How do high level coaches create a highly creative and competitive atmosphere?

How do coaches in high performance atmospheres keep team players motivated? Before we look at an excellent example within rugby union, let's remind ourselves of earlier research around this area. Results from Pope and Wilson’s studies showed athletes who perceive coaches to be supportive of decisions, provided with clear feedback concerning goal pursuits and engage with them in genuine and empathetic manner report greater need fulfillment, more self-determined motives and more perceived effort in sport (J. Pope & Wilson, 2012). Supporting this, Vallerand and Mageau’s research has shown that intrinsic motivations and self-determined extrinsic motivators are necessary ingredients for athlete’s optimal function (Mageau, 2003). Deci and Ryan’s research investigated that intrinsic motivation is experienced as consequence of feeling competent and selfdetermined. Intrinsic motivation leads to greater persistence, improved performance and enhanced well-being in a physical setting. While intrinsic motivation stems from innate physiological need of competency and represents the prototype of self-determined behavior, self-determined extrinsic motivators, which are extrinsic motivators which have been internally rationalised with oneself, become activities which are being carried out as are important and concordant to one’s values (Mageau, 2003). It has been researched that changes to people’s perceptions of competence and self-determination (relatedness and autonomy) should increase intrinsic motivations and player identification while decreasing introjection and amotivation (Pelletier, 1995). Self-determined forms of motivation also result in optimal behaviour, resulting in peak performance and persistence (Deci and Ryan, 2008).

Therefore, coaches need to offer autonomy supportive methods through involving players in decision making and goal setting for all team aspects, allowing opportunities for initiative and provide non-controlling feedback to allow players to feel competent in their sport and confident in their choices. This should develop self determined and motivated athletes who in turn shall invest greater effort, report higher levels of concentration, be more persistent and ultimately perform better, based on previous research by Mageau (2003).

Eddie Jones and his England staff continue to use their vast imagination to help come up with ways for England to acquire knowledge and increase their intelligence collectively as well as individually.

"They (rugby players) need new ideas and variety to grow. If you keep doing the same thing, you won’t improve. Underneath the physicality is the importance of players making intelligent decisions. Whether they have the ball in their hands or the opposition do, they have to make a decision

“Each week we try and do something different,” he said. “Whether that be in the schedule structure, training content or the way we present information to the players. In training, we create situations where we don’t tell the players the purpose of the game as we want them to work it out for themselves and very quickly adapt

Allowing players to take initiative and greater control of what they do shall offer better understanding of why they do it. Offering greater levels of player involvement in decision making and coaching content shall also allow coaches to focus on dynamic coach-athlete relationships, noted as the foundation of coaching. Effective coach-athlete relationships address empathy, honesty, respect and support, which shall in turn be holistic in the growth and development of coaches and players alike.

While Eddie Jones has adopted this to an elite level, we as coaches should sit back and look at how we can ensure we are offering and developing some of these tactics in our age grade, grassroots or senior level for the improvement of our practices and player development.

Wallabies identity being lost to supporters and grassroots rugby alike

Multiple reports this month has seen Wallabies distancing and being distanced from Super Franchises and grassroots clubs alike. From Super Rugby sides being blamed for player fitness coming into Wallaby camp, Brendon Cannon's calls for professional players to be more or consistently involved in club game and Dean Mumm, president of RUPA, calling for changes to competition structure and costs before reducing playing pool and rugby interest of an entire Australian state (VIC or WA STILL to be confirmed), system centralization is a hot topic mixed within all these areas. However, is centralization with current lack of coordination and communication the issues OR is Australian Rugby suffering from lack of identity and integrity from bottom to top? Where have these issues of identity arisen from? Previous research places meaning and purpose in the very heart of identity (McAdams, 1985). Acknowledging and integrating goals, roles, needs, skills and inclinations into suitable working scenarios shall help create an evolving narrative for who we are and who we want to be as a collective unit; in this case, as the Australian rugby community.

The ARU released their strategic plan quite a few months ago now, covering strategies and plans from 2016-2020, taking of areas of "making rugby a game for all", "ignite Australia's passion for the game", "building sustainable elite success" and "create excellence in how the game is run".  With increased participation in 7's and Women's game,  development of age grade game for sustainable success with passion pouring from all corners, albeit regarding Wallaby demise in recent tests, many aspects are being worked on yet excellence in how the game is run is certainly an area needing addressing.

