My apologies to those of you who follow this blog for not making a post in several months! I’m in the final states of completing a Masters degree and didn’t make much time for blogging in between school work and lots of cycling. It’s a new year and I’m in a new location, with a new club, so in the spirit of ‘newness’ will be posting – hopefully many – new articles over the coming weeks as we start indoor training.
I want to kick off 2012 with something that would have been more timely posted in October – my thoughts on the Rugby World Cup. Despite the time lapse, however, I think the following things which struck me can be lessons on how I’ll approach coaching in the new year – affirming some of my beliefs and giving me new things to think about.
1. New Zealand
I hope some of the bitter sorts who think New Zealand’s win was undeserved, and who unfairly lobbed a lot of criticism at the referee, have had a chance to cool down as I believe they were truly justified as winners. Not only because they had the players – and back-up players! – to do the job, but because their preparation for the tournament is what – in my opinion – got them there. I’ve just recently finished reading Clive Woodward’s book, Winning!, on how they won the 2003 Rugby World Cup. In it, he outlines all the structures put in place in order to instil both a winning culture within the minds of ALL people involved with the team, from coaches, to staff, to players, to the wider training group who didn’t make the cut. He also underlines the importance of infrastructure in supporting everyone’s needs. I’ll talk more about this later when I synthesise my notes on the book, but it appeared to me that Graham Henry followed that same sort of mentality. Clive talks about surrounding himself with the best staff and players and developing a culture of winning, and that is something that was obvious within the All Blacks over the last two years or so. Assistants Hansen and Smith are top notch, and they all seemed to contribute, even switching roles at one stage. That, to me, shows a team that is truly functioning within. They also have maintained pretty much the same core of players for the last few years. Others have been tried and those players put pressure on the incumbents to do better. Those who earned their place – like Piri Weepu – were rewarded, though there was immense faith placed in the old guard – like Ali Williams, only recently having come back from his Achilles injuries. Like England was between 2001-2003, New Zealand have been virtually unstoppable over the last two years, and any bumps along the way only served to teach them lessons and make them stronger. (Anyone who remembers how they exited RWC 2007 and survived the 2011 final, with many of the same players, can see how they grew.) The lesson here is that team culture, coaching structure, and total club buy-in is immensely important, and I believe can even elevate teams beyond those who are arguably better on paper.
2. Half Backs
I’ll write more on this later, but the play of Piri Weepu and Kahn Fotuali’i in particular impressed me as they often played what one pundit called the 9 1/2 position – doing the work of scrum half, but also often finding themselves in the ‘stand off’ position. What this allowed the All Blacks and Samoans was to have more width, get away from the condensed defence around the rucks, and get their most creative players in more space with more strike options around him. I’m convinced this comes from Rugby League, which I know Weepu played at school, and assume Fotuali’i has as well. In that sport, the hooker does most of the passing from the play-the-ball (oddly enough, he wears 9 – coincidental?) and the half back and 5/8 play in wider, often inter-changeable, positions. More on that in a forthcoming post …
If you want examples of great traditional half back play, however, watch BOTH Japanese 9s (Fumiaki Tanaka and Atsushi Hiwasa), and their partnership with fly half James Arlidge. To me, they were the best in the tournament – ever-present at the break down, and with speedy, accurate passes. Some teams, like England and Australia, have great 9s who can make little darting runs, but they were rarely effective doing so as international-level defences are incredibly focused around the ruck. When they did, it also left a ‘slow ball’ situation at the next break down because their passer was trapped at the bottom of it. When I talk about the “9 1/2″, I’ll examine how such a team needs forwards to be decision makers and/or passers to make up for that. The Japanese, however, were always on-hand to make the pass and did so without delay, hitting their forwards on the run, rather than relying on the static pod system a lot of other teams use. This not only accounted for their relative lack of size, but also kept defences from getting organised, providing Japan with a lot of ‘go-forward’ ball and opportunities to make things happen. I’ll definitely be focusing on this in the new year, and maybe a combo of both styles if the team is receptive to having the forwards pass more and, essentially, playing with two decision makers in attack.
3. Game Changers
I made a note to discuss ‘game changers’ months ago because CBC radio was doing a series on people who did just that around the time of the Rugby World Cup. I made a note to discuss both the South Africa / Samoa game and the Ireland / Australia shocker. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten much of the specific details of both games, but do remember the important parts. Simply put, both Samoa and Australia went into half time with a major hurdle to over-come. Samoa were down 0-13, but were playing well and – as they often do – were intimidating in the loose and had weapons all over the park, in both the forwards and the backs. Australia were definitely the better team on paper, but the Irish are a clinical and powerful side and were bullying the Aussies, who are more open field flair and less about playing the gritty tight game. Both teams emerged from the changing rooms at half time with contrasting mentalities from each other. I’m not sure how much of it was down to coaching decision / in-decision or by the players themselves deciding to step it up / not, but Samoa came out firing and won the second half 5-0, while Australia kept doing the same old thing and ended up scoring no points. Both teams lost, but one would have expected that from Samoa – who could have won the game, while Australia should have beat the Irish. The difference was, I think, in the decision to make a tactical change / affirmation / clarification at half on the part of the Samoans. They identified their strengths versus the areas the South Africans were looking weak (from memory, I think it was the midfield – in particular, they used a simple loop to beat the Fourie’s blitz, and slipped inside him for their try). They matched their muscle and kept the South Africans on the back foot and denied them possession. Conversely, again from memory, the Australians kicked away a lot of their possession and continued to try and muscle up to the Irish, getting bullied in the process via their rugby league style defence. I’m a huge fan of Aussie rugby, and kept wondering why they weren’t trying to play the game wider as a few forays into that territory yielded in positive results – but then they’d go back to kicking away the ball and trying to do slow drives in tight with outmatched forwards. The lesson is to be analytical during the first half and not to be afraid to make a big change of strategy, tactics, or personnel at half to capitalise on anything learned.
