Why I want rugby league players to think more - not less
Phil Gould
Has thinking gone out of the game of rugby league?
Are our players now so robotic, are their individual roles so simple and pre-determined, that the need or responsibility for thinking has been been pretty much taken away from them?
I hope not, but the more you think about it, perhaps that's exactly what the modern-day game has become. A gathering of fit, strong, athletic bodies simply carrying out their allotted roles like cogs in a well-oiled machine.
You listen to players these days being interviewed by the media pre-game, during games and post-games. Once you've heard one of them talk, you've pretty much heard them all.
Interviewer: "What's the plan today?"
Player: "Run hard, tackle hard. Complete our sets. Know your role. Control the ruck."
I really don't know why we interview them any more. It's the same stuff, the same comments, repeated ad nauseam. Interviewing these out-of-breath players as they head towards the dressing rooms at half-time has now become painfully boring. Wake me up when you hear one of them say something truly different or interesting.
Actually, I'm probably being a bit harsh there. Maybe that's all they are allowed to say. Maybe they have even been coached about how much they reveal during such interviews.
Anyway, I now think such interviews are a complete waste of time. It's just the same things over and over again.
Don't get me wrong. I admire the modern-day player greatly. They are big, strong, committed young men who train their bodies to ridiculous levels I've never seen before in our game. They are dedicated, disciplined and elite athletes. They set new physical benchmarks every day.
I love listening to our younger commentators at Channel Nine as they talk about the game. Champion former players like Andrew Johns, Brad Fittler and Darren Lockyer. They all give such wonderful insights and explanations of the football we see before us.
A couple of things I heard them say over recent nights though have really got me thinking.
First, it was interesting to listen to Brad Fittler on Thursday night as he commented about the two Manly halves Api Koroisau and Dylan Walker trying to find a way through the South Sydney defensive line to produce the winning score.
Brad was making the point that the two playmakers were guilty of trying too hard and they would be far more effective if they stopped thinking so much. He suggested they would be far better off if they actually stopped thinking and just played.
It was a unique insight from one of the game's greatest players and playmakers. Don't think too much. Just play.
To be honest, though, I personally found his advice a little confusing.
You see, I coached Brad Fittler for a fair portion of his career. During all those years I actually spent most of my time trying to teach players how to think. How to have the right thoughts at the right time. How to control their thinking. How to quickly move from what they were thinking, to what they should be thinking, at that particular time.
I referred to it as attitude control. The ability to control your attitude by controlling your thinking.
I also wanted our players to be students of the game. To watch football, study it, assess it, question things that happened on the field and work out why it happened the way it did. Could that be used to our advantage sometime in the future? Can we recreate that situation so it works for us?
I often tell young coaches that the greatest gift a coach can give his player is the ability to think. His performance will be better and more consistent in high-pressure situations when he knows how to think the right things, at the right time.
I actually rated Brad as one of the game's best thinkers I had ever seen. A career that spanned 16 years and 426 first class games cannot be achieved unless you are sound of body and mind. You have to be fit, strong, resilient and tough; but above all else you have to be knowledgeable. You have to be smart.
Brad was all of these things and more. I had always thought that great players and great playmakers had to be great thinkers.
Soldiers just do what they are told, without question. It's the generals who scheme, lead and implement plans. They are constantly aware of their surroundings, analysing, assessing and flexible to change at a moment's notice.
Now, here was one of the greatest footballing "generals" of all time, telling two current generals to think less and play more.
As I drove home from Thursday night's match at Brookvale Oval, Brad's words were swirling around in my head.
In essence he is right. The coaching of rugby league at all levels these days has been advanced to the point where most of the "thinking" has been taken out of the game.
Players today play on muscle memory. Everything is choreographed and rehearsed over and over again to the point where the bodies just act and react without a lot of "thought" having to be put into their actions.
The second comment that piqued my interest came from the great Andrew Johns. He was explaining what made young Bronco five-eighth Anthony Milford so dangerous.
In words to this effect, Johns said Milford was so effective because he is one of the few playmakers in the game today who actually watch the defensive line and react instinctively to their movements.
He went on to say that, in his opinion, the problem with a lot of today's young playmakers is they don't actually look at the defensive line. They are too preoccupied with watching their teammates and performing planned manoeuvres.
Could that be true? Are we producing robot-style playmakers today who don't look at defensive lines when executing plays?
Actually, that explains a lot.
Go out and watch junior teams play in the park these days.
As young as nine years of age, players are taught to play in lanes and are being locked into a position exclusively on the left side or right side of the field.
The words "structure" and "shape" are being drilled into kids from a ridiculously young age.
Advance now to the kids in their mid-to-latter teens playing in junior representative teams, we see that "structure" and "shape" are now so firmly embedded in their psyche, that all the teams look the same, act the same and play the plays.
In essence all junior teams are being coached like they are NRL teams. They all copy NRL structures.
We now have a game where all NRL teams look the same. They all play pretty much the same structure and shape.
If all our kids are being taught this same way to play the game from the time they are nine; If the art of contemporary coaching is, as Brad Fittler suggests, to take the "thinking" out of the game and just "play"; If it's true what Andrew Johns is saying in that most of today's young playmakers simply follow a routine and aren't actually watching or engaging the defensive line looking to exploit weaknesses as opportunities, then where is the next generation of our game headed? What will football look like in five, 10, 20 years' time?
History shows us that players will probably be bigger, stronger, faster and more durable. But will they be smarter?
Who is going to be brave enough to break the mould and take the game in a different direction?
Then again, maybe the game is headed exactly where it's supposed to go. Maybe these are just the musings of an old dinosaur who looks on the past with rose-coloured glasses and is reluctant to move with the times.
However, I can't hide the fact that I sometimes get disappointed with the evolutionary trends of our game. I laugh at the constant attempts to change the game by implementing more rules and rule interpretations, rather than through coaching and education of players.
I want players to think more, not less.
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...--not-less-20160402-gnwtpr.html#ixzz44fHS7RVT
