DISCUSSION BOARD
I don't know how many of you use twitter - I do and I found this tweet yesterday about an interview with Lynne Kidman.
I thought it may help inform the discussions around the coaching process:
iNTERVIEW WITH LYNN KIDMAN | footblogball
If anyone else finds anything interesting they can post it here. I would ensure that you always evaluate your sources - twitter and other online forums are a wonderful source of information but always consider that there are no filters. What I mean is with academic journals there is the peer review process - each article has to be agreed by a minimum of 2 independent referees, with considerable experience in the area. There is no such process in many sources found online.
Another twitter find.
Found this report on twitter - retweeted it through the Institute account. I don't know how many of you use twitter but our account is @UoE_ISPEHS - follow us if you want and if you have anything worthwhile to tweet let me know and I'll put it out here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/33767555
This report has potentially serious repercussions for NGBs
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Christine Nash Post 3 in reply to 2
• 11 November 2015, 9:01 AM • Edited by the author on 11 November 2015, 9:02 AMIn light of our upcoming work around sport systems and high performing environments the IAAF findings have been very revealing. The Russian sport system and culture has been compromised - see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/34766733
And then of course there are the recent FIFA revelations surrounding bribery where the German system has been put under scrutiny - see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34783181
Again there are questions around Russia here too.
How do you think this affects the coaches in these systems?
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ChristineI found your comments in one of your lectures that "Sport is part of the entertainment business" poigniant. Also your lecture on athletes in China and my knowledge of how Archery is run in Korea is very disturbing. I think that where big money and political systems are involved it is very hard for coaches and officials because bribes will be offered and favour is easily withdrawn.
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Is this where sport meets dance?
Since I am going to see the Murrays play - Jamie in doubles tomorrow and Andy on Monday I thought this was interesting:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/nov/14/andy-murray-atp-world-tour-davis-cup-final?CMP=share_btn_tw
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Implications for Sports Systems?
Again I found this a very interesting article around Stuart Lancaster and the RFU. Personally I think England were mistaken in letting him go. I would have encouraged him - look at what Clive Woodward did with some encouragement after 1999 - also I think England had the youngest team in the World Cup.
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts
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Englands sorrows are always music to a Welshmans ears! I expect it is the same in Scotland.
To me it is the same old problem. If a team plays well they are lions. If a team plays badly sack the coach. No account is taken about the politics, selection systems, commitment, abilities or availability of players.
National representation in international sport does not always see the best players make the squad, if they are unable to finance their position, so we end up with the affluent but mediocre.
In professional sport how often do we see players unavailable or missing training due to "injury" but turning out for their clubs a week later?
I do not know what is going on at Twickeham but my guess is that behind the scenes is a maelstrom of petty jealousies, preferences and politics. A manager has to walk that road, massage egos, motivate, police and discipline, deal with the media, support the wounded, devise a strategy knowing that a couple of bad results and they are out.
I am told that part of the secret of Alex Ferguson at Manchester was the fact that he had been there a long time and that he encouraged team members to take their coaching badges.
How can any organisation develop if its leaders are constantly playing musical chairs?
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As a Scot I think England's lack of a coach and the 'managerial merry-go-round' are music to my ears - especially in the upcoming 6 Nations. But think a little more deeply than that! This RWC saw no northern hemisphere teams in semis - we need teams to challenge here so that we can develop in the way of the 3, and now perhaps 4, southern hemisphere teams. The same thing has happened in football in Scotland - Rangers had their financial difficulties and went to the bottom league. The SPL clubs could have stopped that but as a result of what I think were petty jealousies they did not. What has happened - Scottish football has gone downhill, there is even less money now as it is not even a 2 horse race.
PS these views are mine - you may not agree
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The question there though Christine is why two countries with populations far smaller than the UK can produce sporting excellence in more than one code of the sport and more than one type of team game? Why are most of the English RFU clubs coached by souther hemisphere coaches. What is wrong with the UK coaching system that our coaches are unable to compete at the same level?
Are SRFU,WRFU, ERFU incapable of producing players with the same skill, fitness, drive and passion or are we missing something in talent identification, player and coach development or opportunities and facilities for training?
I do not follow football but I think your comments on football aply to more than just football. Halifax has seen its professional rugby team go belly up, its football team drop down the table. Is it down to money? An american football coach earns more than a professor in the same university. Premier stars earn huge sums,
Rugby has a history of shunning people. I think we have seen a little of this in the person who has so recently returned to Rugby League after a brief spell in Union. England also needs to question its policy of not picking players who play abroad. Wales had too many players leave the field injured. Is that down to strength and conditioning or the workrate professional athletes are now expected to achieve. How many internationals are played each year compared to the 1950's when teams did not have the same access to air travel. Do we need quantity or quality? Also how do we bring on the new if we keep playing the same old faces. Inevitably when they retire the team does not play as well because the newbies have little experience of playing with the more established players.
