self-determined and intrinsically driven actions for expertise in their sport, something this leadership group and coach Lehmann may never get another chance of doing in the grandest of stages. 

Oscar worthy GRIT: Kobe Bryant continues his winning streak

At Sunday night's 90th annual Academy Awards, Kobe Bryant won another trophy to add to his cabinet; this one for the Oscar in the Best Animated Short category. This accolade was received for his contributions to the animated short "Dear Basketball," based on a poem he wrote in 2015 announcing his impending retirement from basketball. 

Let's look again at his list of credentials: Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, New York Times wrote that he has had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport and multiple media outlets named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. An 18 time All Star, he has been chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. He is the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, twice NBA Finals MVP, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history for which he has both #8 and #24 retired. 

However, when it comes to having true, natural grit, there are very few individuals that can compare to the newly Oscar winning basketball legend. Remembering the definition from Angela Duckworth, "Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals; grit is about having what some researchers call an ultimate concern–a goal you care about so much that it organises and gives meaning to almost everything you do...To be gritty is to have a well-organised pyramid of goals and what researchers call an ultimate concern, a goal that you are (persistent and determined) about.”.

Intrinsic motivation leads to greater persistence, improved performance and enhanced well-being in a physical setting; this would help support Duckworth’s research of grit whereby working towards singularly important goals being the hallmark of high achievers in every domain. Bryant verbalises grit throughout this short movie; he talks of the "sweat and hurt", giving all that he had, displaying perseverance which could be displayed when late in his career, after suffering from an Achilles tendon injury, Kobe managed to face this challenge head on. He dug deep, had confidence and came back from his injury at a time in his career when most people just assumed he would retire. He describes how his mind is still strong yet it was his body having to say goodbye, almost blaming his body for having to leave the game he loves. 

He talked about his passion and deep love for the game, something that came from his "spirit and soul", the game that made him feel alive and started with a 6 year old's dream. His passion was strengthened by the now famous story about Kobe Bryant’s workout regimen that was highlighted when he was training for the Olympics. A short version of the story highlights how Bryant got up at 4:15 AM to do conditioning, weight training and to shoot and make 800 shots, all before practice began. Bryant got up, practiced on his own for 7 hours before anyone else on an Olympic team showed up to start.

Remembering grit predicts achievement in really challenging and personally meaningful contexts, their ability and effort is not differentiated by others and the perceived ability is self-determined and success only realised when mastery is achieved. Bryant later told reporters in the interview room after receiving the award, "I feel better than winning a championship, to be honest with you. I swear I do.'' When he told people he wanted to write and tell stories after retiring from basketball, Bryant said the reaction was, "That's cute. You'll be depressed when your career's over. To be here now and have this sense of validation, this is crazy, man." Bryant clearly has taken to his second career, saying he is also working on a series of novels, adding: "I wake up in the morning, I can't wait to write, I can't wait to get to the studio."

You can take the champion out of the fight but you'll never take the fight (or grit) out of the champion...

Grit in action: From Queensland Rugby to the Ireland U20 Six Nations

It's always enjoyable to see research and literature in action; while I continue to complete my research around investigating personal strivings of elite emerging rugby union players in Australian Rugby, I have completed a lot of reading around motivations, drive, flow and grit within athletes and all people alike. However, I stumbled upon the below article written by Irish rugby journalist Murray Kinsella written, which offered an immediate opportunity for some practical analysis: 

http://www.the42.ie/tom-otoole-ireland-u20s-australia-3865287-Feb2018/

Murray writes of Tom's return to Ireland to pursue his ambition of playing rugby at the highest level and showing his resilience in making a move across the world at the age of 16 work. However, I feel the levels of passion and perseverance set and shown by O'Toole were downplayed substantially. Having been fortunate to both coach Tom in junior representative sides and watch his development through state and national age grade teams, there has always been an innate enthusiasm to improve and persistence for hard work when his natural footballing ability may have been sufficient. He had selection knock backs and a difficult road to follow yet always had a "green jersey" he was chasing down as an ultimate goal. 

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So, where is the point of difference to elite age grade athletes to high performance sportspeople? Early results from my research would suggest that elite age grade players are lacking innate drive and passion towards mastering their sport of interest. These players are highly motivated and show high levels of achievement strivings, which are very much individualised and personally focused, looking to improve themselves and their capabilities as opposed to “winning” within their sports settings. However, intimacy and personal growth strivings such as happiness, meaningful, quality relationships and appreciation are heavily displayed away from rugby settings. Part of the importance and difficulty of healthy sporting attitudes stem around the perceived passion towards the sport, echoing Duckworth’s research into grit being made of PASSION and PERSEVERANCE.  Angela Duckwoth, who's research found grit is a better predictor of success than IQ, income, and other factors, defines grit as: 

“Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals; grit is about having what some researchers call an”ultimate concern”–a goal you care about so much that it organises and gives meaning to almost everything you do. And grit is holding steadfast to that goal. Even when you fall down. Even when you screw up. Even when progress toward that goal is halting or slow.

