Bob Dwyer Rugby Workshops

This weekend of rugby has been a mixed bag for players, fans and officials. Some teams were under severe pressure to “halt a slide”. Others were desperate just to get their season “under way”.

Leeds were without a single win for the season and no doubt getting desperate, but coach Neil Back, without a negative bone in his body, still saw his team with a chance against Gloucester. Leeds pulled off the narrowest of victories. It was ‘relief’ then for the Leeds club, for a week anyway, and especially their players and coaching staff. The growing pressure would have been heading towards ‘intolerable’.

London Irish, finalists last season, were at home to Bath. They had lost their last eight premiership matches without a single competition point. Their opponents, Bath, were in the midst of their worst season for some time, having lost their previous five matches scoring only the solitary try. Both teams are sprinkled with international players and should be capable of better results. Both coaches were under massive pressure – and pressure can do amazing things!  

“They’ve lost confidence”, come the cries. “They’ve just got to get their confidence back and they’ll be ok!” For me, this is rubbish!  I’m not into ‘confidence’! ‘Confidence’ comes after ‘successful outcomes’. What we must understand, is, “what will help us to produce successful outcomes?”  What comes first?

Regular readers will know that I have no focus at all on ‘result’; I am totally focussed on ‘performance’. Quality performance will produce successful outcomes, so now I know what to work on – performance! A focus on ‘result’ will, more often than not, produce exactly the wrong mind-set amongst the players. You’ve all heard the old story about the psychiatrist seeking reaction from his patient. “I’ll say a word”, he says, “and you give me the first thought that comes into your head.” “Black”, says the doc. “White”, answers the patient. “Win”, says the doc. “Lose”, responds the patient. Thoughts of outcomes always conjure up thoughts of both alternative outcomes – negative thoughts. The secret – not too secret actually - is to be able to focus on specific actions, actions which we know from experience will produce successful performance.

During the London Irish – Bath match, one of the commentators remarked, after a knock-on, that the ball-carrier “should not have thrown the pass”. He was under pressure, delivered a poor pass and a turnover resulted. A famous old Australian rugby league coach, when once questioned about a “poor option” which a player had taken, replied, “Well, he had no time to hold a committee meeting!” Good reply, in my opinion. His point was that such actions must, by their very nature, be instinctive. ‘Options’ are not ‘chosen’, they are simply ‘taken’ – instinctively, without conscious thought. The role for us coaches is to give players the tools to execute properly whatever instinctive action they take. In the case of the criticised player, the problem was his technique, not his ‘decision’. The pass could easily have produced a try, but the passer’s technique was poor – so also was the technique of the support runner. Quality technique will produce quality performance, which, in turn, will produce successful results. That’s it!

Under pressure to produce results, both teams lost sight of the need for quality performance – and the means to achieve it. The result was a poor, although exciting, game. How could Bath have won this game? Their scrum was demolished – at least until London Irish inexplicably changed their dominant frontrow. Their lineout was reduced to difficult-to-use ‘#2 ball’ from the diminutive Luke Watson. James, at fly-half, and Haape, at centre – both quality players – dropped enough ball for an entire season. If I was coaching Bath, I would have a massive focus on “pass in front of the receiver’.  Simple? Yes!  Common? No – certainly not for Bath!

A little while back, I questioned one of the Wallaby forwards about the (slight) downturn in his attacking play. “I’m working hard for opportunities to run,’ he said, “but they’re just not coming!” “That’s where you’re going wrong,” I replied, “you don’t work had for opportunities; you work hard to be in position to take advantage of opportunities, when they arise.” He saw the difference immediately. We’re back to the old, above-mentioned ‘cause and effect’ discussion. The required ‘positional play in support’, vital to quality continuity, was absent from both teams. It was subjugated to an urgent need to smash through defences with ‘one-out’ ball carries. Such play asks no questions at all of defences. Resistance requires only ‘brave tackling’ – much more simple than ‘quality defence’.

Luke Watson was named man-of-the-match for his total, 80 minute commitment. Fair enough. There wasn’t a lot of quality, constructive play from him, but he was definitely committed. For me, the (only) outstanding performance of the match came from the London Irish loose-head, Corbisiero, both at the scrum and in the loose. David Wilson, at tight-head for Bath (and, at times, for England) was totally demolished and must have thought that he was dreaming when Corbisiero was moved to loose-head.  

Constructive, ensemble play was absent, save for one short period at around three-quarter time, when Topsy Ojo scored for London Irish. Full marks, however, to Bath for their commitment. Passion is still an important part of the game and they had plenty of that. It won the game for them.

Across the Irish Sea, Leinster had a four-try win, admittedly, against cellar-dweller Connaught. They did so without a bagful of first-choice players – amongst others, O’Driscoll, D’Arcy, Rob Kearney, O’Connor, Heaslip, Cullen, Healey, were all missing, but they played quality rugby.  It’s more important to have ‘players playing good’ – excuse the bad grammar – than it is to have ‘good players’.  They pass in front of the receiver; they run (reasonably) straight; support lines are good with numbers and pressure at the attacking tackle contest. Joe Schmidt looks like a pretty good coach to me.

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