Brendon Cannon came out and made a great statement, which would allow all players, administrators and supporters alike remember one of their desires listed in the strategic document; everything we are involved in is to "increase emphasis on grassroots and club rugby" to ultimately assist "success for the Wallabies, seen as most important outcome".

Sew the same “Australian Rugby” badge on every single rugby jersey in the country. Boys and girls. From under 6s to the Wallabies to the Australian women’s sevens team. How powerful would that be? We are all in this together, no matter your age, gender or ability. We are one community.

Kids would love the fact they have the same thing on their jersey that Israel Folau or Charlotte Caslick does. Up goes a poster and there you have a rugby kid locked in for life.

One community. Identity. Integrity. From bottom to top.

Attending the Australian Rugby National Coaching Conference in Brisbane last week, Mick Byrne talked regarding skill acquisition and how currently we are "coaching the game, not coaching the players". While he was discussing this at an elite level, he echoed this was being done at clubs and schools across the country also. The skills we are instilling in our players is as a result of behaviors and experiences from club and school coaching, including their attitudes and aptitudes to change. Therefore, if we want our Wallabies to play "entertaining and exciting brand of rugby", a goal outlined by supporters in the ARU document, the responsibility starts at our thriving grassroots working with our senior players and coaching group as a community of practice, who share concerns and passion for player development, learning how to do it better as they interact regularly and upskilling these players with meaning and purpose of generating more and better Wallabies in future.

All involved parties having harmonious passion towards rugby should be positive and result in understanding of importance of the game's development while not over whelming each other’s identity. An equally or unequally obsessive passion towards the sport can show positive signs for direct commitment to development of rugby union yet shall result in externally regulated motivations taking control. High quality relationships, which are optimized by harmonious passion, should result in higher subjective well-being within involved stakeholders within the rugby community. Therefore, whilst frustrations with ARU and Wallabies recent performances have been displayed, previous research and the plan drafted by the Australian Rugby Union has offered the rugby community some building blocks of specific goals which we need to integrate roles, needs and skills into situations which shall help identify who we are and who we want to be as a community.

One community. Identity. Integrity. From bottom to top.

Motivational balance key for new Super Rugby captain

A few eyebrows were raised when on the return of current Wallaby captain Stephen Moore, young gun Samu Kerevi retained the captaincy versus the Warratahs late April. However, recent interviews have indicated a better understanding of Samu's motivations on and off the field, offering suggestions for balanced, approach focused personal strivings. "What are personal strivings" I hear you ask? Personal strivings define motives or reasons for action in more specific categories yet remain abstract and flexible by nature (Singer, 2005). Emmons identified personal strivings as similar to motive dispositions with the difference being “the idiographic nature of strivings”; “more discriminative than motives yet more stable than projects or concerns” (Emmons, 1999). Strivings imply action orientated perspective on human motivation and stresses movement towards identifiable ends (Emmons, 1999) and act as motivational organizing principles that lend coherence and continuity to day to day goals (Sheldon and Kasser, 1995). Therefore, this would also include when “individuals strive towards particular modes of being without necessarily making strenuous effort" (Emmons, 1999).

Ford and Nichols (1987) identified “individuals’ capacity for cognizing and perusing goals is revealed in everyday experience and what gives meaning and purpose to everyday lives”.  Singer (2005) recognised that “examining individual’s personal strivings allows us to get at both long standing motivational concerns and behavioral tendencies that are likely to be tied to particular situations, roles and times that provide additional context we seek”. While Emmons recognised strivings as “abstracted qualities that can be achieved in variety of ways” (Emmons, 1986), personal strivings in an athlete setting identifies what players typically or characteristically try to do on daily basis within their sport.

Why would this be important for athletes, including current Reds captain and Super 20 players I am investigating? Recognising personal strivings are necessary to understand what they or others want or value, how they function or adjust to achieve their goals, protect themselves from frustrations of goals or avoid feared outcomes while maintain motivated over periods of time. Emmons and Diener (1986) researched the positive effect related to presence and attainment of important goals in everyday life, echoing Emmons belief of progressing toward meaningful life goals is a prerequisite for subjective well-being (Emmons, 1986). Player personal strivings should satisfy three basic needs, akin to self-determined motivation principles; they should offer safety and control (autonomy), social belonging (relatedness) and self esteem or competency. Therefore, understanding personal strivings help explain course of player’s life or drivers beneath behaviour, offering reasons for player’s most immediate preoccupations or actions.

