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Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring is your weekly deep-dive into the often-overlooked “softer skills” of coaching—cultural innovation, communication, empathy, leadership, dealing with stress, and motivation. Each episode features candid conversations with the world’s top international rugby coaches, who share the personal stories and intangible insights behind their winning cultures, and too their biggest failures and learnings from them. This is where X’s and O’s meet heart and soul, empowering coaches at every level to foster authentic connections, inspire their teams, and elevate their own coaching craft. If you believe that the real gold in rugby lies beyond the scoreboard, Coaching Culture is the podcast for you.
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
Ryan Martin: How to win a MLR Chamionship (Three times in a row!)
"Act as if it's impossible to fail." Those words from a 1932 book became a rallying cry for the Boston Free Jacks during their historic championship season. Head coach Ryan Martin reveals the remarkable human-centered strategies behind his team's unprecedented third consecutive MLR championship.
Martin's approach defies conventional wisdom. When most coaches would double down on training, he reduced practice to just 47 minutes including warm-up during the championship run. Instead of elaborate plays, he focused on creating crystal-clear understanding: "What was it we were trying to do and did we do that or not? Get it that simple." This clarity allowed players to express themselves freely on the field, creating what appeared to be spontaneous brilliance but was actually the product of meticulous preparation.
The most transformative element of Martin's strategy was connecting players with the community through an overnight billeting program. Professional rugby players were hosted by local families, creating lasting bonds that energized the entire season. "That kind of true human aspect of what we're doing was going to get us through, especially when things got really tight," Martin explains. This approach extended to his innovative "soul sessions" – team meetings held everywhere from windswept beaches to pickleball tournaments – that kept the long season fresh and players engaged.
Martin's leadership philosophy is captured in his powerful directive: "We should leave this changing room and no one should know whether we've won or lost the game." By refusing to dwell on losses and maintaining composure regardless of results, he created a resilient culture where players could take risks without fear. His "rule of three" planning system provided structure throughout a grueling season, blocking everything from game plans to player rotation in three-week increments.
Discover how authentic human connection, strategic simplicity, and unconventional thinking can create championship results in any organization. Martin's methods offer a blueprint for leadership that balances tactical excellence with the fundamental human elements that truly drive success when pressure intensifies.
that kind of true human aspect of what we're doing was going to get us through, especially when things got, you know, really um tight. I actually came quite strong on our our team after we lost to chicago our first loss and I said, hey, we should leave this changing room and no one should know whether we've won or lost the game. I suppose that's just what I've always believed in. You know, some people might not see it way. They might think you need to train more. One of the little things that stuck with me was act as if it's impossible to fail. And before that game I read the boys a chapter from the book that was my pregame speech to them. And then at halftime I just remind them hey, we're 26-5 down. Are we going to live by this mantra right now, or are we going to just be a poster on the wall? Team.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Coach and Culture, the podcast about cultivating culture and leadership. I'm Ben Herring and I've been loving this side of the game for bloody ages. And I've also been loving following the Boston Free Jacks, who have just come off three in a row winning the M Rugby competition third time in a row. The three-peat and today's guest is the head coach, ryan Martin, who's already been on the show before the season and he returns after the season to give us all the feedback, the review, about how his team has gone winning this competition. We're joined by Ryan. A week after the final, he's jumped on a plane. He's flown back to New Zealand where he is now straight into head coaching a second professional team. How he is able to do two head coaching roles at once in two different countries across the world is beyond belief. Ryan Martin, welcome back and congratulations, brother, on a championship winning season Congratulations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you very much. It's been a big season seven months of work and to finish that way was pretty special and it actually went quite big in the States. A lot of big news media picked it up and started comparing us to some pretty famous teams the Lakers, when they did their three-peat, and it was quite hilarious.
Speaker 2:Mate. It's an incredible achievement in a pretty new competition where there is a salary cap where you can win three times in a row. How did you do it, mate? You came in there. Obviously there's pressure to get that three-peat. How was it? How was the feeling and the mood?
Speaker 1:I think the longevity of the season meant you just had to keep hyper-focused around. What was important at the time, and something we did really well, is we actually blocked our weeks and threes. And a concept I actually stole from you when we had Otago 2018-2019 is I actually planned the selection of the teams in three-week blocks as well, so I had the team that was going to play in three weeks locked in. So it gave me stability around rotating and also when you're using your bench knowing okay, I can maybe limit his minutes because he's going to get stronger minutes coming soon and it allowed me to have pretty good conversations with the players around that I was just real open with them Like, hey, you're not going to get so much minutes this week, but your big game's coming in two weeks' time and I felt as though that helped because the travel and that competition is phenomenal, like an East Coast West Coast trip.
Speaker 1:You know you're six hours, seven hours on a plane. You've got a time zone change as well, so sometimes half your day's lost. You're playing on different tariffs. If playing on different tariffs If you go to Utah, you've got altitude to deal with as well. So it was really important that we kind of mapped out the season and it was probably the thing, I think, looking back and talking to other teams and other players that I knew from different teams, like we really kept our players fresh and a little funny motto we had was fresh is best and definitely helped us in the back end of the season.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, it's actually really fascinating you talk about that because why I love bringing you back onto the show. You're the first guest to come back for a second time. But we talked in your preseason on the first show and you talked about the first thing you did was actually forward plan the breaks. The players would have the first thing you did and you said at the time that players really appreciated knowing when their breaks were and that you had. The feedback you had was the players said you really care about us and our families from the outset. How did that manifest throughout a season?
Speaker 1:yeah, it was a. It was actually a bit of a gem, um, so we got our first buy was actually round two, which, if you think of round two in a competition, you'd be like, oh, it's a bit early, but what was beautiful about it is we had a five-week pre-season, plus a week leading into a round one game against LA. It was a big trip because we had to travel from Boston to LA, so essentially, it was six weeks of work, which, then, was actually a good time for a break. The the hilarious thing that happened, though, is when we came back after our bye week, we actually lost our next round game to Chicago, so then the next time we had our bye, you kind of get those funny things in rugby where people start looking for reasons why you lost and it could be, you know.