To be gritty is not to hold steadfast to you to-do list goals. To be gritty is to have a well-organised pyramid of goals and what researchers call an ultimate concern, a goal that you are (persistent and determined) about.”

Aristotle also said there are two kinds of happiness. There’s eudemonia, which is the good life. It’s the life of character and wellbeing that you achieve through cultivating things that are sometimes hard, like being able to get through difficult times, being gritty. He contrasted the eudemonistic life with the hedonic life, which is the life of pleasure and comfort. People such as O'Toole, whom have grit can display the kind of happiness that’s available to people who are truly passionate about what they do and are incredibly persevering. 

Intrinsic motivation leads to greater persistence, improved performance and enhanced well-being in a physical setting; this would help support Duckworth’s research of grit whereby working towards singularly important goals being the hallmark of high achievers in every domain. While passion and intrinsic motivation stems from innate physiological need of competency and represents the prototype of self-determined behaviour, self-determined extrinsic motivators, which are extrinsic motivators which have been internally rationalised with oneself, become activities which are being carried out as are important and concordant to one’s values (Mageau, 2003). Self-determined forms of motivation also result in optimal behaviour, resulting in peak performance and persistence (perseverance for this example) (Deci and Ryan, 2008).

For that reason, it is important for coaches and supporting staff to both recognise and support player's passions and make SMART goals, coined by Wade Gilbert, which are targets acknowledged as Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time bound. Adopting those practices and ideas shall acknowledge and encourage grit within the player. Jowett’s research into coach-athlete relationships looked at the interrelated emotions and behaviours captured through constructs of commitment, closeness and complimentary, tied in later studies with coordination (Jowett, 2004). In this sports research, commitment (or perseverance) within coach-athlete relationships is recognised as intention to maintain a loyal, long term relationship while showing closeness as mutual trust, respect and appreciation for roles played in partnership. The coach’s and athlete’s ability to have mutual relatedness, common ground in beliefs and actions while having stress-free interpersonal behaviours displays coordination and complimentary aspects for successful coach-athlete relationships and support athlete's goals and targets. 

Elite age grade players such as O'Toole whom are aligned with task involvement goals and judge their competency through self-referenced targets or goals, are recognised as evoking high effort to obtain mastery and continually improve personal performance. Remembering grit predicts achievement in really challenging and personally meaningful contexts, their ability and effort is not differentiated by others and the perceived ability is self-determined and success only realised when mastery is achieved. Ego involvement or orientation shows athletes more concerned with their evaluation against normative standards and recognise success as measurement against others, which is now infinity more conman in the world of social media, when performing as equal as others with less effort; therefore, not displaying striving for mastery or being focused on task. These players have ego based goals and they differentiate their effort and perceived ability, based on social aspects surrounding them, again displaying the lack the patience and effort required to find these desired emotions like suggested by Sinek.

What does this mean for us as coaches and leaders in how we should support gritty athletes? Meaningful connections is key here; engage on a significant and sincere level and teach our young athletes or leaders to do likewise. Both parties having harmonious passion and unified persistence towards sport specific goals should be positive for all dimensions for leader-follower relations, continued development of grit in sporting atmosphere  and result in understanding of importance of pursuit of mastery yet not over whelming in each other’s identity. High quality coach-athlete relationships, which are optimised by mentioned harmonious passion, result in higher subjective well-being within player (Lafrenière, 2008), an area which is critical for age grade player retention and development of self-determined motivations and mastery mindset. The main aspects of influential and successful  relationships revolve around ideals such as mutual trust, respect, support, cooperation, communication and understanding of each other and impact of each other within the relationship.

Personally, I believe passion is a very important point here. I believe we as coaches, teachers, parents, need to encourage our next generation of leaders to find their passionate areas of interest, "double down" on these areas and block out possible areas of distraction through the world of social media and non-resilience. We need to empower athletes to combine those achievement strivings with endurance, gratitude, happiness and appreciation as opposed to resting on potential. We need to remind our young leaders that true success comes when we devote ourselves to endeavours which give us joy and purpose and that traits such as self control, character and perseverance, all displayed by Tom O'Toole, is what shall set us apart.  

