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
Ex-Wallaby Reveals How Culture Is Really Made | Ben Darwin
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“Culture” is the most overused word in sport, and we’ve both heard it used as a lazy explanation for everything from blowout losses to surprise championships. So we put the uncomfortable question on the table with Ben Darwin from Game Line Analytics: is culture a load of crap, or is it just misunderstood? What follows is a grounded, data-informed look at what culture actually looks like when you strip away the mystique and focus on behaviors you can see, coach, and repeat.
We dig into normative behaviors and why they’re often mistaken for some special team aura. Ben makes the case that stability and retention create the conditions for cohesion, and cohesion is what removes ambiguity on the field. When people stay, they learn each other’s timing, roles, and cues, and execution gets cleaner under pressure. We also talk about the darker side of the story: teams can win while carrying bad behavior, and those problems often surface later when results slide and the “culture” narrative flips overnight.
From there we get practical: why copying successful teams can backfire, why you should build a progression instead of stealing someone’s endpoint, and how smart leaders use meetings, visuals, and technology to close understanding gaps quickly. Ben also shares coach-ready advice like learning a new sport to remember what it feels like to be a beginner, and deliberately unlearning a skill to appreciate how hard change really is. If you care about team culture, leadership, cohesion, and performance in rugby and beyond, this one will sharpen your thinking. Subscribe, share it with a coach or captain, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.
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Welcome And The Big Question
SPEAKER_00Culture is oftentimes used as kind of like a solvable. Like if we don't know what's wrong, then it's culture. Or we don't understand what's right, then it's culture. If I if I was a coach now, I would go and learn a new sport. If you're just responding to what everyone else is doing and trying to copy it, what everyone else is doing, you're just playing in everyone else's hands. You create a good place and treat people well, then people will stay. You can start to establish high levels of normative behaviours, which means we all do things the same way, which means we all understand each other, we all know what each other's doing, and therefore we get great outcomes because we have high cohesion.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to Coach of 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. Today's guest is Ben Darwin. He's back again, and we're here to chat about all things culture. He needs no introduction, game line analytics, the data that's providing some pretty heavy-hitting stats, which all coaches should pay attention to. Ben, welcome to the Coaching Culture podcast once again. And I'm going to start right off the bat with you, my friend.
SPEAKER_00Is culture a load of crap? So, my first question to you is, Benjamin, is why do you ask? Why do you ask that question? Because of anyone, you would probably have the best view of this. You've interviewed that many people around culture and what it means and its impact.
SPEAKER_01I asked that question of you, Benny, because some of your data uh suggests things which is a little bit contrarian to popular belief. And culture has a sort of a mystic about it, a popular concept around it that is really important. And I believe it is. Um, and that's a gut feel. And certainly all the people I talk to on this show say that as well. However, you offer a very unique, different perspective. Actual measurement on stuff, on the data of different parts of the game, which no one else in the world probably has access to. So your opinion on this is a good one, it's an interesting one. And I'm coaches could take it or leave it, but I'd love to hear from the horse's mouth. That's why I ask.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. So so I think I think the first things first is culture is oftentimes used as kind of like a solvable. Like, if we don't know what's wrong, then it's culture. Or if we don't understand what's right, then it's culture. So why does a Melbourne storm win? Well, they've got a great culture. Okay, why aren't they winning anymore? Their culture's changed. Well, has it? Is it what's changed about it? Well, obviously, because they're not winning anymore. Right? Like like they have the same people in that organization, right? From a numbers perspective, we can see why the storm isn't winning as what it used to. But that's that's our realm, right? And that's more statistical, that's more objective. But I think the first thing to understand is what is culture, like as you define it. So how do you define it?
SPEAKER_01I think for me, there's a there's a number of ways, but I I like the one that just says it's the way we do things around here. And I love the c the phrasing of just it's the glue which glues everything about what you're doing together. And whether that's the X's and O's, and that's the on-field, off-field, if it's the relationship, it's the partners, I just like that concept that culture is the glue in any team, which keeps everyone together.
SPEAKER_00So so if what you are saying is true and culture doesn't matter, what would we see? No, mate, I d I think culture does matter. Okay, no, but no, but if if let's put that to one side for a second. So let's say so if culture does matter, if it doesn't matter, if it doesn't affect performance, what would we see around the world in sport?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I see what you're saying. If it doesn't matter, and if culture's got no relevance on anything, I think you'd find what would you find to indiv individualistic type teams? You would find a very business-like atmosphere where you just come and do your thing and leave. And you would have a very transactional type setup for team sports that almost become like individual sports.