Speaker 1:The obvious thing is, was it the bye? Where we're just not prepared? But what was hilarious is when we come back from our second bye week, where the boys had the week off, we put 30 points on a really strong Houston team. I always find that funny in rugby when you have a loss and everything can get unpicked rather than, hey, we just didn't nail a couple of things in the game. It's as simple as that. So I enjoyed that because it kind of justified what we were doing around those byes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. How do you deal with sort of that crazy sentiment when people are saying all sorts of things for the reason?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've really struggled with it. Coming into professional rugby, it's definitely one area I don't enjoy. I don't enjoy that feeling in the locker room after a loss. There can be lots of little conversations and people are trying to unpick everything then and there and I actually came quite strong on our team after we lost to Chicago our first loss and I said, hey, we should leave this changing room and no one should know whether we've won or lost a game. I said we can't hang our hats on a couple of things that happened in the game and then go back and unpick the week.
Speaker 1:I felt as though we'd had a great week and it was definitely something I came strong on with our group because I wanted to nip that in the bud straight away and I think that definitely helped. And it became a little bit of a mantra of ours like win or lose. We just front the aftermatch, you know, go and address our fans, thank them for supporting us, and then we just get into our work on the Monday, like that's why you set your weeks up to have a good review and have a look where your areas of growth are, rather than, you know, unpick the whole week as to why you lost, just like find those areas and just nail them.
Speaker 2:It's really just excuse making, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We should leave this change room and no one should know if we win or lose. That's a cool mantra.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I loved it, like going into an aftermatch and it's such a powerful thing like dress well, puff the chest out, walk around and um, you know, the time will come to have a good look at what went wrong, and that's why we have reviews in the in the week, isn't it? So it was definitely a big thing and, um, it's something I'm pretty passionate about is not getting too emotional or hung up on that. That's the job of a head coach to drive that. So it was an important area.
Speaker 2:I love it, mate, because you're right. I feel like that takes the emotion out of it. Leave that till it's another time. Straight after the game is not the time to be doing stuff, is it? No, no, not at all nah, well, I love those two points you make, ryan, about the forward planning, mapping out the season to keep fresh as best. That's super cool. Did you also map out sort of the type of training you were going to be doing?
Speaker 1:yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Like um, I knew if we got high detail in early, that would set us up to use the back half of the season bearing in mind you're together for seven months, so the back half of the season being three months knowing that you're going to come into almost a month of playoff football.
Speaker 1:So it was really important that we got a lot of reps in of simple things so that we could pull back when that time came, which is exactly what we did, and I was pretty proud of that, like we, we got to a point where our game model become really simple. Like I, I envisaged that anyone that come and watched us could say almost like oh okay, that's what the free jacks are about, the way we're playing, and whenever we went into our weekly reviews and previews, the players would just have three simple things that were all interrelated, that we're trying to achieve and that they could articulate, and that was definitely something early on. I needed to strip back and simplify so that at any time, we could articulate what was it we were trying to do and did we do that or not? Like get it that simple. What was it we were trying to do and did we do that or not?
Speaker 2:Like, get it that simple, so you would encourage the players to be able to articulate the way you play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had a real cool review after I'm trying to remember, I think after we lost to DC, so we lost two games in a row, which is, you know, you can get a little bit. People start searching for things that don't exist. We actually did a fantastic thing On the Monday. We took the boys to a pickleball tournament and they were in pairs and we had a full-on tournament that went for two hours. And what was really awesome is they had a lounge area. So I was just sitting there and I was able to pull players over in between their games and just have little informal chats about how they felt we were going as a group and where we were at.
Speaker 1:And then after the pickleball tournament which was like super high energy, like the grand final, like the whole team went around the week pickleball court. It was like guys are diving for the ball. It went around the week pickleball court. It was like play like guys are diving for the ball. It was reffed really awesome by our GM TK and then we went into like a lounge area and then I had a real like quite a harsh, serious review. But because we'd had that awesome kind of morning, people were really open to it and we got some great questioning coming out. Like I remember I was talking around the three key things we wanted to achieve and there's way more vulnerability around the questioning that was coming at me. Like, okay, that sounds good, ryan, but in this situation we weren't clear around this counterattack, what you're wanting us to do. I was like, great, that's what I wanted to flush out.
Speaker 2:And do you think that was better, because you had those small intimate conversations individually first?
Speaker 1:holy, like I was able to go and nip things in the bud, um, and get the general feel. But because it was in between their pickleball games, they are probably more open to, like you know, like shorter, sharper chats and and, um, their attention was, you know, it wasn't like a rugby chat, it was like, yep, that you get them and then they go play their game. And it gave me a feeling of how I needed to deliver that review that day. And, yeah, we just simplified, like real down into our game model. And then what was hilarious is that week we went to Utah, who were, you know, a fantastic team. Greg Cooper's, the head coach there, had Liam Coltman at Hooker Aki, surly Really good players across the board and we were down 26-5 at halftime in a pretty far and hostile environment. And then we came back and scored 26 unanswered points and went on to win 31-26. And I actually go back to the start of that week because we're so tight and enjoying what we're doing. It helped us not be. We came in at halftime and we actually felt awesome. We're throwing heaps of punches, just little things weren't working at the time and I was like boys just keep doing what we're doing.
Speaker 1:I read this real cool book on the way over and it was called Wake Up and Live by Dorothy Branday. It's actually was written in 1932. And she said one of the little things that stuck with me was act as if it's impossible to fail. And before that game I read the boys a chapter from the book. That was my pregame speech to them and then at halftime I just reminded them hey, we're 26-5 down. Are we going to live by this mantra right now or are we going to just be a poster on the wall? Team? And the boys went out and expressed themselves and it was a fantastic win, like the trial. We scored to win. The match was like 90 meter. We turned the ball over on defense and then ran 90 meters and scored after a couple of phases to win and kind of like gave us a lot of confidence for the, for our season going forward that's such a cool phrase.
Speaker 2:Act as if it's impossible to fail. What a what a cool concept. How do you stick to that as a coach to to make sure it's?
Speaker 1:actually funny you say that. So we had these hilarious kickoffs and so I would calm down to the boys like what kickoff to do? Because I obviously been in the coach's box with you at different angles. You can kind of see the kickoff, receive setups from the opposition. And our risky kickoff we had one called Twister and it was like down the middle of the field with just one predominant rabbit chaser and it's quite risky because if you get it wrong you're susceptible to the opposition having two-sided attack on you and I was thinking at the time it's probably easy for me to go to a long one into the corner and get Utah to play out.
