I can’t believe it. It’s 2016 and there are still sooooooo many coaches doing it wrong.
Nathan Brown is foolishly trusting young people, Trent Robinson is a failure who probably won’t even finish first, while Trent Barrett’s got his players trying to elicit an edge from Mortein.
It’s almost as if they’ve never seen a game of footy. Ever.
The confusing aspect of their floundering is that coaching a professional rugby league team is actually really simple. For example, I’ve never coached one before in my entire life, and I reckon I could do it easy.
Yep, simple wasted decades of sponging up coaching rhetoric has helped me develop an ultimate blueprint that is guaranteed to stack up in the cut-throat business of wins and losses.
Sure, it may just be a melange of platitudes and excuses that is totally untried and untested, but the numbers don’t lie – my methods currently enjoy a 100 per cent strike rate.
So to the strugglers of 2016, take full advantage of my amateur expertise and let me help you pimp your rubbish season back to acceptability.
1. Get off to a good start
I cannot stress enough how paramount this is. The best time to start is at the start time, and with the exception of matches broadcast on Channel Nine, rugby league is no different.
Tactics, diet and fitness should be neglected in favour of focussing on an effective opening. Punctuality at the venue, being appropriately dressed before play and ensuring your team is present at the opening whistle almost guarantees you’ll avoid defeat by forfeit.
A good start is the key to any strong gameplan. Once you’ve mastered it, everything besides the playing of the match will take care of itself.
2. Complete your sets
If you want to make it in this game, you need to develop a paranoid obsession with controlling the ball. You’ve got to become consumed with completing your sets, and I’m not talking about your weird proclivity for figurines.
Here it is in layman’s: forget your wife, forget your kids and forget your adolescent hobby, your sole focus is drilling your players to treat the ball like an incredibly fragile puppy.
Make them desperate to obtain it, secure it, and cherish it with delicate care. Unless it’s the fifth, in which case boot the mangy thing up the guts.
3. Stick to your structures
One must possess structures. Without them, you are a loser with no purpose in this universe.
Not only are structures a simplified framework for your team to adhere to, they are a viral buzzword that will make you seem competent when you’re scrambling to save your arse after another loss.
Never discount the power of noting structures after running afoul. Lamenting that ‘the boys moved away from our structures’ when going down by 40 is a wonderful way to shift blame. Because always remember: losing is never the fault of a good coach.
However, for the purposes of this learning activity, describing a structure is challenging. While known to exist, actual sightings by novice punters are as rare as Loch Ness and Shane Richardson in his time at NRL Headquarters.
If I had to hazard a guess, I imagine a structure to be a scribbled mess of noughts and crosses that manifests in to a kaleidoscopic spectacle, one that is only detectable by its creator while remaining negligible to everybody else.
Nevertheless, structuring-up is of prime importance. In fact, it’s almost as important as letting your team play their natural game.
4. Win the battle of the forwards
Pens at the ready, because this is one of the game’s more labyrinthine tactics.
In this game of skill and subtlety, you gotta bash ’em up front. If you don’t bash ’em up front, you run the risk of being bashed up front yourself.
Look back over every game of rugby league – winning coaches administer beatings while losing coaches endure beatings. Metaphorically speaking, except sometimes at Souths.
Not instructing your forwards to be borderline violent is like sending Woody Allen to represent you in a jiu jitsu bout. When it comes to footy, your first, second and third priority is to bash, bash and bash.
That’s why it’s the thinking man’s game.
5. Adopt a good kicking game
If you’re not holding the ball, disfiguring the opposition or running down a shot clock at a scrum, you’re kicking the ball. And you better be kicking it scrupulously, intelligently and skilfully. (Aka: not dead.)
The key to a successful kicking game is to not overthink. Just kick to the corners, kick to grass, kick away from the fullback, kick to the slowest winger, kick to rebound off the posts but also kick it in to touch, unless the fullback is on debut then kick it high, or if he’s deep then kick it short.
Also make sure you kick early to tire out their forwards, but kick late to exhaust their forwards.
Productive kicking is a base schoolboy skill that can be performed with a blindfold. If you’re unable to execute it, you’re better off knocking-on.
6. Employ a strong kick chase
After you’ve kicked the ball away, at the very least, it’s best you probably jog in pursuit. Preferably in great numbers. Looks kinda lazy if you don’t.
7. Ensure good line speed
Before you dippy festive types get excited, this is not Australia Day celebrations. It’s about line speed, and nothing – and I mean nothing – is more vital.
In the modern game, the model recommended by all media parrots for line speed is good line speed. You don’t want gradual line speed, brisk line speed or speedy line speed, it has to be good line speed, preferably achieved with good leg speed. No other velocity is acceptable.
Good line speed can be launched from a range of defensive foundations; Warren Ryan’s ‘umbrella’ defence, Wayne Bennett’s ‘boring’ defence and the 1999 Wests Magpies’ ‘porous’ defence are some examples.
With line speed, you should be aiming to crush your opposition three metres behind the ruck on every tackle, and for every tackle in the entire 80 minutes of the match. Without fail.
Anything less and you need to spend your week putting your players through another pre-season.
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