SPEAKER_00So I think I think that's that's definitely one way of looking at it. And I think there is teams that are like that that do win. Right? There is also, also, if you think about culture as behaviors, good behaviours versus bad behaviors, or you know, doing the right thing, or, you know, cleaning the sheds or sweeping the sheds, as as people
Defining Culture Without The Mystique
SPEAKER_00might say. You know, is there teams that have bad behaviours that win? 100%. Here's, I think, the problem with it in many ways, is and I particularly heard this around a team in Melbourne and the AFL, and they won the AFL, and then a lot of the stuff about their behavior came out later. And one of the coaches was talking to one of the players, and the players said, It's all that stuff around our culture just complete rubbish. Like, like we're not any different from anyone else. And so I found that quite interesting because everyone made that that connection about that team. And then when the team, when the team was still winning, even when the bad behaviors came out, they started saying, Well, they have a culture where they can deal with bad behavior and they're still staying on track. So then people basically started to adjust the story a little bit. Now, it's it's so hard to put your hand on, but we put put to put down into something specific. But the thing I would like to say is what you're describing is normative behaviors, right? So we do things a certain way. And that could be the way you pick up the ball, the way you get up off the ground, the way you work hard for each other. But it's hard to become to get to a point where there's a differentiation between what we do on the field and what we do off the field. And then there's always the bits in between, right? So we we strap our legs like this. That's well, that's an off the field, but it also affects on the field. We tie our shoelaces up like this. So Joan Wooden was actually really big on that. Like first thing he taught him is to tie the shoelaces. We pass like this, right? Or we we get you to get up off the ground like this. That's cultural and it's behavioral, right? We want people to get up quickly, but we also have a hard-working culture, whatever it might be. So those normative uh behaviors get established. We know with high cohesion teams, because people have been together so much and they generally haven't been anywhere else, that the normative behaviors are extremely well established. Right. And so what people start to see is well, they see, well, they all do this together. Therefore, they must have a really strong culture. But it's also a product of cohesion. If I bring in a guy from another club, or if I bring in a coach from another place, he's going to change the way we do things, whether it be on the field, the patterns we use, the plays we use, the way we get up off the ground, whatever we might believe, he's going to sometimes try to change everything or change nothing. And we know when they do try to change things, that it makes it harder for everyone because they have to learn a new skill and unlearn the old skill. So, so here's here's my thing is the more stable you are, the easier it is to establish normative behaviors. Normative behaviors are regarded as a culture, strong culture or non-strong culture. Right? But but whether those behaviors are the same as the Nazis or whether those behaviors, you know, good bad behaviors, but they all they were on the same page, right? They're all on the same page. People have actually said to me, the Nazis had a very strong culture. They just did things in a certain way that maybe people didn't necessarily agree with. We know they were very, very effective at what they did. Right? In the early days of the war, they were they were basically a three to one, they were they were beating everyone else. It wasn't until everything stretched on that the other opposition started to develop more cohesion that actually things, the tides started to turn, right? But if we if we just understand that normative behaviors, which are highly established, are a very good sign of doing things well, then culture is extremely important if all those normative behaviors, including everything you do on the field. The other part to this is like, are there are people good or are people bad? And I would say culture is very, therefore, if it's good or bad behavior, it's very highly related, correlated to success, because if you have a bunch of people who are not treating each other well, what are they going to do? They're going to leave, right? If you leave, you have high levels of turnover. If you have high levels of turnover, you get, you know, terrible outcomes because no one understands each other very much, and you don't get any normative behaviors, you don't get cohesion on the field. So I I think it's circular. I think the answer is it's circular. You create a good place and treat people well, then people will stay. You can start to establish high levels of normative behaviors, which means we all do things the same way, which means we all understand each other, we all know what each other's doing, and therefore we get great outcomes because we have high cohesion. But there's lots of different ways to drive cohesion up. So smaller countries, for example, have high cohesion because there's no one else to choose. Right? Larger countries tend to have lower cohesion, like England and France, because they have so much choice. You have to, you know, there's always someone else playing well. Right? Like there was times when I was playing for Australia where there was literally there wasn't many of many of us left, right? There weren't many of us left. It got down to being L. Baxter at one stage is like, who's up next, right? Then the tw the 1999 World Cup, the only healthy props contracted in Australia that won at the World Cup was me and Rod Moore, and Rod Moore went, and I was the next, and I'd just broken my arm. I I was the next cab, I was told later I was the next cab off the rank, right? So so like we got really close to that point to actually running out of people when we won that World Cup. Yeah. So yeah, so so I think I think that the the answer to driving cohesion isn't necessarily cultural, but but it helps. But I certainly know of of high cohesion teams that have some absolutely diabolical behaviors of their players. And what I would say is that most of the time when teams win, the bad behavior just comes out later. They're all behaving badly, they're all behaving like footballers. It's just when they win, it gets hidden because the town they're supporting or the town that's helping them win overlooks them. You know, oh, they're just my boys, you know. So what if they're out and about having a bit of fun? Boys will be boys. Well, that's what you say when your team's winning. When your team's losing in their their bad behavior, this is endemic of the culture of this club.
