Never mind coaching, just play
There are times when one thinks that it might be a very good idea to assemble all the sports coaches in the world on the deck of a big ocean liner and then abandon them in the vast depths of the Pacific. You could then shout lots of bits of conflicting advice at them and see if any one of them manages to swim back to shore.
This slightly unkind idea struck me while watching the All Blacks on Saturday. The players were clearly way better off for having spent the week coming up with a lot of their own ideas rather than being micromanaged by Ian Foster and a huge group of coaches. It wouldn’t surprise me if the All Blacks even have a bloke who specialises in moves when the wind is from the south and who can tell a hawk from a handsaw.
But fortunately all the Geeks and the Feeks had been locked up for the week and so the players were free to play. How good it was to see Aaron Smith just take off from a ruck and chip ahead because that was where the space was. An Irishman might say that was where the space was because Scott Barrett had pushed Josh van der Flier to the ground and was illegally holding him there. But tiddly fiddly tiddlywinks we say to that.
How good it was to see Beauden Barrett see the space in behind and put the chip through for Quinn Tupaea to score. There were probably a couple of other ways the All Blacks might have profited from that position because Jamison Gibson-Park had been caught foolishly trying to run out from his line. That horrible miscalculation resulted in both the sweeping halfback and the No 12 being caught in the ruck. Beaudy swiftly took advantage.
How good it was to see Ardie Savea drift and put a step on Garry Ringrose to break open Ireland’s much-coached defence. Savea then used his pace and power to cruise away from the rest of the green wreckage.
He was asked afterwards, not unreasonably, if the third man receiver was something the All Blacks had been working on. This was a reference to the amount of times that Aaron Smith directly hit the third receiver out, including the moment when Jordie Barrett barged over for his try.
A small cheer went up in this household when Savea replied; ‘‘Actually it was just off the cuff. Just trying to see space and call where the space is and Nuggs just hit me there.’’
Something of the same thing happened in the game between Australia and England. England’s hapless failure to beat a team of 14 men was partly down to their increasing paralysis by analysis. When Eddie Jones first coaches a side, his energy and new ideas have a positive effect. But time is his enemy and eventually the players get weary of all the micromanagement. And so it is proving again.
For 75 minutes England were trying to play with two first-fives against Australia, with Owen Farrell shifting inside to the 10 position and Marcus Smith coming out the back. There was a lot of theory here, but not a lot of practice. Most of the time Smith ended up pushing his backline sideways as he hopped from foot to foot.
But when the game was up after Peter Samu’s glorious sidestep led to him scoring the try that put Australia three scores ahead, England just played what was in front of them.
They got the ball to the new kid on the block Henry Arundell, who fizzed past the Aussie defence. Two tries in five minutes from playing off the cuff. What might have been.
It reminded me of Wayne Smith’s story when he first played with John Kirwan and was wondering how to help the debutant and how much responsibility to give him. After Kirwan’s first touch, Smith and his second-five realised that all they had to do was find a way to get Kirwan the ball and let him get on with it.
Sometimes getting on with it is a good way to go. Would Australia’s first-five Noah Lolesio, who had such a wretched time against the All Blacks last year, have had such a fine match against England if he hadn’t found out he was going to play five minutes before kickoff when Quade Cooper pulled out? Freed of much of the coaching intensity in the buildup, he was now just able to get on with it.
As captain Michael Hooper said afterwards: ‘‘You can do all these plays and they go out the window. You can’t plan that one.’’ Thank heavens for that.
Much the same thing has happened with England cricket. Under Chris Silverwood there was more paralysis by analysis. There were plans on top of plans on top of plans. Under Brendon McCullum, the players have just got on with it and Jonny Bairstow is a batsman reborn.
Now I am not daft enough to suggest coaches are a total menace, but I do think the game would be better with far fewer of them. We want to see the players play and make their own decisions, not come on with a rehearsed script. Please spare us the pod unless we happen to be dolphin watching in the middle of the ocean.
The hardest bit of being a good coach is getting out of the players’ way. When Rieko Ioane was starting out against the Lions, Wayne Smith asked him a question at halftime about the other wing’s positioning. That’s all Smith said. He then left it up to Ioane to supply his own answer and to think about it.
One of the great joys of watching Nick Kyrgios play tennis is that we have no idea what may happen. He may touch the stars or grub about in the gutter of humanity. But some of this uncertainty comes from the fact that he doesn’t have a coach.
When I first started watching rugby there was only one coach on tours. So when the Lions came to New Zealand in 1971 much of the scrum coaching was done by the brilliant Irish prop Ray McLoughlin. My father put together a book after the tour called The Lions Speak .It became a coaching manual, much treasured by Graham Henry, but one that was largely authored by the players and not by men in tiny rooms.
Mercifully, there was no such thing back then as a defence coach. One of the greatest harms done to the spectacle of rugby union was the introduction of men such as Shaun Edwards from rugby league. Now the defence coach with France, Edwards is one of the best in the business. But his job is to minimise our entertainment. His job is to strangle the life out of the opposition. A good day out is when the oppo fails to score. How daft is that in the world of professional sport where the name of the game is entertainment.
So all you coaches out there. There is a lovely world cruise being planned. Now if you could just walk along the gangplank . . .