It takes a village to raise a Wallaby: What environments or conditions can we offer our HP players and athletes to thrive?

It takes a village as the saying goes….As we come to an end of the Southern Hemisphere rugby season with the Autumn internationals concluding this weekend, a number of coaches have reached out and discussed the transition and transformation in the Wallabies’ senior side team culture, showing plenty of pride in being part of the group. From us outsiders looking in, how has this been developed? What has changed; solely the re-introduction of former exiled players, post COVID era so genuine gratitude to be able to play again on a global scale or something more? Coming back to the opening idea, what does the village look like in HP sport or individuals such as the Wallabies environment? Let’s have a look at some of the ideas and opinions gathered….

Let’s grab and look at some of the articles shared from some of this year’s Wallabies players, starting with newly nominated Breakthrough Player of the year, Andrew Kellaway. Before entering Super Rugby, The Scots College prodigy had carved up schoolboy rugby and looked the real deal. He broke All Blacks star Julian Savea’s try scoring record at the under-20s World Cup and looked like a Wallaby in the making. But for Kellaway, it was his way or the highway entering Super Rugby and he thought what worked at schoolboy level would cut it in professional rugby. And for a time perhaps it looked like playing out that way, as he was given the Waratahs’ No.15 jersey even though Israel Folau was in the side. Quickly, however, he was found out and the injuries came and Kellaway left the Waratahs disgruntled and wanting to blame everyone but himself. Kellaway would have a couple of trips around the world and play 80 matches for Northampton Saints, spend time in New Zealand with Counties Manukau, two stints at the Rebels in-between a stint with NEC Green Rockets in the Japanese Top League before earning his Test debut off the bench against France in July. Kellaway admitted earlier this year:

I was a bit entitled and arrogant, not arrogant, but cocky and wanted things to happen my way and as I learned, that’s not how it works. I wanted to play fullback, I didn’t want to play wing. They wanted me to do one thing and I wanted to do another. I look back now and think, if I had my time again, I’d love to go back and not be such a di--head.

“The other thing is, whilst I don’t look back proudly on those moments, the truth is I wasn’t ready to learn those lessons and going away helped me discover them and I’m glad it happened the way it did and put it to bed. The reason why it didn’t happen was because of me. I look back and think I’ve grown a bit and learnt a lot and, lucky for me, I got to learn it at two other professional teams in other countries with other great players and people rather than learn it on a building site or day job like so many others.

 I think going overseas gave me more perspective on the game and life and the bigger picture. So when you say calm, I think I just see things with a little bit more perspective. Whilst pressure exists, I truly believe having more perspective about things allows you to appear a bit calmer because everything’s not riding on one moment.

Kellaway also discussed his brief coffee based mentorship with ex Wallaby, Drew Mitchell, a role another welcomed back Wallaby Quade Cooper adopted this year. As reported by SMH, the Quade we seen at this year’s Rugby Championship is very much a changed Quade Cooper. The hell-raising maverick who used to leap from one breath-taking adventure to the next, with never a backwards glance, has evolved into a thoughtful traveller. He recognises he is on a journey through life, not just his rugby career. There have been no scatter-brained moments since his return, no loopy passes. True, there have been times when his instincts almost took over as he locked and loaded for a triple cut-out. But then his mind asserted itself and told his body to cool it. Peter FitzSimons described him, very aptly, as “the ballast” in the Australian side on his return, the stabilising weight working against a sudden capsize. It is such an un-Quade-like role to play and yet he looks entirely comfortable there.

Cooper speaking last month said:

I really enjoyed the past eight to 10 weeks that I’ve had in the (Wallabies) set-up. It’s been a great opportunity to learn and continue to grow, but at the same time, there are great things that I’ve learned that I look forward to being able to take back to my club.

The role was more of the guys to have a look at me and being able to mentor and participate in trainings. It’s a huge honour, every opportunity you get, and for me even being back in the (Wallabies) squad was something that I hadn’t planned for, so I guess it’s uncharted territory

Even James O’Connor, another of the Wallaby mavericks from a couple of RWC’s ago, is showing maturity on and off the field from reports on the build up to this weekend’s test vs Wales:

It’s the fable of the man who built the house on sand. If you don’t have the correct discipline and if your foundations aren’t strong, then you won’t win Test match footy, especially up here, like the margins for error are so small.

Contrasting against another Rugby Championship side and current World Cup champions South Africa, the side have had a massive positive cultural shift, particularly on the build up to 2019 Rugby World Cup. I’ve been really grateful to share some ideas with Morne Nortier, who helped develop a HP registration and pathway development system in South African Rugby. He shared some great ideas when we recently discussed via email:

Elite sport today is too often driven by statistics and numbers – and it makes for a great narrative for supporters and journalists to measure teams and players – but in a HP environment, it will prove to be more detrimental than not. The most talented player is not necessarily the best player…

A player comfortable with himself and his team environment (teammates and coaches) requires little motivation to push himself to be fitter, better skilled and technically more proficient than a player who is forced into an environment where his ability is judged on scientific matrixes.

Springbok coaches in their philosophy for team selection (have at the) top of the list the quality of the player in a team environment, the values they bring to the team culture, and their work ethic. Actual skills and ability or talent (all coachable skills) is last on the list.