Speaker 1:I was like nah, you read that to them, so you need to be brave as well. And I called it. And then we called it every single kickoff in the game. We ended up just winning the ball back. It was hilarious and I was just like that's a cool moment because you can get conservative in the coach's box around your decision making. So it was quite cool for me. I always reflect back on that and thought, no, I pulled the trigger as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. What about when there's those external pressures from shareholders, board members, those external parties that have a vested interest?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's always an interesting one because you've got to understand where their passion and where that comes from. And with the MLR, it's private ownership groups and they're really invested in their team doing well and they're not making money out of their teams as such. So it's important that you're seen to be really aggressive and playing a style of rugby that people who are watching can appreciate and look as though they're watching superheroes on the field. So my ownership group at New England are awesome with that. They just want to see us just giving it our all and, you know, just kind of creating that superhero concept where people are like, wow, that was amazing what I just saw. And with that does come great responsibility to set up your team so you can play that way that guys can feel as though they act as if it's impossible to fail yeah, I love it, mate.
Speaker 2:And whilst we're talking about superheroes, as a bit of a side, you became a bit of a superhero, uh, with the local community. Um, there's some great pictures going around with you, as ted lasso blown up to take up a whole stand, that the community made these amazing posters of you face about. You know, three thousand times the size of normal, mustache, looking even better than normal, and it's clear to me, mate, when I'm watching it, that you've you've really created something more than just winning the title, but you've actually got a community rallying behind you. You probably don't know this, but I actually contacted some of the support groups just to see their tone, and what they spoke about you was just, they love the way you brought it all together, not just the team, but the off field, the wider clubs. How's that transpired over a season?
Speaker 1:Yeah, to be honest, we did something quite risky in our pre-season. Well, what would have been de-risky? We broke our players into groups of three and I hid it from them. I told them to come to our headquarters a Friday evening and to pack an overnight bag and that we were going to do something as a team. And so they were unaware of what was going on. And you know there's murmuring are we going into the bush and building tents? They didn't know what was going on. We kind know there's murmuring. Oh, we're going into the bush and building tents. They didn't know what was going on. We kind of led them on like, oh make sure you've got warm clothing. You know we're talking.
Speaker 1:At the time it was minus 15 in Boston in the winter. And secretly, what we'd done is we'd arranged for our fans and supporters to take in a group of three players and host them for a day and a night, so that's stay overnight, which, as you can imagine, in professional sport is pretty out there the proximity for the fans to the players. And anyway, the players rolled in and they were really nervous. It was quite funny. And then we brought all the families and people down who were going to host the boys. And they walked into our HQ and the boys kind of like, oh geez, and I could see the look on some of their faces. They were like. I remember one I'll have to say it because he's quite hilarious, he's with me here at northland. Sam, sam cared, he told me he was prepared to pack his bags and fly back to new zealand. There's no way he was gonna go on overnight with you know people. He didn't know. Then what we did is we had a spinning board so the three players faces would come up and then the board would spin with the family that was going to host them. So it was, it was hilarious. And then the the family would come and collect them and they'd head off.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of anxiety, to be honest, like because even in modern day now it's quite rare to be hosted and billeted like you and I were when we were at high school. You know, it's a bit of a foreign concept now, especially when you're, you know, a professional rugby player and um, and I tell you what, the next day we had like a big season launch at a golf club and I was kind of like, geez, I hope this has gone down well, and then, um, the boys all rolled in and it was story after story after story and it was the most wonderful thing. And we gave them a tile to go like a tile was about 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters to go away and write down with their families stuff about New England and what made them proud to support the Free Jacks and what did they want to see from us. And when these tiles all came together it made a massive big mural of, like our, the Penrose Triangle, the never-ending triangle, which was our theme for the year. But on the back of it was each family's depiction of us. And when we put it all together, the boys didn't know it at the time, but it formed the big Penrose Triangle which was subconsciously saying, hey, we're going for a three-peat. But then what was beautiful was, throughout the season we'd flip the tiles, so instead of the Penrose Triangle it would have all the messages of support from our families.
Speaker 1:And we ended up inviting those families to our captain's run and so they'd come and be part of the kick tennis you know the famous kick tennis game and then they'd stay and they'd had a barbecue with us. And those connections stayed all year with us and I reckon that's why we had such a massive following with our fans and that proximity to them and even the staff. So all the management staff got hosted as well. We went the two coaches and I went down to Providence. We got hosted and we played like throwing axes into a board and we had a great meal out and the crew that looked after us. We always had that special relationship. They'd always come to see me after a game and, man, it was just. It took us to a different level of fanship, like people really appreciated that. And it was just. It took us to a different level of fanship, like people really appreciated that. And it was. Everything was really genuine. It was actually hilarious.
Speaker 1:Today one of the fans he actually flew over to New Zealand to watch Scotland play the Māori All Blacks in Whangārei and I did a tour of the facilities here with him today and he said to me what was incredible is the games that you lost. The players would come over and say sorry and he said, like. So every player would walk past and say sorry. I was like I didn't know that. He's like, yeah, he's like. We didn't like we were like taken aback. We're like boys, we loved watching you and like, so every player would go past and say we're sorry, which is incredible, isn't it, when you think of it?
Speaker 2:that's incredible. That old school ability yeah, it's often a word that's thrown around in the past, but you don't appreciate the connections and the stories it creates and I can only imagine the ripple on effect. Like the fans and community feels proximity to players right and they feel tighter, personalizes them, and likewise, players feel more connected to the community, especially in an environment where there's a lot of transient. You know people coming in just for this team who aren't connected to boss, even like yourself, right yeah, yeah it was just.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad we did it and we did it really well. There's a lot of work that went on from the management and behind the scenes and our supporters club, but at the end of the day I adamant it helped with everything that we achieved this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I guess the other thing it probably does too is that when you've got that level of personalization between the fan group, they take probably more sympathy when you lose, because they know you personally. You're not just some object that they want to win. They feel the heart and soul and they care for you more, like probably children, and when you lose it's not come on, do better. It's that level of deeper understanding and connection right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're totally right. Like that's what came through and the fact that the players were saying sorry, you know, I found that quite intriguing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate, that's a great concept of dividing people up, spreading them out in the community and just saying out of interest. Did anyone have any sort of boozy nights or did any community members take their whiskey selection out and get into those sort of?