SPEAKER_01I like it, mate. I like it. And I when you were talking about that war imagery with things, I couldn't help but think of like an ancient Spartan phalanx where they they so cohesive, they all look after the person on their right, I think, one shield on one hand, and then at certain times, and you can just imagine like if you're that in sync when you're protecting that guy on the other side of you, and when you move your shield, he stabs his pole, and then you move it back, and it's a highly cohesive organization, right? But then it only would take one guy that didn't know what to do there, which would open up the hole, which would essentially once you get through that hole, you'd tear through the middle of it, right?
SPEAKER_00Really good sign of of poor cohesion
Norms, Cohesion, And Stability
SPEAKER_00in the military is friendly fire, right? Being being hit by your own people. I didn't know he was over there. Our communications were down, or we didn't, we didn't, this part of this business didn't talk to this part of this business. Yeah. Right? Just being able to uh understand fundamentally where everyone is at the same time and what everyone's action is going to be. Which is why, you know, larger militaries like larger countries in rugby and and football, they just find it that much harder because it's such a bigger ship to turn around. And when you get more people, you get more movement, you get more movement, you get more turnover, like that.
SPEAKER_01What would you say if we continue this war metaphor when you're talking about normative behaviours, and if we go back to the sort of like a if we say we're crossing, we're running across the trenches in World War I or two, and you're running that is a chaotic environment. And I can understand the normative behaviours if you know where people are, etc., you're gonna probably do better if you know that if you run here, you're gonna have support on this side because that's what you've always done. However, there's probably a little piece of this cultural piece too, right? Um, around the motivations. Like what would make you go hard and do that? And that would be a piece which would be a little bit of a magic piece, wouldn't you think? What are those motivations which are hard to measure and be so objective about? Like what makes a person run harder into that, into the teeth of something, versus those that shy away. And that's the kind of other aspect of the cultural piece, I think, is adding meaning and purpose for what you're doing. And where would you think that would sit in that little circular piece that you said? You said people would stay, then there'll be normative behavior, which will create a cohesion, which will lead to a great outcome. But in and around that, there's got to be some motivational pieces, right? Like to make people want to do that normative behavior and go hard at it and become the best at it.
SPEAKER_00I think, I think people struggle, you know, patriotism is about getting people to do things for people they don't know. Right? Yeah. And so you try to bring in that kind of love of country and things like that. But I think in the in the moment of the battle, when things are difficult, I think a lot of patriotic people have not have not acted when they've needed to, or and I'm not to judge that scenario. I'm just saying that it's extremely difficult to to act on the behalf of people beyond yourself. So generally you're gonna do it for the guys around you. Right? Now, if you've just gone into an army and there's a bunch of guys all going over the top who you don't know, does that, do you think, make you braver or give you more ambiguity? Definitely the latter. Yep. So so I think the thing would be is what is the driver of that theoretical magic, as you call it, is going to be we've been in this together for a long time. You've done things to help me, I've done things to help you. Let's go over this together. And I'm, you know, I'm I'm getting and and hopefully too is that you have an understanding about someone's strengths and weaknesses, and you know, one of the biggest things we find in cricket, for example, is it really helps for a captain to know the strengths and weaknesses of his troops, of his players, and how to use those resources. So that's a that's sort of more of a leadership component of understanding. But I I think basically is that whilst not to bring it down to sheer numbers, you're going to want to act on behalf of people you know more. Would that be fair to say?
SPEAKER_01That'd be fair to say, but I'd also argue just knowing that there's a there's another piece to that. Like if you I I'd imagine a lot of office spaces where people have worked with people for 20 years and they don't particularly like them, they just work with them, so they do know them, but there's not that little bit of knowing with a mate or someone you really enjoy. Yep, that adds another little piece of of the magic. And I think in any team, the more you can feel like you know someone well and you enjoy them and you're and you're and you're connected to them, that that adds more in my head.