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Your comments around coaching salaries reminded me of this map.
I was lucky enough to experience the financial rewards of the US system
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Hi Graham
I can only speak about my experience with the SRU but I've done cover work at quite a lot of age grade pathway gyms and something that has been consistent is talented players with positive feedback (one player had no negative feedback and was told he was effective in the contact areas) are being dropped for players with more size. The smaller players that probably naturally play, and rely on, a fast paced and agile game get told they have to bulk up. Scotland seem to have an obsession with size, something I think comes from us being historically a smaller side. But if you look back 20 years or so that suited us. We were small but very agile and played at a very fast pace and had very skilled players. What happens, and I've had to do this for a player after the head coach told me to, when you bulk a smaller but agile player up is generally they're skinny through genetics, so what my player did was go to the gym 5-6 times a week during pre season but the head coach wouldn't allow him to go through team pre season to make sure he didn't run off the extra weight. So he did put about a stone/stone and a half on but came into the tail end of pre season slower, physically and in terms of game pace, unfit due to very little to no conditioning work, and less skillful because he hadn't touched a rugby ball since the end of the previous season.
What really bugged me was I'd spoken to this head coach several times about what i see as failings within the SRU age grade system with size favoured over skill, and he had agreed with me and with my statement that size for the sake of size is not only useless but detrimental to a player. But this is the frustration of being a support staff/coach, ultimately the sport specific coach has the last say.
Based on conversations with people involved in the rugby specific side of things there was a problem with how players were being coached as well, with quite a robotic approach that would crush individual flair as this could lead to mistakes. I think this is starting to change. The problem is that the northern hemisphere rugby is always chasing what the southern hemisphere are doing, except maybe in terms of S&C, even then only in smaller areas. I think a massive difference is that the southern hemisphere don't have this near crippling fear of failure or mistakes that seems so common up here.
The last thing is a comparison between New Zealand and England that someone pointed out to me. If Steve Hanson (NZ coach) wants Baeuden Barritt (NZ player typically fly half but played mostly at full back at world cup) to play full back he will play full back for his club. If Lancaster wanted say Farrell (England fly half) to play full back the clubs would tell him where to go. Southern hemisphere countries have a clear kind of ladder structure from local club rugby right through to international level, we don't. Scotland you get to Prem standard, hope a club picks you up (we only have 2 that have a limited player budget and foreign clubs don't come round that often). In Scotland the clubs have a pretty good relation with the SRU as far as i know but in England the clubs arguably have more power than the RFU and so it's a constant battle between the two.
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I thank you for this Daniel.Northern Hemisphere rugby seems to have got itself into a terrible mess since it started down the path of professionalism. Your comments on the loss of gifted but agile are also interesting. There was some interesting stats just before the RWC that top rank players in rugby are not getting bigger but the average size of rugby players is still increasing because second and third ranking players are bulking up.
I have also heard very disturbing rumors about juniors in rugby league who are told to bulk up and given protein shakes which suddenly give them unexpected growth spurts.
Ha wouldn't surprise me. There was a guy in Scotland that played at the same level as me (not bad but definitely not a top level league) that got busted for taking and selling steroids last season. I've heard a lot of rumours that steroids and other associated drugs are actually a big problem in rugby. Whether that's true at the professional level I don't know but I've heard plenty of stories about domestic rugby all over the world. One that may have some truth is regarding Jamie Roberts. At age grade level he dissappeared for a year, no one saw him, when he came back he'd grown about a foot, had put on massive size, but apparantly his head and jaw had grown a lot and changed shape, something that can signal steroid usage. This story could be nonsense but I reckon rugby probably isn't as clean as it hopes it is, however that's true of most sports now.
Saw this link this morning. Made me think of your comments on Jamie Roberts. Stuart Hogg is another one who seemed to go through an enormous body transformation in a short period of time! http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06q6nq6/week-in-week-out-rugby-dirty-steroid-secret
I think this is a huge issue and probably relates to the culture of the sport. Look at the culture surrounding Lance Armstrong. However we have to be careful when naming names and suggesting drug use. I know that when I was involved in athletics I was offered steroids as a matter of course - training at Meadowbank actually. I know people I trained with took them too and reached the top. When I started in Glasgow my coach, Frank Dick, was very clear that drugs played no part and I guess that early influence stuck with me.
In the US drugs were also very available so this is an issue that has been below the surface for a while. Personally I don't think drug testing will ever catch everyone. As long as there is money involved there will always be better chemists on the drug cheats side.... What to do? Well I think lifetime bans would send a clear message - perhaps for athlete AND coach!