Speaker 1:stories. That was the beautiful thing about it was the stories just varied. One of our front rowers and his crew got hosted with a beautiful young family with two daughters and they spent the whole night putting makeup on the players and doing their eye liner and they read stories for the girls at night to put them to bed and then, whereas another one was out in the snow at 2 am like bobsledding, they'd been on a couple of whiskeys like going down these like huge, huge hills on a bobsled at 2 am at night. Like that was the beautiful thing is like the stories that came back were just all so varied and different and everyone had a different experience oh man, so good.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you what just hearing this as an outsider, you just I get excited, like I want to come and play for a team that does that sort of stuff. Like, yeah, that's awesome, that is creating stories for life, right?
Speaker 1:and and yeah, growing you as a person, giving you experiences outside of the game, I reckon it's amazing, oh yeah, and it was like, as I said, sam Kidd was so reluctant, but he had a brilliant time. He was treated like a king and he ate well and he just loved it. It was just so cool to see Love it.
Speaker 2:And you talked about the Penrose Triangle as your theme, the three-peat.
Speaker 1:You're a big man for theming and you do that imagery really well. Can you just enlightenR, which was the three-peat and quite rare in American sports as well. I was just like, nah, I'm just going to put it right out there. Like, let's just be really honest. And so the two things that we used, the imagery we used was the Penrose Triangle, which is like a triangle that continually goes and it's three-sided, and it was really good for us because anything we did, we called it the rule of three or the, the rule of thirds. And so all of our planning, all of our language, all of our imagery, everything we talked about, every little sequence of block of games was in threes and I felt not having like a definitive theme in terms of you know, like an abstract thing that you had to stay at. Just saying rule of three meant you could access anything. So like anything in threes and like the triangle in nature is the strongest organism, like in terms of anything that's built naturally in nature, the triangle, because the beautiful thing about the triangle is it distributes stress and pressure evenly, and that kind of like oh, there's something in that, because we had a lot of pressure to do well, like having the final on Rhode Island, we had to make, like the proximity of the final from where we were based, you know, 45 minute bus trip, like that's huge. And it gave access to our fans to get to an MLR grand final, you know, because it wasn't hosted on the west coast or anything like that. So we had that kind of pressure built into us as well, and that's why the triangle was really cool, so we could distribute the pressure evenly and it also allowed us to go on little different tangents.
Speaker 1:So, like our last three block of games, which are all playoff games, we actually accessed the three most successful sports in Boston. So we looked at the Bruins, we looked at the Celtics and we looked at the Bruins, we looked at the Celtics and we looked at the Patriots and then we pulled out when they were successful. What were they doing? And we had really cool quotes. The Patriots week, we used Tom Brady and he used to talk about laser-like focus when you go into playoff. So then that kind of built our imagery. The Red Sox also we used at a time a big puppy and he's like I always just swing hard in case I hit, and that was like, oh, that's awesome, that's like what a cool way, just pull the trigger boys. So yeah, having not tied into one abstract kind of theme, just having the rule of three, meant we could really bounce around with what that looked like.
Speaker 2:And so each week you would just pick a different quote or aspect to that rule of three.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we'd block the season in groupings of three games at a time. So each little segment was locked in with whatever that three of whatever we kind of looked into.
Speaker 2:I just love how you keep coming back to that blocking of a season. Yeah, that in itself I know there's a like from a rotation point of view. It keeps people fresh. But even on this theming stuff, it probably just narrow laser like focus, on just three weeks so you can actually go right, let's, let's be really detailed in this three weeks and let's just do this for three weeks and then we'll change and it keeps.
Speaker 1:It keeps you fresh, right creatively yeah, well, just in a like a six month season, you need that and um, going back to for the playing group, I think it kept them like it was really easy for me to have those conversations. Hey, in this group of three, this is going to be your big game, so, like it was, just I found it quite refreshing to be able to talk that way with them in and around selection and yeah, yeah, it helped a lot.
Speaker 2:Oh, mate, I freaking love that. Phew, mate. Rules of three. Well, here's another rule that you said, mate, which I'm really interested to dive into is when we talked earlier before season, you talked about a little phrase you had about the mad professor moment, where you remembered from your high school everyone remembered the scientist that blew up the science room and everyone turned up for years later excited about that lesson, because this is the teacher that blew up the room. Now you've been known to do that a lot and I think everyone listening will already start to pick that up in some of the stuff you're saying. But did you do any super mad professor moments this year, outside of the billeting and things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally Like. It was the way we did our weeks, so our Mondays, which is predominantly a kind of you know your review day and your preview what you're going to be doing for the week. We just we went crazy in the last three months. Like we got super weird. One of them was hilarious we went to a windswept beach. It was so windy and it could have been a disaster because we didn't predict the wind so well, but we did yoga. We brought in a yoga instructor. The boys were doing it and the sand was flying everywhere, but honestly, it was such a cool thing. They did 30 minutes and their attention was directly they nailed the yoga. And then we had to like, do our meetings, like your forwards and backs preview meetings, but what it did, it was hilarious. It's because it was so you had to do it on the beach. Yeah, we did it on the beach.
Speaker 2:Oh, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:We hid behind this little small building. It was like a toilet block. And then we got really tight. We huddled shoulder to shoulder and we did our review in this really tight, and it was so cool, the language. And then we went and walked through our plays on the sand and because it was so windy we had to get quite tight. And there's way more conversation Like, hey, bro, I need you to do this line here if I'm gonna get that pass away. And then it was just so cool.
Speaker 1:And then we went, like we had another time we had brunch at a Quincy Yacht Club and then we did our walkthrough on a baseball field like no lines, no, nothing. And so the boys had to be creative around like their spacings and their alignments and like having a brunch and then leading into like a review preview such a powerful thing and we call it a soul session. So we'd start it with like crazy stuff that had happened in the week, like memes of the players, kind of like an like an old school community news, you know, and um, yeah, we just felt as though we nailed that stuff. We kept our weeks really fresh.