SPEAKER_00Can I offer you a counter to that?
SPEAKER_01Yes, Benny.
SPEAKER_00Jordan, Jordan and Pippen. Jordan and Pippen and who was the other guy? Oh, the the rebounder? Rodman. Rodman. Rodman said he never spoke to them off the court. Pippen and Jordan never went to dinner together at any point.
SPEAKER_01Did they not? It's really interesting. Because when you listen to some of those the pod uh documentaries on them, yeah, you would think they're a lot tighter than that then.
SPEAKER_00Griegs and Larkam are not that close. Like, like they get on fantastically, but I wouldn't never say they're best friends, so I might be wrong about that. You can have to ask them that. But certainly, there's tons of examples of people, you know, Albert and Garfunkel, right? Hundreds of hundreds of amazing, amazing groups who do amazing work who don't get on and don't like each other. So, so the answer to that question is would we see people who don't like each other winning? 100%, it happens all the time. You just have to look at the history of the strength cricket team, like warn and war. You know, absolute distaste for one another. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I like it, mate. I like it. But insane. It's it's yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's like a professional appreciation of each other.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think I think if I know what you're going to do, so so so let's let's take away, you know, you know, I might I might have been ill ill speaking in terms of Bernie and Georgie, but let's say, for example, they didn't get on. George knows where Bernie wants the ball. Right? He knows the speed of it, he knows when he puts his left foot down and when the ball's going to be released. That that's gonna it's gonna hit him at the right time. And I was talking to Nick Sturzaker, who's works with us internally, he was just talking about. I I asked Sam Cordingley too, actually. Sam Cordingley wants, who's the best number 10 you ever played with? He said Nathan Spooner, because they played with each other at Colts, right? And they built that relationship, or Foley and uh Nick Phipps. I think Nick Phipps said the same thing to me. Foley was easily his favorite favorite number 10. So it was just situational. They they were in sort of imprinted on each other in those early stages. So um, and Nick often talked about having a relationship with his 10 and knowing where the 10 was going to be. And oftentimes a cause of the mistrust is the 10 saying, hey mate, I don't want it there, I want it here. Ball's too high, I don't like it like that. You know, not doing things the way you want to be to be done. So I think I think what when you t when when somebody's doing things in the way you want, that also creates trust and understanding between each other, and I can trust that that person's gonna do it. And it's like, I don't like, you know, I don't like the way this person, I don't like the team this person supports, or I don't like this person's political views, but geez, he could put the ball in the right spot. And that works for me, and it works for him, you know, the way I do things works for him. And then you tend to get on with those people, and then when that relationship breaks, do you even notice that those relationships don't tend to be as useful anymore? Like you don't play with those guys and you don't hang out with them anymore because you were useful to each other each other in those times because you were doing things in the way you needed each other to do things. Love the way you so what so I don't know, yeah. I don't that that the the idea of magic, I suppose. I'm not saying I don't believe in magic, and and you know, internally we have lots of different views here about about things, and I I'm the hardliner. You know, Nick's Nick's much more like thoughtful about things, and I just I just bang on. I think it's I think I just try to point to where's where the evidence is. Where does the evidence take us? Let's just be as objective about it as we can. And the thing with culture is it's really hard to be objective about it. There's nothing you can measure, there's nothing you can measure about it. It doesn't mean it doesn't matter. It's like it's like sports psychology, it's really, really hard to measure its impact because it's so subjective.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's it's like um it's it's a sentiment you're trying to measure, right? Like a sentimental things, like how how people Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But we we we we know, I think I've talked to you about before, like small towns will have a different culture, right? They'll treat each other differently because they have to, they're gonna see each other every day, they're gonna say hi to each other. You go live in a big city, you can't say hi to everyone, you have to put your head down, you have to be isolated. That's a different culture, and that's just driven by geography, right? So it's just gonna be driven by the situation you're in.