Using similar strategies and coding theories used for my current research with U20 elite rugby union players involved in Australian Super 20 competition, I looked at certain goals mentioned by Kerevi during TV interview. Some of these included:

• Always got to beat opposite man
• Got to go forward
• Trying to do the best for the team
• Stepping up as a leader
• Leading by actions
• Being a better person, brother, uncle shall translate onto the field
• Knowing and working with the talents God has given me

All goals or strivings mentioned have an approach mindset where positive incentives are being sought after or moved towards as opposed to negative consequences or outcomes being avoided or prevented; this displays signs of a positive mindset, higher levels of intrinsic motivation and reduced anxiety towards his goals orientation. When coded, Kerevi shows further signs of subjective well being and self determined motivation as his high level listed strivings coded with intimacy, personal growth and achievement mindset. All these signs show a young leader, focused on improving and positive outcomes, working within close, reciprocal relationships with a desire to competing with self determined standard of excellence; a seemingly shrewd choice by Nick Stiles and his coaching team for years to come.

Keep up to date with further research in personal strivings research in rugby setting via https://coachingthecoaches.wordpress.com/research-details-and-links/

North v South: Mastering the skills of the unstructured game

Two quality coaches and rugby environments with two very different stories coming from world rugby in early March. Mick Byrne (ex All Black and current Wallabies Skills coach) has reiterated a warning that Wallabies head coach Michael Cheika gave recently: any players who weren’t prepared to make that journey and master the skills of the unstructured game would pay the price. He is quoted saying:

Every single player out there wants to be better and we’re not doing enough work to make them better.

The game has got to the point where only 60 per cent is structured, while the other 40 per cent is unstructured.

All around the country, I watch teams doing their lineouts, doing their lineout drives. But they’re not doing any plays in an unstructured environment.

We need to upskill our players, get them into that 40 per cent part of the game. We’re scoring on the structured part of the game.

Jump to the other side of the globe and a coach formally said to not have the technical experience or expertise to cut it at international level, Stuart Lancaster (current senior coach at Leinster Rugby) has been praised by current Irish international Sean O'Brien regarding input into Leinster's attacking game. On returning from international rugby to Leinster's win in Champions Cup, in which all of Leinster's tries came from open play, O'Brien said:

I suppose you’ve more of a license playing with Leinster than at international level. It's nice to go into that environment and know the way you are going to play and know that you are going to have a crack and see where it takes you.

Different coaches have different game-plans. You stick to what they want to do.

He (Lancaster) has brought a new dimension to our attack definitely in terms of just playing, the unstructured stuff as well, the stuff that you face in games

With Stuart coming in now it’s just taken a bit of pressure off them (other senior coaches) and us, I think, as players, to give us that free reign of all-out attack

While both coaches display recognized importance for player involvement for development and improvements towards unstructured side of game, both appear to be generating potentially different player mindsets and motivational atmospheres to doing so. Comparing against work of self motivation written by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, Byrne has reiterated a very controlling and pressurized statement of how players need to change to meet Wallaby coaches' expectations. Research has shown controlling statements undermine player's intrinsic motivations and antagonize autonomy, which in turns drains enthusiasm and interest in controlled activities; in this case, improvements to skills and the unstructured side of the game.

Pressuring players to behave and act certain ways diminishes feelings of self determination, notably perceived autonomy and competence. Players are naturally embedded with tendency and energy to grow and develop; Wallaby coaches for this example could explore and promote internalization and integration of non structured side of the game. However, this perceived controlling context shall possibly impair development by promoting imposed coach introjection, a process which shall need to be repeated once done.

When players are pressurized and controlled to achieve particular outcomes such as  master the skills of the unstructured game, their self esteem is dependent on how those targeted goals turn out.  This area labeled as ego involvement relates to when player's feelings are dependent upon specified outcome; this additional pressure results in increased tension, anxiety to perform, impairs learning and diminishes performance. Mick's comments may have created the perfect storm in pressure to perform....

External pressure from Wallabies coaches may lead to an urge to defy as the targeted goals are without player personal endorsement and not a true expression of self. By creating highly controlling contexts and environments through behaviors or language, we undermine the natural desire to feel competent and at best, controlling behaviors from the coaches may gain sense of compliance from the players yet this shall not produce lasting change.  Meaningful  and lasting change occurs when players are self motivated by accepting themselves, take interest and responsibility in what they do and decide they can be creative and are prepared to do it differently, all displayed in comments made by O'Brien.

