How is coaching talent developed in Australia?

I nominate Alan " THE PARROTT " Jones , at least he wont be state biased. He`ll pick blokes on current form, not current state.

Good practice for marriage . Oops , yes dear...

'As an amateur coach in Sydney I have been exposed to some of the official pathways and training programs. I think what I can say is the first steps as a coach are very much self driven in Australia. The resources are there but there is significant onus on the individual to seek out and utilise those resources.' Exactly and the clubs themselves who pay for these courses. The clubs who cough up should put the emphasis on their coaches to seek the advice and to improve. Too many coaches I have seen at courses are no longer coaching or moved clubs.

Nice article, thanks John!

Cheika did the Colleagues "Long Lunch" a month or so ago - was gutted that I wasn't back there to hear him (and catch up with mates!) Was exceptional by all reports.

Rugby is such a niche and exclusive when it comes to coaching. You have to be in the in crowd to get a look and then they push these expensive & useless ARU tier courses to make it more restrictive to the very wealthy

I don't think it is Cheika's job to be determining the coaching pathway for the nation. The ARU should have people looking at this and while it would be good to get ideas from the Wallaby coach whoever is in that seat is not responsible for delivering that across the nation. I coach in HK and have also coached in SG, in both locations the club sponsors those who want to take relevant coaching courses. I did the level 1, purely to get the certificate as the club wanted me to have it. I was rather unimpressed with the content and got the trainer a bit off side when I stepped in to correct some dangerous technique on scrum engagement and safety. A mate got the instructors further offside when he took over their attempt at running some skills drills. All in all my take away from the level 1 course was that an experienced player who thinks about their game is already ahead of what that course teaches. I've been encouraged to take the level 2 but haven't been interested. Am actually a bit jaded with coaching at the moment and thinking of just playing bottom grade and helping some of the players brand new to rugby that join our club develop rather than running a team next year. Anyway have rambled a bit off topic. What I will say is that most clubs I was involved with in Australia had a head coach that coached the first team and a Club Coach that was responsible for helping the individual team coaches develop, aid in selections and get some continuity of style/calls across grades. I would expect that most coaches begin as lower grade coaches, perhaps just for one of the units in the team and over time, if they are good enough progress to becoming head coaches at higher levels of competition. In the past that meant going from Shute Shield/Hospitals Cup to offshore roles in Europe or Japan. Interestingly we are seeing UK based coaches coming out to HK at the moment to develop and hopefully go back to Aviva Premiership level gigs. The NRC has been a missing element for coaches to continue to develop in Oz and it is just as important for the coaching talent as it is for the players (and indeed referees).

Agree with the change to refereeing is easier. The things you point out with Players coming into refereeing get wrong are often solved with experience. Top players being pushed to high to early haven't got that experience to fallback on when things go awry hence can get caught out of their depth.

This agree with my view as well. In my area nearly all the refs were old hands as you put it. A major issue was financial , soccer and league refs got money rugby did not. So for rugby nuts , doing it for the love it was not an issue, they were well to do. Young guys not so. So as part of the fees a referee component was added. Young guys could then do 2 lower grade or 3 younger age groups in a row. Another issue was referee abuse. That was fixed in large by marshalls. There was an issue still though that full grown men as coaches bullied young refs of 14 or 15 which scared them. So the code of conduct re shouting and abusing ref decisions was strictly enforced when the boys reffed. It did not worry the old hands who even bantered back. If a junior ref was on the marshall warned the coach once and then sent him from near the field to think about it. We lifted the number of junior refs a fair bit this way enlisting the players as a way to earn pocket money. Will Housten doing super rugby now came through our system.

It's not impossible to do with amateur players either. I start by getting players to think about what their strengths and limitations are as a team, and for individuals to do the same. We then come up with a plan together - just simple guidelines that maximises our strengths. At training, there's very little said by me and most of the talking is done between players as they go through - essentially - problem solving exercises that look and feel like the game, mirroring what we're trying to do in attack and defence. I've won a couple of titles with adults and teenagers doing that.

Machooka You've been using that excuse for 20 years now….. Have some spuds , ya crazy Highlander!

Peter speaking of referees there seems to be a chronic shortage of them in a number of jurisdictions. Having played and coached in Sydney for the past 3 years, my experience is that there are a lot of old hands who are staying in the role for love of the game. They need to be replaced largely due to fitness but there doesn't seem to be the troops coming through to replace them however. I know you have significant experience in referring, is this your view as well? If so what do you think the issues are? How do we encourage more young refs?

A really interesting article that raises some great discussion points, thanks John! As an amateur coach in Sydney I have been exposed to some of the official pathways and training programs. I think what I can say is the first steps as a coach are very much self driven in Australia. The resources are there but there is significant onus on the individual to seek out and utilise those resources. One of the biggest issues I feel is that without existing relationships to institutions it is VERY hard to get a start in coaching. Without a relationship to a school or a club or a reputation there are years of laying ground work before one's capabilities of being a coach are even called into question. Just to throw it out there there are plenty of amateur clubs in Sydney (and I imagine the other amateur competitions in Australia) that could do with coaches but there is so forum for people to show opening and interest. Something the ARU and the state unions could look at. From a professional development point of view as far as I understand there is a continuous development element once a coach reaches the semi-professional level. A coach must maintain a number of points each year to maintain their ARU coaching credentials, and I believe this aligns with the the World Rugby accreditations as well. From players side I've experienced a wide variety of coaching methods and there are some very significant trickle on effects from a player's career experience into their coaching. Teachers are often the best communicators and are also very good at seeing whether or not their messages are getting through. Those from corporate management backgrounds are often more conciliatory and good man managers, they understand their players motivations. Interestingly having had a police officer coach I would say they are the best at setting standards around preparation and culture. I say interesting as this is Steve Hansen's background and he was instrumental in the cultural turn around of the All Blacks in the last decade.

What about a bank manager then? :)

Refereeing is an easier switch than coaching since it is individual based. There are many players who think that refereeing is easy until they do it. You need to worry about every play everywhere not just the specific role you had. Looking at enforcing laws and managing a game is quite different from playing a game and trying to get away with breaking / exploiting a law. Often ex-players are too sympathetic to players infringing and then the game gets away from them since guess what everyone pushes the envelope more and more.

Agree in part Peter. From experience I believe that top players can become top coaches. What they need to do though is learn how to coach & that comes from experience. Too often top players are put into coaching roles they are not really ready for. Part of that comes from the self believe they have that perhaps made them great players causes them to think they are ready to coach at a high level before they have enough grounding. Part of it as well is unions wanting a 'name' attached to their teams. Starting to see it in refereeing as well with ex-players seeming pushed hard up the ranks when it used to take years of whistle time to get to the upper levels of the game. Have seen a ex-super player this year reffing super games & looking a little out of his depth.

not really a CEO since they deal with executives rather than doerers. An executive manager of say of highly paid actuaries, or currency / options traders where the stars are paid more than the managers. A CEO is too far removed IMO.