SPEAKER_01Well, when we talk about things that are situational about your own stuff, like mate, where do you I know you have some thoughts on this too about you know, like how much do you do your own stuff versus copying other teams? I I know you've got a pretty staunch view on that one, right? Like copying successful teams is a massive mistake for exactly that reason because it's not specific to you, your geography, your region, or whatever it is about you, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think there's a couple of things here. First of all, is that is that generally people's strengths are a response to their weakness, right? So something that goes wrong. I've talked to you about the Shane Warren thing previously, haven't I? You know, Shane Warren, part of the reason why he became such a great leg spinner was he broke his legs when he was a kid and he was pushed around on a crate that made his forearms huge. And it's like, it's like, well, that's a huge thing towards leg spinning, having really strong arms, right? Because he wasn't other sports, he wasn't particularly successful. But that was a response to something that went wrong, right? So, so that that sort of incidentally became his strength. There are a lot of times, you know, rugby in Australia, we have to play in the backs, we become good at playing in the backs because we don't have the size and the forwards. So it's a so it's a response to something else. Now, let's take let's take the bulls, we've talked about them before. The bulls were in their heyday, you know, they're playing at altitude, they would kick to the corners, they had a great line out. That's a set of situations that created their ability to play, right? So if you go and copy what someone else is doing, you shouldn't be copying a a response to a weakness you don't have. But the second part is is that let's say you've got the you've you've got the uh the bull's way of playing, you try to take on the bull's way of playing, it's you're actually playing into their hands because they understand every part of it. You try to take on the bulls playing in the way they play in in that period of time, say seven to twelve, then they
Motivation, Meaning, And The “Magic”
SPEAKER_00it's like they get the first mover advantage because they don't they have every aspect of understanding of what the strengths and weaknesses of that system are. It's like you don't take on McDonald's making hamburgers, right? Because they know it so well that when you try to do things the same way, they'll know every weakness and everything you're gonna come up against. So the key is is to do things that are that are a response to your strengths, and then you're gonna be doing something differently and poorly at the start. Like we're gonna do something different, but we're gonna be bad at it until we build enough understanding of it. And then no one will copy it. And then by the time we get good at it, everyone will be so far behind. Now we have the advantage and we're in a different place. The other thing is that we often talk about if you want to beat a high cohesion team, you can't you can't outplay them on their terms. You have to take them to a different place. You have to make them do things they're not used to doing because there's different forms of cohesion, right? There's understanding between people, but there's also understanding of how to do something. If you make them do something you haven't done before, that will throw them off.
SPEAKER_01That breaks the cohesion.
SPEAKER_00Breaks the cohesion, at least of system, right? And so then now all of a sudden they're having to do things beyond their understanding, and so they start to act, you know, in different ways and not necessarily knowing how to respond to it. And so, like the more teams bend together, the more situations. They've responded to, but if you can take them outside of that, then you've got a shot at it, albeit a short-term one, right? Until they figure out how to stop it. It's like it's like in tennis, you know, when when Leighton Hewitt first came on, he beat Agassiz, and it was mainly part of it was, and I see this quite a bit, like then like a young guy will come out and he'll beat a number one, two, three, or four in the world, and then they'll figure him out. Take two or three games, they'll figure him out, and then the kid's got a problem because now everyone knows what he does. So it's like it's like, okay, now we have to adjust to that. But if you do decide to go down a path of trying to change what you're doing, I would change to something people haven't done before because at least at least you're gonna have to take people to a different place rather than copying, you know, a a system or a technique that that the really good like you can't take on the Panthers and the way the Panthers play. It's not gonna work. What would you say?
SPEAKER_01What would you say would be a big change that could be changed in rugby? Like what what elements got any ideas around that?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, I think I think if you look at the 91 World Cup final is England tried to play with width when they hadn't done it all tournament and tried to do it, try to outrun Australia and it was just playing completely into their hands. You know, I'm not I'm I don't know a lot of a lot of sort of technical aspects of rugby enough as some of the super coaches, but you know, trying to beat, you know, one of the big strengths of the of the of the Highlanders for quite a long time in the early 2010s was they would would put lots of players into the defensive rock.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_01I mean I saw those trainings actually.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so it's like, well, like, you know, you you you can either try to beat that with with resources, but if you do that with over-resourcing yourself, then the opportunity will come elsewhere in the field, right? Like that's exactly what they want you to do.
