Top players make top teams not coaches. Managers make top players into great teams. Far too much gets made of the coaches’ effect on a team’s performance.
I know I am going to get hammered for this but I just want to be heard.
I am going to rattle off a list of players that very rarely did what the coach wants.
Cliffy Lyons, Andrew Johns, Wally Lewis, Alfie Langer, Bob Fulton going back.
Currently the master is Thurston from the backs, Glenn Stewart in the forwards. Daly Cherry Evans (Second Year Apprentice), Johnson (Second Year Apprentice Despite a slow season), Reynolds (Souths) First Year Apprentice), Sandow (Has been an apprentice; went to work for himself to early).
These players are not really coached/managed.
When these players are on song, their teams thrive. They play what is in front of them and take educated risks.
You can coach out stupid errors like Ryles at Melbourne. The man was good for 2 to 4 penalties a game. You can’t coach that play from Glenn Stewart in last year’s Grand Final.
You can coach scrum plays and sweeping movements with 12 dummy runners (I know there is only 13 on the field). Coaches can watch days of tape, but no one can really coach against that run by Thurston in State of Origin 3.
No coach makes players like Balin and Luck tackle 50 blokes a game.
Players make teams.
The top coaches are inspiration leaders and managers of men. Their job title should be changed to team Managers.
Every team has specialist coaches. Andrew Johns is a specialist coach on most team’s books. That is coaching.
What Bellamy, Bennett, Hasler, and others do is man management, leadership and strategic thinking not coaching. What Barba said about Hasler is the key at the Dally M Awards.
“He is the first one there and the last to leave.”
He is as fit as all of them in his team and just has to pull out the tapes and show his team that he never ever stopped having a go. He is an inspiration.
He played for Australia but he really was not that good.
Top managers in my mind out the current crop were players in past who did the very BEST out of what talents they had. They had to strive to get every piece of success on the field. They are the types that are still working the hardest as managers.
They know no other way.
So it helps if you have a good coach/manager, but without one of those GREAT players, he has no hope.
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