Just reading this from Kilgallen and mentioning about Roy Masters coaching techniques...Although the article is about Sam Perret
Pre-match psychology has moved on since Roy Masters dispensed steaks to his 1970s Western Suburbs team and urged them to slap each other in the face with 10 bucks worth of raw cow.
The Kiwis are giving a debut to their third-choice fullback against Great Britain, a 22-year-old who till midway through the season was a centre with possible confidence problems, yet who will sit calmly in the dressing room before kickoff tomorrow morning and look as if he is preparing for a pre-season game of touch.
The key element of Sam Perrett's preparation for the first test at Huddersfield is Maxwell Maltz's 1960 work Psycho-Cybernetics, a self-help manual which argues that by rebuilding your self-image you can bring success.
Perrett's self-image - dented by his Sydney Roosters' painfully bad 2006 season and a series of dropped balls which became singed into his memory - has had a complete reconstruction and he now happily describes himself as "totally relaxed".
"A lot of the top players think that way," he says. "You can look at it one way - it is huge playing for your country and it is the be-all and end-all; or it is just a game, and when you play relaxed like that, you play better."
It is not an attitude that diminishes a burning desire to capitalise on a very unexpected opportunity at test level. Kiwi coach Gary Kemble reports Perrett has already told him that he may have started as No3, but he wants to stay No1.
But Psycho-Cybernetics has taught Perrett that he should focus on the small things - such as catching those high balls. The book has made it into his kitbag for his first Kiwi tour. "I read it over and over," he says. "I will spark conversations every now and again (with teammates) and see how interested they are and if they are, I will give them a look for a bit."
Perrett could become a case study for the next edition. Always considered a centre or wing, he was shifted to fullback by the Roosters partway through 2007 when Australian test fullback Anthony Minichiello suffered a season-ending back injury. It was a shock, but Perrett now considers himself a fullback and while he's conscious that injury to Minichiello, Brent Webb and Krisnan Inu has brought him fortune for both club and country, he wants to stay there.
The Roosters began the year rooted to the foot of the table in an unsuccessful experiment with Chris Anderson as coach. Perrett was one of their few form players in a confusing time. "I stayed positive," he says. "You learn a lot from being down at the bottom. I learned how to relax, just ignored all the things going on around. I got pretty good at that: ignoring the rubbish."
New coach Brad Fittler, however, brought clarity, with a basic gameplan and licence to ad-lib around the edges, an approach that suited Perrett and kickstarted his Kiwi representative ambitions.
Perrett was born in Auckland and raised in Hamilton. He did not take football seriously till he moved to the Gold Coast. Then he won Queensland Schoolboy selection. Perrett was in a 2003 Australian Schoolboys team which included Karmichael Hunt at fullback and Benji Marshall in the halves. "The NZRL hadn't got into contact with any of us, that I know of, but I wish that they had said something," says Perrett.
He was always clear where his allegiances lay. "All the boys knew we were New Zealanders but we were not getting the opportunity."
The call didn't come till 2005, when Brian McClennan rang to say he was being watched.
Tomorrow will be his biggest game. He has only Roosters' under-19 and reserve grade grand finals to compare.
He was sick the week of the under-19 final, in 2004. "I was a bit rattled, and probably a bit in awe of the whole occasion, and struggling to do the little things right on the field. The next year, though, I just thought about the little things. I had a much better game."
I hope it gave Kemble Some ideas.
Source:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4251763a10713.html