SPEAKER_01Well, the actual the review of that one, because they did turn over like an enormous amount of ball, but they did pile four to five guys into those breakdowns, so they didn't have much to counterattack with once they did get it. So they weren't converting a whole lot, but it was a shock and all tactics, and geez, it was tough to defend. Yeah. I love that. Well, here's one, like when we just just talking about this, just it comes to the top of mind for me, it's is even the concepts around most, certainly Australia and New Zealand teams particularly play with this sort of 1-3-3-1 sort of style, which for those that know rugby, it's like the pod system. And I always think that it's amazing how that's caught on and that's become the norm of how you play rugby, where you have three forwards and they hit it up and they pull out the back or they tip, or and it's so ingrained now as a system. I think people forget that it's actually that's just someone that's made that up somewhere along the line. And you can play rugby a million ways, you don't have to do that, but that seems to be the default pattern that most places go to, unless you go to France and some of those places where it's just seemingly chaotic, but we fall into the the headspace thinking of that that's that's our normative behaviour, that's how rugby's supposed to be played. Where I would suggest that's a that's a cool one to to tinker with if you because you learn how to defend that as well, because you're you're up against your own training so often.
SPEAKER_00I think uh you know there with there was I remember in that sort of early 2000s of the Brumbies, oftentimes because you'd been together so long, you then had time to start experimenting with things. Like the really well-built clubs will actually start to progress something and taking it further and taking it further. And I think like one thing we we did was we would bring out uh they would start using witches' hats, like witch hats this high, and then putting a ball on top of it and then doing a ridiculous, ridiculously high kick for the for the restart. Yeah. Right? Putting and then eventually they banned it, right? So if you're getting banned doing things, that's a pretty good sign you're trying to take things a different direction. Yes. I know some of the early experiments, you know, with Eddie Jones's stuff with pattern play, you know, things like 21 and you know, to go two ways and then come back another. You know, I remember when that was all kind of starting to kind of take to fruition and and at the beginnings, God, it was I remember we had three games in what was called the Rico Cup at the Brumbies, and we were terrible at it. And then one game we did it really, really well against the Reds. I think we lost the game, but we did the pattern really well, and then two years later we were just flying with it. So it was like early days, it was it was sucked, it was it was sort of 97-98. Brumbies, I think, came second last in 98. 99 we came fifth, then we came second, then we lost a final, won a final, something like that. So it took time to kind of all come through, and as the cohesion was building within the team. But I think if you're not if if you're just if you're just responding to what everyone else is doing and trying to copy it, what everyone else is doing, you're just playing in everyone else's hands. Whereas I think if you gotta progress things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I even see mate, and you might know this better. I'm not actually quite too sure of you know the how the South Africans came up with that tap move, do a line out in the middle of the field and set up a mall. And that's now spread. You see a lot of teams didn't a school do it first?
SPEAKER_00I could have. I'm not too sure who did it first. I think a school or a 21's team did it, yeah, and then then they did it. But I think maybe that could have been Rassi doing it, telling someone to do it in South Africa, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably. But I I still don't understand why there's the line out component. I I think I might be missing something there, but Because you can't because you can't hit the lifters.
SPEAKER_00You can't tackle the lifter of somebody lifting someone.
SPEAKER_01Is that the technicality of that?
SPEAKER_00I think so. I might be wrong about that.
SPEAKER_01Because it's not a line out, it's just a man.
SPEAKER_00No, but if on a kickoff receipt you can't hit a lifter as well, can you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, that's probably why they do it then. I was wondering. I'm not well, and I would suggest do a lot of people know that.
SPEAKER_00Because a lot of people, a lot of people, you know you know, in game, for example, if you try to set up a mall, it's almost impossible. Right? Because people just bring you down every time you try to do it. Because as soon as the guy gets the ball, you hit him. Whereas in this scenario, if he's in the air, you can't hit him, right? You've got to wait till he comes down and you can't hit the lifters. So that lets them set up because trying to set up a rolling mall when the everyone's on the ground and the bulls on the ground, don't bot don't bother. It's really hard to do.
SPEAKER_01I love this. Oh, there we go. Learned something, man. Well, when we're talking to teams then, mate, like who are the teams? Well, I'll give you one to start with not so long ago with the Hurricanes absolutely smashed are the Chiefs in the finals of the Super Rugby. Now, are they well, what's their cohesion like in terms of like for me, they just seemed like a team that was on fire cohesively. Because like when you I know they had a lot of guys that played 50 games throughout the year and they had one that played a hundred, but it just when you when you went through the names on paper, it you wouldn't have said they were 60 points better than the Chiefs player for player. What do you what do you see when you see performances like that pretty consistently towards the back end of the season and for a lot of the season too?
SPEAKER_00So I'm annoyed because Simon's been banging on about the the hurricanes now for two years, my business partner, that they were gonna be winning titles and stuff, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he he looks at the numbers more than I do. So I was annoyed in that way.
SPEAKER_01But uh You mean you didn't put um a massive uh bet on because you knew they were they were about to come good?
