State Of Origin: How the people of QLD help shape the players in Maroon

State of Origin never ceases to amaze sports fans. One man in the sin bin. Another forward ruled out for the game. Queensland was on the ropes. We’ve heard it all before, and so those final seven minutes shouldn’t be a surprise but we witnessed another Maroons miracle.

Billy Slater’s men have left the NSW Blues shell-shocked, running away 26-18 winners at Adelaide Oval to take a 1-0 lead as the series heads to Suncorp Stadium for Game 2. There were massive performanbces by many of the men in maroon; Reuben Cotter was named man of the match after a tireless effort in the middle, making 37 tackles and running 22 times for 75 metres. Even coach Billy Slater commented:

Everyone was ready to go different positions and we scrambled well. We had 12 players on the field with 11 minutes to go and we somehow found a way….That will definitely go down as one of the best memories of my life.

In one of the bigger moments of the game though, Thomas Flegler was sent to the bin for high contact in the tackle as Queensland found itself a man down. But like they have done so many times, the Maroons pulled off an incredible escape as they targeted the Blues’ makeshift right-edge defence and came up trumps. Like I discussed with some friends and family, the QLD side just looked like a team that wanted to win while NSW were afraid to lose. Simply, the QLD side responded better to their expectations than wilted to the pressure. This lead me to question…how is Coach Slater creating environments to create better people as well as better players, leaning into expectation of their state as opposed to fear of results? How is he allowing them to express themselves, try and fail in many scenarios seen in Game 1 whilst showing commitment to their own outcomes? Are we as coaches committed to creating passionate players, willing to explore and test their ideas and skills, or conforming footballers, focused on the perceived correct ideas and techniques, offering standard outcomes with minimal risk?

Vealey (1986) recognised sports confidence as “belief or degree of certainty individuals possess about their ability to be successful in sport”. I believe the progression or development of skills to performance adaptation requires character growth, enabling athletes to adopt a mastery outlook, evaluate their performance and areas for improvement made possible from player confidence, qualities showed in spades by the men in maroon in Game 1. So, what can we do as community or club coaches in developing environments to encourage these same themes of player personal development? Coaches play an important role in facilitating positive youth development and maintaining motivation and drive within athletes. Vella’s (2011) research results confirmed that coaches see themselves as responsible for facilitating skills such as problem solving, self-efficacy, commitment and achievement alongside development of life skills, positive climate and positive psychological capabilities. Life skills such as goal setting, communication skills, leadership skills and interpersonal skills, were recognised as areas of importance within these age grade sports programs. I believe these skills are currently being avoided or over looked within current age grade organised sport contexts and as a result, the skills are in scarcity when athletes reach adulthood or senior playing ranks. Development of these skills could reduce perceived dependency of coaches for competency confirmation or uncertainty within athletes perceived capabilities.

The measurement of character development in youth athletes can also act as measurement of effective coaching practices. Coaches for these developing adolescents and age grade athletes should act as a mentor for their moral development, showing proper prosocial behaviours and conduct, again acknowledging a sense of morality alongside desire to develop capabilities within sport settings. Having greater understanding of what players value and understanding their motivations for typical behaviour shall allow them to offer increased opportunities for empowerment and engagement and offer reasons towards morality development. I believe the themes of character development and promotion of life skills are important areas for personal and sport specific development and that coaches should be taking greater supporting role in developing these skills as opposed to solely technical and tactical focus. As per Cushion’s research (2003), they recognised coach education as “typically focusing on performance enhancement with overemphasis on technical and tactical knowledge and little attention offered to youth development”. I believe we should be encouraging these young elite players to develop personal and interpersonal skills, which can enable them to have confidence to explore new concepts within their sports and able to communicate and collaboratively develop technical or tactical sport-specific skills which can lead to greater application of skills like seen in Game 1.

The challenge of successful coaching is acknowledging social interactive dilemmas within individual and collective development, offering suitable scenarios and choices with all members’ involvement and collaboratively dealing with matters as opposed to eradicating them. All coaches should recognise that 1. its difficult; 2. it’s always changing and evolving so needs to be reflected and reviewed on; and 3. it’s easier by understanding your athletes and having them involved in the steps and processes. For example, like mentioned by Slater, he recognised that their back was against the wall yet it’s Queenslander sprirt which got them over the line. Past research by Mageau and Vallerand regards the “actions of coaches as (possibly) the most critical motivational influences within sport setting” and having ex QLD players whom understand the stress and expectations is a great, supportive chice by head coach Slater. Coaching should be recognized as an educational dynamic relationship, where the coach can satisfy player’s goals (or needs) 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. The role of performance coaches for athletes such as QLD players is highly important; coaches are “preparing athletes for consistent high-level competitive performance” (Côté, 2009a) through effective tactics such as integration of professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal knowledge and developing player’s specific competence, confidence, connection, and character needs on regular basis.

Sports coaches of athletes should act as pedagogues and adopt comprehensive and holistic roles in the moral development of their athletes through their adopted and shared practices, languages and beliefs. If coaches are to develop knowledgeable athletes who are willing and able to make decisions, capable of performing learned tasks when under pressure and not under direct instructions, I believe this shall require collaborative transfer of knowledge or greater ownership by athletes of their development, with support from the coaches as “more capable other” in an involved yet scaffolding style approach to their athlete’s development. Research by Kidman (2001) addressed ideas such as coaches developing player’s complex skills and tactical knowledge through encouraging abstract thought processes by asking high order questions, which require athletes to apply, analyse and synthesize information. This style of leadership has the coach steering as opposed to controlling decisions and actions, encouraging player discovery through evolutionary planning and organising of tasks whilst keeping sight of overall objectives and showing empathy to get the best from the athletes.

So, after watching the heroics of game 1 and reviewing your coaching methods and practices to develop your practice environments, ask yourself “Am I creating an environment to develop a quality human as well as a quality athlete?”. Asking questions and understanding the answers and whom they’re coming from will give you a snapshot for what young atletes need today yet this needs to be continually addressed and worked on. Please understand, people, personalities and environments shall change. Be willing to change ideas or structures to match what your athletes or players need today and be reflective and flexible to change to what they need tomorrow to better players on the field and better people off the field, something taht helped support the QLD Maroons get over the line in Game 1…