Practice makes perfect - not true

[ALSGI]

Mark Coyne stated he was surprised at how little our team practiced the basic fundamentals. If you cant get them right what hope have you got of getting more intricate things right?

Emu, when did he say this?

 

[giboz71]

The team lacks skills training, the basics of passing, passing and catching in traffic, offloads etc. In game conditions, you're not going to have the benefit of passing and catching with time and space. Good players have the ability to slip a pass when a half break is made, and they catch balls even if its 50/50. Just watch the All Blacks play and they way they catch and pass in traffic, their skill level is off the charts. We are absolutely woeful in that respect. Rein, Aitken and Duges with their passing, Widdop with his kicking, no accuracy whatsoever. We desperately need a skills coach more than anything.

As for practising set moves, from what I see, they just blindly run set plays inside their 20 with no thought to where there may be weakness. Are there numbers to the left or right, is there a mismatch (ie Nene) with a tall winger in the air, do I put the ball through the hands or straighten, draw and pass? No decision making whatsoever.

All qualities which highly paid spine players are meant to have in spades and which our spine players have none of.

 

[DamoV]

You may have missed the underlying point.

Practice will only achieve what is being practiced. If they practice a good attacking structure in game-like situations, they will improve. If they continue to practice slow, clunky and mistimed attack because Mary thinks that winning possession will automatically win us games, we wont.

I firmly believe that our training has not changed in the past 2 years, hence no change on the field.

I agree with you completely but it's hard to fathom how an entire football department can't see, over a 2-3 year period, that what they are doing is woefully unsuccessfully. Back in the Darius days in 2009-2010 we ran the same sweeping plays but it was done at pace, we had a hell of a lot going on off the ball and it was done on the gain line. Two of our assistant coaches were pivotal to those plays. How do they not try to rectify? For f**ks sake we scored the second least points last year!!

 

[emu62]

Emu, when did he say this?

Apologies.After re reading my post a bit misleading.Coyne said he noticed we didnt practice the basics enough.It was my opinion about getting the more intricate parts right

 

[Uplifting]

True you need to have those basic skills embedded in your practice. I just want to add, to take it to the next level coaches have to be careful not to coach the fun and expression out of the players. I believe that's what brings young talented players to rugby league in the first place.

 

[Uplifting]

Correct for some disciplines but for music and sport, muscle memory is important and this is where drills come into play.

Absolutely. Unfortunately you can't really practice creativity. You just have to let go and open your ears (or eyes).

 

[Old Timer]

Music isn't a bad analogy
All the other teams play symphonies, opera, jazz, musical scores and we haven't even learnt the scales yet.

 

[possm]

Confidence can easily be lost when you practice plays included in a game plan that never ever work. Frustration - written all over some of our key players face - is a bi-product of this lunacy.

 

[getsmarty]

Music isn't a bad analogy
All the other teams play symphonies, opera, jazz, musical scores and we haven't even learnt the scales yet.

Ours is a cacophony of noise...

 

[ALSGI]

Confidence can easily be lost when you practice plays included in a game plan that never ever work. Frustration - written all over some of our key players face - is a bi-product of this lunacy.

Possm Agree 100% this was especially noticeable with Vaughan after his first game in RedV in the interview. Having come from a club that played well last year, then played in the all stars that played well, he looked and sounded completely frustrated after his first match with McAnchors 'dragons footy' structures.
Question is what are our leadership group of players doing about it?

 

[Dragon93]

Similar to BennyV, i had always heard the saying 'Practice makes Perfect' until an old PE teacher talked about 'Perfect Practice makes Perfect'.

He went on to say the first is wrong and actually 'Practice makes Permanent' if you aren't practicing perfect or at least right and you continue to practice or train wrong it becomes habit and permanent (Its all you know to do)... Like a golfer who keeps using a bad swing it becomes the norm and its extremely hard to change. Our players look like they have been in this system for a couple of years now and especially in attack when what train doesnt work they have no idea what else to do.

 

[getsmarty]

Similar to BennyV, i had always heard the saying 'Practice makes Perfect' until an old PE teacher talked about 'Perfect Practice makes Perfect'.

He went on to say the first is wrong and actually 'Practice makes Permanent' if you aren't practicing perfect or at least right and you continue to practice or train wrong it becomes habit and permanent (Its all you know to do)... Like a golfer who keeps using a bad swing it becomes the norm and its extremely hard to change. Our players look like they have been in this system for a couple of years now and especially in attack when what train doesnt work they have no idea what else to do.

100% correct. Efficient practice that produces results and eradicates bad habits from forming in the first place.

That said, our next coach has a major overhaul on his hands.

 

[Dragon93]

Yep you're exactly right mate its going to be a huge job for the next coach to eradicate those bad habits.

Its really exciting though to think about how good some of players could become under the right coach, we have a decent squad with some great juniors just need the right mentor...