It’s time for a style makeover
Bucking the trend: When Konrad Hurrell and the Warriors are in full flight, they are one team that Phil Gould claims provide a point of difference in style in the NRL.
One of the more common enquiries I receive each week from fans is to explain why all teams play their attacking football the same way.
To a point, that is very true. I guess if all teams played in the same coloured jerseys, it would be hard to tell them apart.
They all have the same structures, patterns, philosophies and the same plays. Each set of six in their own half looks the same. When they get into attacking positions on the field and they are trying to score points, the structures and plays all look the same.
If you watch the NRL on a regular basis you know with 90 per cent certainty what comes next. It’s just a matter of whether or not your team can do it better than the rival team this weekend.
Very few NRL teams in the competition have a style they could truly call their own. Perhaps the Warriors provide a point of difference to other teams. There are certain aspects of Des Hasler’s Bulldogs that stand them apart. The Sea Eagles have a little something too.
My simple answer to these questions is that if all NRL coaches are playing the game pretty much the same way, then this must be the best way to play.
It’s difficult for those of us on the outside looking in to question those who are engrossed in this space every day of their lives. If there was a better way, I’m sure someone would’ve produced it by now.
I get irritated watching games where teams are going through their attacking plays like they were choreographed dance sequences.
Some of them look like a dog trying to run on wet lino. There’s plenty of energy and effort, you can see where they’d like to go, but all they are doing is spinning their wheels going nowhere.
Don’t get me wrong. Today’s players are truly outstanding athletes. They are fitter, stronger, bigger and more powerful than ever before. But how many of them are really students of the game? How many of them actually look outside their own pocket of action on the field?
I guess the bigger question is; how many are encouraged to look outside their pocket of action?
The scary thing for me is that it goes far deeper than just the NRL teams we see on television every weekend. If you go and watch the lower grade football being played, it is identical. The development pathways and junior representative teams pretty much replicate what the big boys are doing.
Even if you go right back down into junior league football, you can see the influence of NRL structures as far back as teams at 10 years of age.
From very early in a young player’s career they are being taught to play in lanes. The vast majority of kids are confined to a playing zone, either in the middle,
Very few NRL teams in the competition have a style they could truly call their own. Perhaps the Warriors provide a point of difference to other teams.
left or right side of the field. I don’t think it gives kids an overall knowledge of the game.
Versatility is now a rare commodity. The kid could end up playing in this one part of the field for the rest of his days, because that is all he has ever been taught.
So if this is all we are coaching into kids from the time they start playing, we are going to be locked into this style of football for at least another 20 years.
I have long held the fear that junior league football has been far too influenced by what they see in the professional game. The thought of junior coaches coaching kids as if they were NRL teams has always been of great concern to me.
I think we coach creativity out of kids. Kids are coached very much on the HOW. I’m not so sure coaching spends enough time coaching the WHY.
Old-timers, like me, keep an eye out for the kid that just plays like a footballer. They are still around. But if they can’t hit, stick, wrestle or physically push their frame through the defensive line with brute force, they are generally overlooked before they get the chance to develop their talents. Players are not so much promoted on ABILITY, but rather on their RELIABILITY. Coaches look more at whether the athlete will stand up to the physical demands for the long term, rather than imagining what else the footballer may bring to the team.
The basics of football have never really changed. If you want to be winning on a consistent basis, your team needs to be able to go forward, control the ball, kick, chase and tackle.
That’s pretty much football in a nutshell.
However, I have a belief that there are so many other aspects to these basics which are being neglected. Or at least they are not being fully explored.
How conscious are we of developing or expanding the individual talents of a playmaker? Or helping all players within the team to ‘‘THINK’’ their way through football games rather than just using their bodies and following a rigidly set script?
I would like to replace teaching the kids the HOW, with teaching them more about the WHY. Why do we run this sequence, this play, this angle, this pass? What reaction are we looking for from the defensive line?
Anyone can become good at this game if they train hard and work hard. But how do you become great? And how do you go from being great to being number one? You can’t be the best if you simply follow what everyone else is doing.
To me, that should be the goal. Not to be like everyone else, but to be the best.