Speaker 1:The boys never knew what we were going to do, like, as I mentioned before, one monday we just did a pickleball tournament, like, let's go and play pickleball together. So I think that made the weeks the boys always wondering, oh, I wonder what we're going to do next week, like and geez, you know, sometimes it wasn't perfect, like doing your walkthrough with no lines and not knowing exactly the alignments across the field, doing it on a windswept beach, but just making it work. And I think it made our group really adaptable to hey, we can just do anything whatever's thrown at us.
Speaker 2:It's awesome, mate. Just a quote came to mind when you were talking about that. You often hear is change is as good as a vacation in the working world, and that would certainly ring true for your sort of soul sessions. By changing the location, you actually change the feeling and the mood of the group. Right, and that? Can be as refreshing and inspiring as going to Hawaii for a week.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Especially in a long season and a lot of stuff going on. So to change it up and just make your group adaptable, I think that was a pretty key part of our success.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, and I just love the phrase too the soul session.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mate, if you're having sessions which are good for the soul in general, you're on to a winner.
Speaker 1:I would suggest yeah, no, we really made. We tried to have a lot of fun with those as well, like it wasn't just the you know like cliche stuff. There's always like different little videos and little the management would you know as well. They're in on stuff and I just had a nice feel about it To label it a soul session. Took away all the you know. You could just come in and have a good laugh at each other and then get into your work.
Speaker 2:How do you, ryan, deal with, like, because obviously you love this stuff and I really enjoy what you do and clearly it's done a good job and you've won the season, so now you've got a bit of weight behind you to say this is a good thing. What would you say to coaches and other teams that may be going, oh gee, I don't know? And if they're losing, for example, like then you get critiqued on why you're wasting your time with a soul session. What Then you get?
Speaker 1:critiqued on. Why are you wasting your time with a soul session? What advice would you give to coaches that are just nervous about breaking the mold or pushing the boundaries of the constraints which are normalized in sport? Yeah, it's a tough one because I think I mentioned in my first podcast with you, a team is sometimes a reflection of the coach's personality. So that was the way I saw things should be and I wanted that fun element regardless.
Speaker 1:We actually played DC the first time. It must have been around round four and we were horrendous. Everything was just terrible. We didn't nail anything. Dc won quite easily. I think it was 28-14.
Speaker 1:What was hilarious is that night back in the hotel because there's a way we're in washington I got the fiji management tk and myself got our fiji and boys, with two of them in the team, to run a carver ceremony. So you have this. You're everyone's feeling quite dejected against like this. You know we did this terrible loss. We go, go back to a hotel and the Fijian boys run a really awesome like carver ceremony. And what was cool was I just sat and I just watched the room for a couple of hours it went for.
Speaker 1:And what was really cool was there's no cliques, like everyone was moving around, like going into little different groups and they'd do their carver and like I just knew, geez, this is, this is how you build a team. Like we're going to be super tight, super connected, and I think that helped with knowing, like you know, there's the two realms that you always talk about, that your, your public realm of in a rugby environment, and your private realm. And although publicly at the time it didn't look like we're going really good, privately we're super tight and I knew it was that tightness, that connection, that kind of true human aspect of what we're doing, was going to get us through, especially when things got really tight on us and we needed to knuckle down, and I suppose that's just what I've always believed in. Some people might not see it that way. They might think you need to train more, and that's their own personality. You know that. So I think if you just do what's genuine to you, it'll work.
Speaker 2:I love that mate. The human aspect got us through. Yeah, yeah, that's powerful man, and what I actually do, like Ryan, is it wasn't like it was a perfect season for you. Like already you've mentioned, you've lost multiple times and including getting smashed, and so to have that human aspect that gets you through, that keeps you connected, no poison or water filling the boat. It sounds powerful.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, Like I'm adamant that how tight we became is you know the reason we were so successful?
Speaker 2:Man, I reckon there's some absolute gold in that, mate. Team is a reflection of the coach's personality. No cliches is how you build it, no clicks is how you build a team. The human aspect got us through. That's some deep stuff, mate. I would say that's generally. That wouldn't be some of the stuff that a lot of coaches would suggest is the stuff that gets you through. It's very cool. Yeah, Now, after you won that game, something else you said, which I'm loving the things you're saying is a quote is this, and I think it's a powerful one. I'd love you to sort of deep dive into this one. You said in your aftermatch speech after you'd won the final, reflecting on the season. You said, quote we recruit for character and train for skill. We haven't even really practiced the past month. We've just been doing weird things together. Now you've sort of unpacked a few of those weird things, but could you unpack that kind of other bit about, like, recruiting for character and about what you've actually practiced in the last month and why?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the character thing's huge, isn't it Like? Once again, I reckon it's a reflection on the individual coach, like you kind of know what you value in a player. So we always go back to when the Free Jacks were founded, like it was actually a team that were pretty simple, like we didn't have the best of everything and we had to travel a lot to our trainings and our first change room was a tent, you know, a canvas tent. We're always very wary that who we bring in needs to have a little bit of that kind of doggedness to them. Um, maybe, you know, had to scrap out of a few situations in life.
Speaker 1:So we always try and marry that up and we call it like the free jacks way or the free jacks man and we try and look at that as a character trait because, coming into our environment, you know there's a lot of responsibility around, you know performing, and Boston can be a hard place to live, like it's a brutal, brutal winter. So you've got to kind of just be able to have the ability to roll up the sleeves and that's something that, when we say recruit for character, that we're like pretty stringent on. And we've got a great general manager, tom Conley, and he's a master of it like he'll. He does so many background checks. He'll make so many phone calls on an individual player. Sometimes I'll look at my schedule and I've got like a player who he's thinking about maybe three years, in three years time, will be a free jacks man. It's hilarious. So I. So I'm talking to, like you know, a 17-year-old, a Canadian passport holder, american passport holder, who's somewhere in the world just because he's got an inkling that he could be a Free Jacks man.
Speaker 2:What sort of questions does he ask?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's just hilarious stuff, like he's just so, he's just really passionate, like he kind of founded the Free Jacks, like he's the big general manager. You know the ownership group kind of gave him the reins to set this whole thing up. He's always on the hunt for what you know Free Jacks men, and it's just like he really goes into the human aspect, like he wants to find out, you know, their background and their family life and what do they do and what they do outside of rugby and there's hardly any rugby questions and it's quite funny to be part of. Yeah, and I think what I mentioned before, like if you, if you spend a lot of time putting in your the big foundations of your game and your game model, then you do have the ability to pull away from training and I know it was just so well like receptive by the players that you know I think I got us down to. It would have been like 47 minutes and that's with a warm-up, that, that on-field training, including the warm-up.
