Time for reflection: Andy Farrell and the importance of being a caring coach

Firstly, I hope this blog post finds you, your family and friends in good health; this is strange times and new territory for us all and I hope we can follow the advice of health professionals and leaders of our countries to “flatten the curve” and keep our communities safe and well, including all our athletes, coaches and administrators involved in our respective sports. I wanted to look at and discuss a few articles I’ve shared last week, most notably comments from current Ireland head coach, Andy Farrell, on what ,makes good coaches outstanding and how being aware of your athletes should structure and shape your practice design and coaching methodologies.

Shared on Rugby Coach Weekly website (https://www.rugbycoachweekly.net/rugby-coaching/andy-farrell-on-what-makes-good-coaches-outstanding/), Dan Cottrell discusses how Andy Farrell believes that he played best for the coaches who cared about the team. Farrell discusses that when he was a kid playing club rugby how his coach, Hayden Walker, decided to buy a minibus so his former coach would drive around picking up all the players so they were able to train at 6pm as many parents were still working:

“This sort of devotion means players happily work on improving their game outside normal training, seeking advice and listening to feedback.
For me, it wasn’t about whether the coach was the best technically or tactically but how he made you feel
The team is a reflection of you as a coach. Players want to play for a coach who cares about them.”

Talking of tactical ideas and practice design, Farrell still draws upon understanding your players and developing good coach-athlete relationships to understand what your side can be capable of. “Before you even start to put in place a game plan and philosophy of how you want to play, you must understand what resources you have available…Again, it comes down to what your team can do, what they are capable of”.

This article was posted around the same time I found another blog post by Coach Brett Bartholomew, founder of Art of Coaching and author of Conscious Coaching. Bartholomew opens with a solid point: Coaches are forgetting how to actually coach. Growing up in an ‘evidence-based’ science culture, and confused as to what ‘evidence-based’ is intended to mean, younger coaches are threatening to co-opt the profession, turning it into an off-set of sport-science. Talking around evidence based practices (https://brettbartholomew.net/evidence-based-coaching/), Bartholomew mentions:

“Science is helping to inform the decision-making process – but not dictating it. Coaches are increasingly ready to generate their own knowledge and understanding with a more scientific approach to training, and I in no way want to discourage this practice.
(However) less and less interest is being placed on the ‘soft-sciences’, and we are producing relatively ‘smarter’ (more educated) coaches who cannot communicate. Science and practice is simultaneously growing further apart, and coming closer together.
Not finding a common stance to communicate from just leads to greater division; this is as true in the sports world as it is in society as a whole.”

While Bartholomew is more discussing educator to coach communication and cooperation, the same principles translate to coach-athlete relationships. He talks more about the importance of asking questions and exploration of methodologies, similar to some of Farrell’s points made; I’ve translated it as to understand your athletes as people and players, what drives them, what technical or tactical capabilities they currently have and what direction they collectively want to go as opposed to “hanging your hat” on certain ideals or methodologies.

Science should help inform our opinions, but we should always question the source. We should act on facts, and on the most accurate interpretation of them, using the best scientific information, but understand that we don’t need to have 100% ‘evidence’ about everything. We should all question our knowledge – with an understanding that introspection and a readiness to admit uncertainty of opinion is the key to moving forward

Over the past couple of weeks, I have discussed and looked at how the importance of coach-athlete relationships have increased with our new age players as recent research within rugby union as an example placed shows the current emphasis on performance data is producing mechanical players and taking away instinct, emotion and unpredictability from the sport; is this effecting our coaches and coach education as a result? How can we encourage or place greater emphasis on the importance of understanding the backgrounds of the players plus the needs of the group or individuals and structuring practice or training design where athletes are required to be creative, adaptive and make decisions which shall transfer into competitive environments?

During this socially distancing period, I have been really fortunate to catch up (from a distance) and digitally discuss some of these points with coaches across the world; a great question was posed by an Australian coach, currently working in Japanese rugby. Following last week’s blog post, he questioned me:

I agree with the enjoyment factor. That’s a given. Players have to want to be there. The social aspect of getting to know the player as a individual on and off the field is crucial. Non negotiable. Games based approach I agree there must be strong elements in the program. The question for you is where do you rate the technical aspects of coaching. Take the breakdown for example. I believe you must be very technically proficient in the skill of the clean out, yet I feel the breakdown training has got to open skilled practice and certain teams have become very poor in this area. I always feel when reading articles from games based experts that they seem to neglect situations where hard technical based coaching is needed. What are your thoughts??