"Be yourself skilfully": Notes from Brisbane Tens coaching summit

In the build up towards Brisbane Global Tens event, I was fortunate to attend a series of key note presentations from some involved coaches including Robbie Deans and Scott Robertson, as well as featuring current Wallabies national coach Michael Cheika. The discussion was led by Rod Kafer and he echoed recent studies and investigations towards trying to understand what the players of the future are looking for from their coaches. Former Wallaby coach, Robbie Deans started proceedings and addressed "why" being the most important question you can both ask and answer. While he stated that technical and tactical skills can be easily found with access to information nowadays, understanding and caring for player's needs shall massively assist your quest to find your side's point of difference against the rest of the competition, echoing the importance of personal strivings research I have completed with current crop of Australian Rugby players. Deans encouraged the coaches present to grab all chances for informal communications to connect with players, echoing players must know you care about them:

"Players don't care what you know until they know you care"

Discussing coaching styles, Deans referenced ideas including encouraging effort, offering players choices or ability to make decisions and preparing your group to encourage them to take ownership and responsibility, encouraging ideas such as peer modelling and 360 degree feedback. He echoed another strong statement from the day of ignoring the focus on shape and structure, encouraging more and different opportunities for decision making at training, reminding coaches of the importance of clear communication and terminology as the areas and terms you empathise shall be what the players follow and adhere to. This point was echoed further later by Michael Cheika by him believing that "players become more like you the more you show belief".

Simon Manix was next to address the group; current head coach of Pau in the Top 14 having previously worked as backs coach for Munster and Racing Metro. Mannix played one test for the All Blacks versus France in 1994, an area he touched on immediately. His sole cap tormented him with a feeling of failure and shaped his coaching philosophy going forward. He immediately looked to leave NZ, embracing the culturally challenging yet rewarding atmosphere of French sides, having been involved in the structurally rigid and historically steeped atmosphere of Munster. He underlined the importance of challenging players and stressed his ideals for his players are to play with enjoyment and excitement for prolonged motivation and passion, areas he finds as extremely important.

2107 Super winning coach. Scott Robertson was next to address the group regarding culture and how he assisted building this within Canterbury Crusaders' organisation; he admitted this was both challenging and effortless, having 16 Crusaders' centurions, plenty of All Blacks within the squad yet working out how to show his personality in group also . He worked with Kiwi anthropologist, Michael Henderson looking at all factors relating to culture; he addressed the group through questioning how sounds, symbols, stories, sequence, smells, stage, space and significance all tie in to how players or groups "buy into" the culture. He empathised the strong, personal relationships he had with playing members and especially his team leaders including Sam Whitelock. He talked how he would assist setting the plan and goals yet really came down to the players to implement and drive improvement. Ideas to review and improvement are always shaped through solution based meetings and positive interactions and conversations, using constructive not destructive language. Honesty was another theme within his philosophy - players identifying their role and "doing the right thing" right through to honest mentoring from other coaches such as Rob Penney.

Closing out the day, Michael Cheika and Mick Byrne (ARU National Skills Coach) addressed the room, offering background to their history and passion towards the game. Cheika admitted he started coaching as "a way to travel"; now, as head coach of the Wallabies, he sees his strengths as being an authentic leader, offering honest feedback and capable of building a strong team atmosphere, including surrounding himself in good coaches to support his generalist outlook to team coaching, having quality people supporting and looking after the finer details. His brashness towards comments of current and departed Wallabies was evident; he believes the current crop of players involved in Australian squads are as strong as ever and is weary of the "excuse culture" for players heading overseas. This was strengthened by Byrne's attitude that Australian Rugby needs to work harder at all aspects of the game. Both coaches talked of their desire to have strong Super sides, backed up with individual hard work and being physically ready to compete but both are excited by the depth of talent coming through. They also thanked all present for the encouragement from the community and the support (and dedication to improve) grassroots rugby.

Cheika summarised one of the overall themes of the day very well (although I paraphrased his point); Winning is a consequence of getting the other things right. All coaches highlighted the importance to stop prescriptive coaching and too much focus on shape and structure and exhibit greater concentration on gaining a better understanding of your current crop of player's skills, capabilities and motivations. All coaches, including the Wallaby representatives, stressed that player belief supersedes confidence, all being built from accountability, persistence, encouraging effort and understanding players needs as opposed to technical and tactical overload. The powerful message stamped down by all: Build the person's motivation and skills through understanding "why..." and you shall make a better player. As I have stressed before, find their passions and help them double down on their strengths; keep looking for problems to fix and all you shall see is problems.