Speaker 1:The cool thing that happened from that was our captain, joe Johnson. He's brilliant, he's a good leader and he said boys, the coaches aren't putting a lot of training on us now. So what that means is we can go away and have little connections, and that's what they did. They definitely got closer from it. They'd go away and talk more about, maybe, what they wanted to achieve that week and there's all that kind of stuff happening which wasn't forced by the coaches, but it was Joe kind of seeing the opportunity. Hey, boys, we're getting short, sharp days. Let's really invest in ourselves and make some connections throughout the week around, what we want to achieve, and so forth.
Speaker 1:And you didn't need to drive that. No, no, joe was brilliant, he just read the room. I think it was as I mentioned. I think they realized what we were doing around our session planning and putting a bit more responsibility on them to connect really well and make sure they're nailing their stuff and doing it off-feet and having connections in the gym space as well when they're training. Yeah, it worked really well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just for your own, you work that skill element pretty hard, particularly in preseason, right? It's not like you've done nothing and then you're having a soul session.
Speaker 1:You've worked bloody hard up until that point, so it's almost like work and reward type yeah, yeah, like on massive I think I mentioned it last time like heavy, heavy, rep-based, so like it's like quicker retrieval, because you know it's like when you're first driving the car, like the first time, you're kind of looking at the gearbox, you're looking at everything before you even like looking out the window for your vision, whereas now, when you're driving, you can do everything. Is now, when you're driving, you can do everything. You don't even think about that and I I always try and get a team to that point where they're not thinking about the, you know, the feet, the clutch, the brake, the changing the gears. They're just looking out, seeing all the vision, making good decisions while multitasking. And that's where that, that like high rep based kind of um concept, comes from and that's.
Speaker 2:That's just that concept of removing the decisions moving the thinking element.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just making it natural. And then you hear it a lot now like pull the trigger. But if structurally you're really sound, you're going to have more pull the trigger moments, which will naturally just come about because people are in the right places and they kind of know what they're looking for. But there's a cool thing we looked at Lionel Messi and his scanning that he does when he's on the ball and there's a cool thing that they say, like really good players or expert players, they kind of like they don't need to see as much, so like they see less but see more because they know exactly the specific thing they're looking for, rather than scanning the field and seeing lots of things.
Speaker 2:They just know the correct thing to scan for and make a quick decision, and we're trying to, like, work hard with our players around that, and so, just from a skill perspective, you pick one cue and say I just want you to be looking for this and if it happens, that's the option, and then you rep that like crazy yeah.
Speaker 1:So like, what's the cue that the d's given you to take, so that they just know specifically what they're looking for? Like one thing in the D line, oh yeah, we've got it. Bang and it looks like a, like a pulling trigger, or you know, wayne Smith always used to say that flair was just hard work camouflage. And I think that's a cool quote, because if you nail your preseason and you nail your session design, you can get to that part in your season where you're way more flary. What looks?
Speaker 2:what looks like flea, you know and you probably get more opportunities to have these different mad scientist time moments, right yeah, that's, and that's where you want to live, isn't it? That's the call that's exactly where you want to live, right? I love it. Well, mate. Have you had any of them blow up in your face? Have you any had any fails this season? That you go. That's a good one for other coaches to hear Not just the good stuff but the fails that might have happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I was mentioning to you before I hadn't been a head coach since 2021. So after I was head coach previously with the Free Jacks, I was predominantly an assistant coach, which I love. That's the grass on the grass. You really get to nail your area. Um.
Speaker 1:So, going back into head coaching, I was actually rusty and you know head coaching is I know cody royal talks about like the organizational craft, like head coaching is like that. You got like your selection, you've got your budget stuff. You got like your ownership group. You've got your budget stuff. You've got your ownership group. You've got media working out what players need to be doing that. You've got massive selection conversations with individuals and I think that was a biggie for me and just nailing my stuff around the assistant coaches, making them feel real awesome in their areas, and that's definitely an area.
Speaker 1:That's why I'm pumped around what I'm doing now, like I'm going back into head coaching with Northland and so I'm going to be way sharper for it, knowing, okay, I don't want to. You know, I really want to appreciate and get my assistant coaches feeling really valued and going really awesome and just putting that time and energy into like everyone in the you know, from your medics to your S&Cs, to your assistant coaches, to your managers, and I just felt as though I was really rusty around that and I kind of got really tunnel vision in on my area and just wanted, you know, make sure my area was going good and with that, you know, as a head coach, you've got to be across everything. You've got to like it's humans that you're working with, you know, and you've got to make everyone feel really valued. And that was definitely something, looking back, that I could have been way better at.
Speaker 2:What would you do differently?
Speaker 1:in the next role, I think, have more conversation show, be way more invested in the success of the other areas and just have really good alignment and really good clarity. One thing I always talk about with the players is clarity, is kindness, and I think that was something I needed to do with the whole group, the whole management group, and, I think, just being really aligned. I know working with Steve Hansen. He was awesome with what he'd call robust discussions, but after that you leave the room and it's great. You think, geez, he got into me in that meeting. Then you walk out of the room and he's making you a cuppa and it's like he's totally.
Speaker 1:I'm like did he just? Is this the same guy? Did we just have that? That was just something I wasn't good at. Like I'd carry. If you had a bad meeting with your staff, I'd kind of carry it across the day. So it's definitely a skill you've got to learn. Agree to disagree, but let's get aligned and then leave the room and leave it there and let's all go forward. And it's a skill, man, you've got to work at that. And it's watching Steve operate. He's the master of that, isn't he? He sure is.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess it's just what you talked about. I like making things automatic. You just got to keep repping them. So you almost just got to keep having those robust discussions or arguments or gunslinging match, and you just got to keep having them and then keep walking out of the room and making the other person a cup of tea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's in any industry, isn't it? Like the best leaders just have that ability to um, just nail that stuff, and that's what excites me like I, it's a, it's a cool area. I want to get better at um and it does like. That's why I'm so excited. Now I get another head coach um chance straight off. You know, three days after the campaign's finished and already I had a meeting today with my staff and I felt really good like I was really making sure everyone's aligned and drawing out awesome ideas from everybody and, yeah, I feel way better for it.