SPEAKER_00No, well he he just he was always just commenting hurricanes are looking fantastic this year, and a lot of it comes off the back of Wellington. Like we talked a lot about singular feeders and their impact previously. Yes, we have. So a lot of a lot of Wellington guys in that system have kind of been brought through, but you know, I think I think in the we did a preseason thing this year and we basically said there's five have and five have nots. Uh sorry, six haves and six have nots in Super Rugby. So six have cohesion, five don't. And all six made the finals and the five didn't. So that was the the have-nots was Waratars, Moana, Fiji, Highlanders, Force. Is that right? Yeah, that's the five. And then and then obviously the the Brumbies, the Reds, and the uh and four of the five New Zealand teams were the haves. And so if the thing, the only thing I would say is that statistically in that final, uh Hurricanes did have a strong
Why Copying Winners Backfires
SPEAKER_00advantage over the Chiefs, numbers-wise. You mean sort of connection-wise? Yeah, just like like there's there's obviously I can't go into too much of the IP, but there's a whole bunch of different numbers we look at, and on the most important numbers, Hurricanes had a pretty good advantage. If if the Chiefs, if that Chiefs team was playing, say, the force, they would have put 40 on them. But hurricanes were just built so significantly well across the paddock, there just wasn't really a bunch of weaknesses in any way whatsoever. And what you'll tend to find is in finals, whatever weaknesses you have during the season may not show up until you play really, really good teams, and they're really, really good teams, those weaknesses sometimes start to creak a little bit, you know, and then and then way it went. But I wouldn't have said I wouldn't have said 60, I would have said more like 20.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well mate, are they so who else is good in world sport right now? Who who are some of the most cohesive teams? We've got the world soccer is in. I know you have you know interest in that. Who's who's cohesive at the moment? Who who's your big picks on some of the stuff?
SPEAKER_00I mean, the thing with cohesion is that is it you can you can change it in one game, right? Like like the team Argentina normally pick in this World Cup. Two first two games, fantastic. This game today, they made nine changes. But one thing is that that group's been together so long they actually can deal with change. If you remember, like when when the Waratars make changes because of their systems, they make a change, it's a whole bunch of people that never played together. Or with, say, the Crusaders, they make changes because most of them played Crusaders together or Canterbury and the Juniors, they don't have as much drop-off. Does that make sense? So a lot of a lot of the things that come through cohesion are structural and they're not even be coach-related. I think that if you look at the what people are doing and what actually matters, I think Rasi is amazing. So one thing is they they have these meetings they talk about, which is what is it, upkeep meetings or uh I'm gonna I could I can only get the right turn of phrase for it, but they basically don't do any training, they just sit and talk about how they want to play. And I think they even have uh each of them gets a controller and they run through the patterns and they have to control themselves on the big screen. Does that make sense? So they're all just basically going through the visuals of what the patterns are going to be. And I'm I'm a really big believer in like you don't have to do things on the field. Like in rugby, you know, triggers, triggers that people have been using for lineouts have only been around for about 20 years, my understanding, which is you actually do the lineouts without doing the actual throwing. You just actually like you throw the ball, but no one jumps. You just get to the right positions, you do the right plays. I think there's a whole bunch of really interesting areas you can cover off of learning detail without actually having to be on your feet or or necessarily be outrunning or using the physicality of it. Just helping players to understand what are the roles I need to do, what are the situations I need to do. And that's that's from a cohesion, that's where you always need to make up the gaps, right? Whenever you've got a team, you've got lots of gaps in understanding. You'll have gaps in interpersonal understanding, and how you make up those gaps is the biggest thing. And I think RASI's been really good at bringing people into the system, helping them understand what they need to do, what the important points are, and then and then finding every way you possibly can to help help people understand what they need to do, even if it's not on your feet, it's in the the detail. And I think technology is really good for that now, too.
SPEAKER_01Isn't it funny though just that I guess that's part of cohesion is just knowing your role really well, isn't it? Like the better you know something, the better it's gonna go.
SPEAKER_00And and also, but also what what the other person's going to be doing. What's this picture going to look like? Yes. Right? And then once you understand your picture, you can start to understand how to respond. You know, I I probably probably had I had a week with Victor Matfield in Japan and talking about his seven-man line out, and it was just unbelievable about his ability to respond to what the opposition was doing. It's like if they do this, I do this, they do this, I do this. It's like he'd built the perfect line out that that that no matter what the opposition did, they couldn't beat it. They couldn't take it apart. And I think I think that's what you start to actually be able to do is once you build a system that is that is strong and and and has a good understanding of what all your options are, then you start to know how to respond to the actions of others. So no matter what they do, easy, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.
