My coaching has moved towards more player empowerment, so they can make better decisions on the pitch. I take risks so the players can take risks.
By Neil Harris, head coach, St George’s Harpenden, forwards coach, Saracens Women
How would you coach this?
We are 12-5 up against a very good team in a national schools’ cup quarter final. We’ve received three kick-offs and each time we’ve put ourselves under pressure. Instead of kicking the ball long and then posing the opposition the attacking problem, we’ve tried to build an attack.
I can see the solution. My co-coaches can see the solution and yet the players, in this vital game, can’t.
From my position behind the posts, I don’t say anything. My co-coaches are desperate to say something, but I won’t let them. Eventually, for a variety of reasons, we lose the game 32-34. Clearing our lines effectively would be one of those.
Five years ago, I would have been passing messages onto the pitch as soon as the first restart had not been dealt with correctly. So, given we lost, how can that make sense?
Empowerment needs trust
If players are really going to make good decisions, they need to be trusted to make them. You can’t intervene. You can only help them reflect for next time. You do this by asking pertinent questions on the outcomes.
Every time you do say something which in effect tells them the answer, that trust reduces. That doesn’t mean that they will continue to make poor decisions. Your intervention is to guide them for next time.
Crucially, that trust will pay off in tough moments of high pressure. They will execute whatever skill they choose with more confidence. It doesn’t mean it will be the right decision. Yet, the more times they play with trust, the more times you then help them reflect effectively, the better they will be in the future.
Going back to this crucial game, I would strongly contend that this team would not have made it this far in the cup without this type of empowerment. If I had intervened in a previous round, they may not have been making the strong decisions they did in this quarter final. They were good enough to be ahead and then only two points down at the end. Plus, they had a plan to win from that scenario. Perhaps this was their pinnacle for this season.
Scenarios: risk and reward
Real decisions in matches mean that they are a multitude of factors to consider. There’s not just one space to attack, or one attacker to defend. Players must read many different possibilities and choose a course of action that best suits. There’s rarely one best choice, so they need to be aware of the range of choices.
Training should match that. By creating scenarios, the players must react appropriately. These scenarios cannot be repeatedly tried out until the players “win”. In a match, there’s one chance to win a 5m lineout on the opposition line at that moment in the game. You don’t get the same second chance (or rarely anyway).
For example, in lineout training, my team might be doing a handling game, before moving into a lineout scenario. It’s a one-off too. I might say: “5m lineout on our line, and this prop is off with a yellow card”. The lineout group has to adjust and play. We then reflect on their decision and their execution. But that’s that chance gone and we might not return to that scenarios for a number of weeks.
By creating cliff-edges in training, we replicate match conditions. We can reflect on their choices and they can put them into action in the match. As it happened, we had created a “two points down” scenario before the cup game. We couldn’t quite carry out the plan. Maybe next time.