Tying together some of the ideas shared by Nortier and reflecting on the changes by the identified maverick players, it reminds me of an area previously written on, looking at the impact or importance of factoring “form of life” within sports environments. Form of life describes everyday practices, customs, beliefs of a group of people (Wittgenstein, 1953); the most standard view of this theory is that of the cultural, referring to how a human being normally lives his or her life within a cultural context. The theory looks at and factors in the behaviours, skills, capacities, attitudes, values, beliefs, practices and customs that shape the culture, philosophy and climate of societies, institutions and organisations (Rietveld & Kiverstein, 2014). This ties in well with McAdams and Pals (2006) theories around the development of personality in that "characteristic adaptations are activated in response to everyday life...(and) how individuals meet situational, strategic and developmental tasks in social ecology of person's life"; this means your daily ritualistic responses, your behaviours and emotions to achieving certain goals that are meaningful to you, are influenced by multiple cultural and environmental factors. I feel this area is a massively undervalued or underappreciated area around coach education, as discussed with Nortier. I believe that team environments that account for players as people as opposed to numbers in a system or resources for an organisation shall have greater levels of retention and engagement, deepening and widening a sports pool of talent as a result. For the example of South Africa, there was a number of videos circulating following the “Chasing the Sun” documentary, described as a “universal story of resilience, commitment and the power of belief”. Nortier noted the new Springbok team are singing traditional Xhosa songs while walking out of the changeroom to the pitch, some supporters creating a group called the Gwijo squad going to all the home games and singing at the team hotel when the team bus arrives or leaves for training and matches, creating a greater sense of identity between players and supporters. This helped achieve the ultimate goal pictured above….

Coming back to the Wallabies and Australian Rugby, like mentioned, there has been a massively interesting and intriguing shift in player’s perspective, modelling greater motivation for growth and gratitude to opportunity. Knowing the previous trials and tribulations of players such as O’Connor and Cooper, the question remains as to what influenced or continued to influence these changes to their daily ritualistic responses? What changes to their motivations or characteristic adaptations have come from their environments or being exposed to multicultural settings such as Japanese or UK rugby as example? How does this tie in with the development of the Wallaby culture and development of individuals within the environment? How can we better develop cultures or shape environments based on the current motivations of the players? The re-introduction of a number of previously excluded or exiled players shall offer fresh perspective of particular behaviours, skills, capacities, attitudes, values & beliefs, potentially reshaping team identity, cultures and climates of the teams in question but we as coaches need to understand and integrate their motivations to be impactful in our environments.

Let’s touch on some ideas from motivational and personality development research; characteristic adaptations are a middle level motivational construct that sit between overarching needs or motives and immediate concerns and ask participants to consider actions over the course of consistent everyday behaviours (Emmons, 1986). Personal strivings as an example are recognised as showing what a person is trying to do and are not determined by successful or unsuccessful experiences, nor are they restricted to the behavioural domain as they can be cognitive, affective, or behavioural in nature (Emmons, 1986). Personal strivings in a sport setting such as rugby union could be identified as non-fixed, individualised goals representing objectives of what players typically or characteristically try to do on regular basis within their sport based on the demands of time, situation and role. Understanding these definitions and points, personal strivings are time relevant snapshots of an individual’s typical objectives or individualised reasons for action or avoidance, based on offered scenarios, information and emotions. Why would understanding these be important for develop of culture or high performance learning environments? Being aware of the shift over time would mean greater retention or development of your ultimate resources, the players. Having discussed or better understood Kellaway’s motivations earlier may have resulted in a compromised couple of development years and keeping him in the AUS rugby system from the start. O’Connor, having suffered some pivotal life events, could have benefited from greater understanding of his strivings as would allows the coaches and organisation to better understand what he wanted or valued and not be lost to European Rugby during some of the prime years of his career.

Bringing in some ideas from my research, in trying to understand why players displayed different themes of strivings within and away from rugby union, it is important to recognise that players of all ages adopt social roles and recognise themselves as a social actor. Better investigation and questions are needed to understand whether coaches respond to the player’s focus on intrapersonal motivations, usually displaying a greater concern on achievement, improvement and hard work to establish identity or are involved players are becoming “acquainted with culture’s sense of biography” (Habermas & Bluck, 2000), following the lead or expectations of the coaches and program outlines? Are the players in question such as Cooper, Kellaway and O’Connor now choosing or being offered situations that are congruent with their personalities, or previously did they change or alter their environments to fit their younger self goal pursuits known as primary control strategies, which resulted in a devaluation towards the sport, being pushed overseas or away from Wallaby environment for a period of time? Even the ability to speak openly and honestly about life events, choices made and gratitude for being part of this current playing group would suggest the current coaching team has this difficult blend of cultures and personalities well mixed currently. For me, this is the village; a coaching and organisational team whom can use multiple techniques to understand and be attuned to player’s backgrounds, motivations and behaviours to allow them to express themselves in a way that is beneficial for all involved.

Dan McAdams is quoted "the self never gives up it's guise as the actor; the social actor is first and last what the self is". I would love to see more investigation and coach education offered around understanding whether involved players respond as actors to the environments offered or have they been offered sufficient support to self regulate and offer genuine personal strivings in sporting context. I have previously discussed the necessity to better understand how athletes engage in the social world and the interdependencies between self the social world on how we act in specific contexts, what is socially acceptable in terms of behaviour in specific contexts such as sport. We as coaches or organisations can better reflect and build our interpersonal skills to allow us to take time in future to better know and understand our athletes to gain a holistic view of involved players, understanding what “role” they are playing within our sporting environments. The art of coaching is knowing how and when to communicate, and how this varies from individual. Work on empathetic relationships and having a better understanding of your athletes or players as this will allow you to modify your environment or approaches for greater impact and understanding. Know your players, know their story, know their context and then put it into practice.