As said, a great question, especially for coaches like himself tackling players of multiple ethnicities and backgrounds whom have been exposed to different techniques during their sporting journey. I personally believe this is where understanding your athletes as people, combined with Constraint Led Learning and Vygotskian coaching practices can come into their own. The important part of previously discussed games based ideas (something Farrell mentions within Rugby Coach Weekly article) is ensuring the practice design offers the ability to transfer technical ideas and aspects of training and making them relatable and usable in competition scenarios. 

The use of skilful manipulation of sociocultural constraints, where player's cultural or developed environmental conditions could both constrain or afford coaching or learning moments, is critically important. I believe this shows the socially dynamic role of the coaches; both acknowledging the coach-athlete relationships and off field cultural influences surrounding strong club and locality cultures while adopting game based or constraint led learning approach to set goals and reward actions for the behaviour you want to see from your players as opposed to fixating solely on previously successful methodologies. However, it is important that coaches are mindful and present for their adopted coaching methodologies and adopt the "form of life" offered from the coaching scenarios offered as opposed ignoring the sociocultural embeddedness and forcing your ideologies on the group.  That's where the relationship parts come into the transition; like described by Farrell and Bartholomew, the coach’s understanding players or athletes and how to engage them shall make the understanding of why these technical aspects are important and open conversation lines for when they're applicable and what to do to improve in these areas.

For technical areas and player development, I agree with the question forwarded that you need the assistance of coaches and time to work on specific skills. I regularly lean on the idea of developing skill and expertise through keeping players in Vygotsky's ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) or having stretch goals may be more commonly known. Where coaches fit into this scenario is to take on the role of more knowledgeable other (MKO) and assist the learning process, offer scaffolding support and encourage the players to test and be willing to step back and ask for assistance from MKO. I believe coaches as a recognised more capable/knowledgeable other to the athlete should engage in contextual and collaborative learning relationships to ensure optimal psychological functioning for maximal sporting performance. I believe coaches should assist players to identify problems as opposed to solving them, offering ideas and assistance for how to think and act as opposed to offering solutions. Using these ideas or techniques encourages players to ask questions and adopt sub routines as part of their practice in development of mastery; therefore, the players are taking over the structure of tasks and practice while acquiring performance or transfer of performance, like outlined by Farrell in creating competitive training scenarios with questions and reflections on one to one off the field.

As mentioned in the question forwarded, key areas around coach-athlete relationships, which includes ensuring the players are enjoying the game while technically developing the individuals, all comes back to understanding whom is standing in front of you. If you don't understand the individual or group, what drives them and how to communicate, your message shall not get across. I believe team sports in many regions and countries is currently suffering currently due to the "one box fits all" at lower levels, prescribing content in coach education as opposed to improving coaching techniques. Coaches feel they and their groups have to train or play (possibly over drills or over games based like suggested) due to current coach education as opposed to understanding and responding to their group for development and engagement. Drawing upon a previous blog article, let’s focus on how we’re coaching as opposed to what we are coaching; how can we adjust our focus to the how and to whom we coach, rather than the specific content or focusing solely on the what aspects such as technical, tactical and strategic aspects?

Research by Mageau and Vallerand regards the “actions of coaches as (possibly) the most critical motivational influences within sport setting”. Coaching should be recognised as an educational dynamic relationship, where the coach can satisfy player’s goals and development but both sides have an investment of will capital, where human initiative and intentionality are both dedicated to show commitment towards goals and relationships. Galinsky and Maddux’s research to sporting context recognises that “taking perspective of (player) produced both greater joint gains and profitable individual outcomes”. In a sports context, this would be seen as close and meaningful coach-athlete relationships, regular player involvement in decision making processes with honest and accurate goal attainment for all involved.

The main aspects of influential and successful coach-athlete relationships described by Farrell revolve around ideals such as mutual trust, respect, support, cooperation, communication and understanding of each other and impact of each other within the relationship, all of which support the concepts of understanding your athletes as people, combined with Constraint Led Learning practices and Vygotskian coaching methodologies. People, personalities and environments shall change…therefore, so do your coaching methodologies. Asking questions and understanding the answers and whom they’re coming from will give you a snapshot for today yet this needs to be continually addressed and worked on. Take this unfortunate scenario as time to explore, learn, change ideas or structures to match what your athletes or players need and be reflective and flexible to change to what they need when we resume sport after this pandemic.  Finishing with a quote from Matt Wilkie, head of coach education Ireland RFU, Farrell’s current union:

“The key thing successful coaches have is probably off the field...It’s their ability to connect, the relationships they form with their players, and their ability to man-manage...those interpersonal skills, communication, the emotional intelligence – those seem to be the key attributes of the successful coach
Let’s focus on how we’re coaching, rather than what we’re coaching”