Speaker 2:Well, let's dive into that quickly, mate, because I think you'd be the only coach in the world professional coach that has two concurrent head coaching roles in two different countries. And we're not talking little, we're talking provincial level, professional rugby Two teams, one in New Zealand, northland and one in America in the MLR Boston. You've gone, you've won the championship with Boston on the Saturday. On the Monday you fly out back to New Zealand, you go home, catch up with all your family, who you've left, and then on Thursday you're flying up. And you're up, and now you're starting a whole new team. How do you? How do you ditch what's just been? And how do you? How do you?
Speaker 1:just roll in like that. Do you not need a break, are you? Yeah, it's quite a. I did think about it quite deeply. And then I reflect on when I'm at my best and I'm probably not a coach that would like do a PD opportunity where you go and watch another team or you go and visit a different sport. I need to be constantly doing and that's when I'm at my best. That's how I became a professional coach.
Speaker 1:At one time I was doing three teams at the same time. I'd go down to do the Otago Academy in the morning at the Green Room and I'd drive up to school and I'd have the Otago Boys first 15, and you know we'd train at lunch and train after school. Then I'd have a quick cuppa from 5 to 5.30, and then I'd drive to Bishop's Court and coach the Kaikoura Demons in men's premier rugby and I felt as though that's when I like. At the time it felt like you're just get a lot of time, but I was coaching so much and I was getting so good. I became really sharp and that's what I just feel, that now, like I did feel, as I did have that little bit of kind of um, that feeling of, should I be celebrating more. But then I was like that wins for the players and it's for the, the bigger picture, and you know, my, my peace comes from the, the camp, the length of the campaign.
Speaker 1:And then thinking right, if I was to do that again, what would you get? What would you do different? Well, I can actually truly action that. What would I do different now? And it's fresh, so I feel energized by taking the things that I know I could have done better and I get to action it straight away and I think there's something powerful in that, like if you have the time, you can maybe go down rabbit holes, whereas I'm just quite fresh around that. I know exactly what works, and quickly. So I just think it keeps me really sharp. I think since I've been coaching professionally it's coming up nine years now I've only ever had maybe two months off at any time.
Speaker 2:So I just feel really sharp with what I'm doing. Yeah, that's awesome, mate. It's a really good way to look at it too. You're going to put those things straight into practice in the new place. Yeah, yeah well, I guess, before we whip onto that, like what, what? So you've got the alignment with coaches. Have you got any other things that you're like?
Speaker 1:this is what I'm going to do that you can give away I think, I think, I like and it'll be the same for any coach but just having really good like selection conversations, like nailing it so that the person, whoever you're talking to can go away and know exactly Like. It's not like using grey words or getting lost in translation Once again, it's something you just have to constantly do and know geez, I didn't know that conversation. So that's what I'm excited about as well Like just being really clear around selection and taking the time to do it really well. I think that's a big part of like making a really good team environment and it's like. It's just such a such a human aspect of what we do, isn't it like?
Speaker 1:yeah, I remember one coach I had, um at the rebels. Kevin thought he was also a really passionate coach and he always said it's like you know every selection thing when you especially if you're dropping a person weekly, it's like breaking out with your girlfriend. It's such a horrendous thing to have to do. And I was like, yeah, that Monday you can sometimes have a sleepless Sunday night knowing, man, I'm going to have some tough ones tomorrow. You kind of like run them through your head. So I just think that's something I want. To action straight away as well is like be really clear and, once again, leaving the room with exact clarity around what's happening, mate.
Speaker 2:I absolutely love it, mate. And talking about clarity, what sort of differences did you find? What are you expecting culturally differences Because rugby's a new game relatively in the States and Boston particularly, and you're coming back to hotbed of rugby. Yeah, and arguably, and I'll just address this Northam won't be expected to win the thing, so you're coming from expectations of winning it to maybe slightly lower expectations Culturally. How do you deal with those two things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question. I think that's what I love about uh, like continually coaching. Like I can't pick up the new england free jacks template and just drop it down into northland, like that would be so remiss, like you'd miss the who. You're dealing with it and the two just don't sync. So I've got a totally different set of players, a totally different organization, as you said. Like potentially the pressures are a lot different around what's expected, so like there's a lot of time and thought goes into those things to make sure you come in a fresher now. Like I got my first meeting tomorrow and it's going to be very different meeting to the one I would have ran at New England to start the whole, you know the whole campaign for us and it's that's what I love about it. Like if you really that's what coaching is like you've got to adapt on the run and understand the group that's in front of you and I've enjoyed that aspect of kind of doing a lot of.
Speaker 1:I've had a lot of different teams and it's cool because it's I get really nervous, like I know that first meeting is so important and you've got to go in and win the room with like a totally different group of people and it just makes once again it goes back to that word like sharp. It keeps me really sharp around reading the room quickly and understanding, okay, what does this group need from me? And it's. I suppose when I first spoke with you in our podcast earlier in the year, it was like that teaching concept. I got to practice a lot of deliveries and how to deal with different classes and different students. It's kind of reminding me now in my rugby career I'm getting all these different teams and kind of sharpening that way.
Speaker 2:I love it. What is the key to winning the room tomorrow, first day in Northern Rugby? This will go out after that day, so nothing you say will be no. This will go out after that day, so nothing you say will be. No one can preempt it. What are you going to do in that first meeting? What's the key?
Speaker 1:Well, hilarious enough, our round one game is a rugby, is a Ramfley Shield challenge against Taranaki.
Speaker 1:So it's an opportunity to do something that no one's ever done before, which, like to win the Ramfley Shield for this region would be very special. So I feel as though I just really need to nail the hope aspect, like just give a real awesome kind of like yeah, and I'm going to use a little concept, I call back to the future where we kind of reverse engineer what we're going to do, and I just feel as though if you just give that little bit of hope and hope then leads to belief, it makes your preseason really exciting. There's a real clear vision around where we want to belief. It makes your pre-season really exciting. There's a real clear vision around where we want to go. I think that's what I said to you around culture. If you have a real strong vision that the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, then the culture kind of falls out of that Like okay, this is how we're going to do things around here type mentality to achieve that vision.
