The Art of Modern Coaching

Mick Cowan takes a look at how coaching has evolved and is not an exact science

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Listening to Ash, Darren and Emma provide their takeaways and insights gained from the “Full Sweat” documentary, it was interesting to hear Emma and Darren express some of their concerns.

In particular the part in the production where Sam Mitchell in a chat with Isaac Smith and acknowledged that he wasn’t sure as to where the team stood at this time of the pre-season; just as he wasn’t sure about the team in the 10 minutes prior to a match on game.

Emma was particularly concerned that if the coach didn’t have any idea, what hope do we as supporters have?

Can I suggest that this for Mitchell is a classic case of ‘teacher anxiety’.

Teacher Anxiety

If you happen to know a teacher who has taught a Year 12 subject, ask them about the 10 minutes prior to the end of year exams commencing, when many of them would’ve gone to see their students as they waited to enter the exam room.

In the forefront of the teacher’s mind, they would be looking for signs of anxiety and stress amongst students, trying to provide some level of reassurance to the students in the final minutes, whilst in the back of their own mind trying to assuage themselves that they had done everything in their power to prepare the students for their final challenge.

This scenario does play out in other aspects of life, particularly for parents and their kids, however what makes this analogy more pertinent to Mitchell’s scenario is that there are no ‘do-overs’ with a Year 12 exam, just as there are no do overs for Mitchell when the team arrived at this part of the pre-season or ten minutes before a game.

Modern Coaching

Mitchell’s acknowledgement reflects that the modern art of coaching - where there is an element of planned obsolescence incorporated into the education of the modern player.

What this means is in the coaching of a current player (i.e. as many as possible) a key focus is for them to become the problem solver rather than being heavily reliant on a coach to tell them how to create or react to a situation. In the documentary, this was the focus of the vision with the line coaches because in a game, the most important person in your entire club is the player with the ball.

For those who heard Campbell Brown at the HI Live Show, there may have been an interesting generational comparison, as he appreciated being directed by Clarkson as to what the game plan was and how he was supposed to respond specific situations.

Compare this to David Parkin’s comments on his 1995 Premiership side which he thought coached themselves.

Individual Coaching vs. Groupthink

When you are teaching a group of forty-four players, there is an obvious requirement to develop an individual program for each of them focusing on both their strengths and their areas for improvement as demonstrated by the line coaches in the documentary.

I’d suggest there was a more striking example in Mitchell’s conversations with Henry Hustwaite as to his need to develop an alternative role within the team and then using Massimo D’Ambrosio’s development as to how he addressed his one-sided nature that is also an area of improvement for Hustwaite.

Similarly, from a well-being perspective, the chat between Adrian Hickmott and Jack Ginnivan about his ankle issue was also revealing in that Ginnivan described himself as being angry, whereas Hickmott, with his experience, was more aware that he was sad - i.e. frustrated with his current situation rather than angry.

Each emotion can carry different forms of response – if you note how Ginnivan first engaged with Hickmott in the chat when he was angry. Initially, Ginnivan appeared reluctant to engage with Hickmott.

Putting the Jigsaw Together

Whilst the teaching of the individual player is important, Mitchell’s expertise, as the head coach, is then to bring together the jigsaw puzzle of players in a combination that will provide the team with its best chance of competing to its maximum in the belief that its best will be better than the opposition.

How does he create the “connectivity” between the individuals in a manner which will provide them with their best opportunity for team success?

The head coach becomes the CFO (Chief Figure it out Officer) with the support of his assistants. This is coaching – bringing together a group of individuals where each of them places the collective goal ahead of their personal success.

So, when Mitchell asks for the squad to break into eight groups with five leaders and three experienced heads to facilitate a 10-minute chat in each, then for one leader and one old head end up in the same group, internally he would be shaking his head, hence his admonishment.

In the back of his mind, he’d likely be thinking that in such a controlled environment with basically two instructions – break up into eight groups for a 10-minute chat – how will they go on match day when the environment is chaotic, and the options are plentiful. As he rightfully stated later in that scene, if they were tired after some match simulation, how tired would they be in the third quarter against an opponent?

For a coach, small things do matter! As a coach, you are either teaching it or allowing it to happen!

Another aspect on this point is that it also demonstrates that it only takes one or two players to be off script for the planning and tactics to be undermined in reaching full potential. Conceivably, twenty players may have outstanding games, however a lapse in concentration or failure to do a small thing may undermine the team’s ultimate success.

Mixing Coaching and Teaching Together

The current coaching trend, leaving aside the coaching tree coming out of successful programs, is the number of coaches with a teaching background across the league and at Hawthorn - David Hale, Andy Collins and Zane Littlejohn – fit this bill.

As for Mitchell, as many have said, his transformation from being a player who was solely (or at least heavily) focused on his own performance has demonstrated an awareness and level of professional reflection as to what contributes to team success.

In his playing days it may have been an implicit part of his footy IQ. Reflecting on Jordan Lewis’s comments at the HI Live Show, where he said he never really appreciated how good some of his teammates were; by implication, he was more focused on the team’s success than acknowledging the immediate personal contributions that others made.

If coaching was as easy as cooking two-minute noodles, then the game would be a very different experience, so for Mitchell et al the challenge is to incorporate the teaching and the coaching for 10 months of the year, realising that their players only have finite time in the game with each of them reliant on the other for their collective success.

So, if Sam isn’t sure as to how they’ll go, I don’t think that there is anything to concern ourselves with because the evidence thus far is that the planning and preparation, particularly on the injury count, has been to the best of their ability, so it is now a matter of measuring how we stand up to the competition over the next thirty weeks.

In the meantime, one thing we can be assured of is that their success, or lack thereof, will be both instantaneously marked and forensically examined by the “Monday (Tuesday/Wednesday) Experts” with as much clarity as Mitchell has pre-game, but with less empathy for the playing group than the coaches will have for the players.

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