Lancaster and other Leinster coaches appear to have adopted and offered autonomy supportive style by offering choice, encouraging self initiation and display understanding for reasons for actions, creating mastery orientated players with high self esteem. These actions could result in the involved players being intrinsically motivated to improve within these areas of the game. This should result in better understanding, greater creativity, improved problem solving skills and willingness to learn and grow, all key skills required for unstructured side of the game.

Intrinsically motivated player performance within an autonomy supportive environment such as the one created in the Irish province shall offer players with an optimal challenge. Players shall feel more responsible for development and performance while shall seek to collaboratively learn and evolve as a group with a greater sense of harmony and emotional integration to unstructured side of the game.

So how could the Wallaby coaches promote autonomy to mastering the skills of the unstructured game? Cheika and co could (and should) involve players in goal setting process, allowing roles in decision making and offering choice of areas and ways to develop. When the players feel they are acting with a sense of choice, freedom and flexibility, working for the conman good and display true willingness to behave in accord with collective interests and values, they shall also be more capable to hanging behaviors needed to master the skills of the unstructured game.

Remembering the extent to which player's behavior is autonomous, creative and intrinsically motivated is determined by the interaction of their own personalities and the degree to which the context is autonomy supportive.  To allow the players to truly express themselves in unstructured side of the game, the Wallaby coaches must be committed to creating an socially supportive environment first to do so, similar to one of Chekia's old stomping grounds, Leinster.

Global rugby calendar update

As reported by Rugby World in March 2017, "A global rugby season has been at the heart of many a discussion since the game went professional 20 years ago and last week World Rugby announced a new ‘optimized’ international calendar for the period 2020-32". As touched on, player welfare was meant to be taken into account with these changes yet was it really been addressed? On addressing the volume of rugby played and prioritizing rest periods for players, IRPA executive director Rob Nichol said “The key  is being able to firstly ensure players get a period of rest, followed by a period of conditioning where they get adequate time to prepare for a competition and playing season. We feel between 12-14 weeks, possibly more, is required to achieve this.” However, have issues of mental exhaustion been addressed? Have we taken adequate steps to prevent player burnout and optimizing player well being? Radeke (1997) identified the main symptoms of athlete burnout syndrome, which results in player illness, injury or dropout. These symptoms are emotional and physical exhaustion, sport depersonalisation or devaluation and a reduced sense of accomplishment. Athlete burnout results from “chronically frustrated or unfulfilled basic physiological needs” (Cresswell, 2006), “denotes a negative emotional reaction to sport participation” (Gustafsson, Kenttä, Hassmén, & Lundqvist, 2007) and is “a consequence of chronic stress and exposure to a point where unfavorable cost-benefit ratio for sport engagement” (Thibaut and Kelly 1989). Therefore, an extended period of rest alone may not offer personal development, sense of achievement or intrinsic satisfaction through physical rest alone.

Satisfying the basic needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness or connection to others shall “foster self determined motivation” (Hollembeak, 2005) and has been associated with “higher self-esteem, higher task engagement and lower anxiety” (Deci, 2001), which allow athletes or players to develop intrinsically defined motivation for goals or development within their sport. Basic needs satisfaction shall also result in positive psychological consequences such as adaptive coping strategies for personal development and flow experiences, ideal for player development and both consequences required for specializing adolescent athletes as part of personal development. However, intrinsic motivation is not the only reason for lower levels of athlete burnout; Lonsdale’s research found autonomous extrinsic motivations, such as integrated or identified regulators, also resulted in lower levels of athlete burnout.

The proof of this extended rest concept may be proved next year with David Pocock expressing a desire to detach himself from the daily training regimen of a professional rugby player which helped him decide to take a sabbatical year in 2017. Pocock revealed he’d sought advice on taking time away from Dan Vickerman, the big Wallaby lock who quit Australian rugby in 2008 to study at Cambridge before returning for the 2011 Rugby World Cup whom sadly took his own life earlier this year. Like Vickerman, Pocock is exploring interests away from rugby, doing some courses with conservation group Wild Ark, spend a week at Kruger National Park, another seven days in Botswana, as well as help his 80-year-old grandfather!!

"There's a lot of stuff outside of rugby I'm keen to explore," Pocock says. "I'm just going into next year with an open mind and it'd be a real treat not having that pre-season just looming like most holidays when you get two weeks of nothing and then you have to do fitness again."

Ideas such as players being able to express a sense of themselves or achieving personal valued outcomes could be areas to increase athlete engagement to sports or reduce levels of dropout from rugby if adopted or encouraged. Food for thought for Mr Beaumont and Pichot....