Speaker 2:I love the difference there. So when we talked earlier, the last podcast you talked about, the first thing you went in and said is here's your breaks. And that was your pitch for the Boston Free Jacks, because you knew there was a pretty mixed group that weren't from Boston and so you wanted to make sure that they could set out exploring Boston, the USA. So that was what your first meeting was about. This time round, when you're going in, you're actually picking an event. On the round one, we've got this opportunity and you're framing the hope element. So what you've just shown is just two completely different outlooks and you've you've you said to this is what this team is and this is what this team is. So we're going that direction for this one and that direction for that one. Yeah, totally different focus points, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you reckon it will go? Yeah, well, I think it's cool Like I'm excited myself Like that and that's you know, as I said, three days post arriving back in New Zealand and I'm excited, Like it's you know, first day at school type mentality when you get in there tomorrow. So I think that's a good thing and I probably won't sleep real good tonight. I'll be going through how I want to nail the meeting.
Speaker 2:But that's a good thing in itself. I love it. Ryan, what an absolute pleasure. And before we get going, I guess I'll ask this Before we ask the last question how everything in the offer you physically going like when you've I know that I've just chatted a few your teammates um, one of your sponsors is a beer brand and you have eight percent beers in the change room after games. I can only imagine after a winning final. That would have been very dangerous going. How did that go for you?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, it's uh like rugby. Just, you know, you can get in that cycle of having a beer after a game and enjoying it, can't you? I'm very like, I'm very, very wary of making sure I uh, you know, get myself in a physical state. That's uh pretty acceptable when you're standing up in front of a room. I'll be living in the sauna here at the Whangarei Aquatic Centre.
Speaker 2:How is the physical state? Are you falling into the coaching trap of bulking up too early?
Speaker 1:I'm in the grey so I've got to get back to the black and white of things. It's a good challenge.
Speaker 2:Ryan, before we finish, man, the last question and I've already asked you this one, but it's the one about do you have any beliefs that you think your peers would disagree with? Have you had any around this year, or additional ones which you think would be of interest to other coaches listening to this?
Speaker 1:I have a little one actually, which is I look at a lot of presentations now and a lot of that kind of what I probably spoke about last time, but I've seen it in rugby more and more is like the knowledge is hidden. So like you watch some presentations and there's like metaphorical pitches, like before you even get to what is to be spoken about. So the players are kind of having to decipher, like these pictures and what do they mean, and then after that will come maybe a clip or two or three, and I just think I'm actually trying to strip everything away and like just have one format that you present in, so if you can put your still imagery inside an organizer with your clips. I've actually got down to one clip a lot of the time now in terms of presenting back, whether it's reviewing or previewing, just trying to get it really, really simple. I think sometimes now we're putting bells and whistles on presentations that you might spend five minutes of imagery of things that aren't even related to rugby before you even get there, and it's fine, it's quite interesting.
Speaker 1:I always remember I went to an awesome coach's course with Wayne Goldsmith. He's a very famous Australian swim coach. He said he always if people were using PowerPoint or Keynote, he felt as though they didn't know their content well enough and it always stuck with me. I was like geez, I'd love to. I wonder if we could get a rugby environment where you didn't have to present using like anything like that at all, like if you could just get it back to some real basic, you know, even just wording or I don't know. I'm kind of chasing that, I suppose, and I am seeing, like at the moment, like a lot of presentations are getting lost to the metaphors of what should be something simple.
Speaker 2:Do you think it's sort of almost going too far one way? It needs to just be reined in? Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think so. I listened to your podcast with Tony Brown and he kind of alluded to a similar thing which you know. Like he said he's seen coaches like spend lots of time on their laptop the players are outside their room and after that I actually made an effort to make sure I always got out is like spending lots of time on their laptop the players are outside their room and after that I actually made an effort to make sure I always got out whenever I heard them in the gym and just go and be around. That you know because you can't make amazing presentations, can't you? You can waste a lot of time doing some beautiful stuff on Keynote or PowerPoint and have all this imagery like pictures, still pictures. And I was like he's so right, like we've almost gone so far the other way. We're probably like making something simple, really technical, just through when it doesn't need to be.
Speaker 2:I think the phrase he well, the phrase he used was your players are dying out there or you're perfecting your presentation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love that. I was like geez.
Speaker 2:he's so right, gee well, he's right, he is right. And gee, it's lovely to hear that you've picked up that from the podcast. Mate, that gives me a big tick.
Speaker 2:Absolutely loving it, ryan, and I know for a fact that coaches will pick up heaps from what you say, so it's absolutely lovely. Now, mate, I would like that's us. We keep it to a pretty close hour, so I'd just like to take this moment just to talk a couple of key takeaways I took from this session. Mate, and hopefully it leaves lands with people as we go. So here it is, raina.
Speaker 2:Number one I actually love the way you said we should leave this change room and no one should know if we win or lose. Now I just think that's awesome, and you tied it in with the phrase act as if it's impossible to fail, and I think those two concepts around leaving a change room and acting like you can't fail are just amazing ones for just not only the rugby aspect, but also for people aspect. No matter what happens to your goods or bads, hold yourself in a way that you'll be proud about in reflection and not letting that emotional piece, either positive or negative, consume you, and to hear it coming from you in the setting from a successful team is absolutely outstanding. Number two is the community buy-in, and I just loved some of your examples you talked about around the billeting, about the stories it creates, but I just love the ripples it creates, the proximity to players and the players' connection to community, and the ripple down effect is that it just personalized the whole group and it's no surprise to me that the community I talked to around what you were doing were loving what you're doing because they actually met you knew, you knew the players and they're more sympathetic to wins and losses, which makes your job as a head coach heaps easier.
Speaker 2:The last one, number three, is I just love this change of phrasing and terminology that you do regularly about calling your day one a soul session and quoting the human aspect got us through. So I love the way that you realized as you went on that it wasn't just about the nuts and bolts of rugby all the time, but actually having a soul session mapped into your week and your blocks of three, as you called it, your forward planning, was just awesome and it just created that great way to see how the team interacts, that no clicks are formed, and you just drove it and ran it and it got you through a lot of the hard times which there were. So absolutely love that, ryan. Thank you for your time today on the coaching culture podcast, the first person to come in for a second appearance, and I have not been let down at all, mate. I look forward to coming back again after the next season and seeing how that one went awesome.
Speaker 1:It was great to be on.