SPEAKER_01I think it's important that's a good reference point, mate, because if we talk specifically line outs and we talk Victor Matfield and you talk about what he does, and he does this, this, and this, and he's the best in the world at that. However, what we referenced earlier was a propensity for coaches and players to then copy what Victor Matfield does, and they're just not able to do it like he does it, because it's not in their realm half the time. Like he's he's very gifted, I think. And I see a lot of coaches that bring in a gazillion moves because that's what the pro teams do. Whereas if you just had two options and you nailed those roles and everyone knew what they're doing, they would be enough at at say a junior level, so at an under 16 level, instead of trying to mirror every move and be Victor Matfield, uh because you're copying someone else's thing which isn't specific and relevant for yourself. Would you agree with that concept?
SPEAKER_00I I also think too is that that Victor is at the end of a progression. Right? And that progression's been going for 20 years. And this simple, you know, this simple like this oops, sorry, this piece of technology is the end of a 50-year cycle. Looks pretty simple, right? But it's but it's been about a whole bunch of different developments that have taken place to that point. So you don't copy the phone, you don't copy the end game, you copy the progression. You have make a progression of what you do and you go through. So so he might have he might have had 50 different line outs that he's tried on the way to getting to this perfect line out that's taught him about the his own strengths and and and what an opposition can do and things like that. And if you just copy the endpoint, you're in deep trouble because you don't understand the progression of how you got there. So I I always we talked about this before. I think about the guys who make samurai swords, you know, like when you learn to make a samurai sword, you start off on, I'm gonna learn how to how to how to heat coal. Right? That's the that's the first thing you have to do. And I think, you know, one of the questions you were sort of gonna put to me is like, what do you do when you get to a club? You don't, you don't introduce the end, you introduce the pr the progression. So if we want to play, let's say, let's say we want to play a heavy defensive breakdown game, right? Then what are the things we needed to do in order to do that? Well, we're gonna have to be fitter than everyone else. Right? So if we're gonna do that, how are we gonna do it? And we're gonna have to be really, really good at entering the breakdown effectively, and we're gonna have to be strong. So how do we do that? So you have to keep going back and going back and going back. To begin with, it's like, okay, well, can our are our body types even capable of that? Well, if they're not, then we're either gonna recruit people who can or we're gonna have to adapt to what we want to do. I always think you should begin with, what can we do now? What are we good at? And then let's treat this as a progression around, okay, well, what how do we play to our strengths? It's like Eddie Jones talks a lot about I'm not gonna, as a Japanese, we're not gonna take people on physically. We want to take rucks, you know, what's the average ruck speed? Two seconds. I want to make it half a second. Right? So they just can't deal with their speed. That works for Japan. That's not gonna work for anyone else. That wouldn't work for me as a prop at 130 kilos. I'm not doing that, right?
SPEAKER_01Mate, that is that's outstanding, mate, that that don't focus on the outcome aspect and and what other people see. So in that Victor Matfield one, you'd you'd almost, if you want to be doing what he's done, you've got to go right back to watching your truckload lineouts for starters to get the level of understanding in the first place. You can't just expect to.
SPEAKER_00It sort of mirrors my experience too, because like when we started with this work, right, I I got asked questions when I was at the Rebels, like how how long is it gonna take for us to win? That was the first question. And then I started researching that. Then I started reach researching other contexts about how teams recruit, and then I was like, well, this is a philosophy. So TWI as we called it, which was basically how a club's built. And then we would find there were examples when that did not work, right? There was a netball team in the UK that took the entire starting team from another team and brought it in. Didn't develop any of the players, and they won the comp. And it's like, so it's actually just about understanding each other then. Right? But what's the most but here's the problem is three years later they were broken, they left. Right? So it worked in the short term, but not in the long term. But so then so we started off at a level, we call it A level A, which is philosophical. Then we started from a data perspective, but then we're like, well, it seems to be more important in certain positions, right? And then it was like, well, it seems to be more important if you've had more shared experience recently. It seems to be more important if, you know, if somebody comes in and you've been playing a certain way and you change the way you play, that'll affect it as well, right? Because now they're doing something you're not used to. And so we've now got to E, F, G, H, and then we end up with like all of these hundreds of difference of points of data around teams about understanding why they win and why they don't, or how they're built and where it's going to lead you and what effective looks like, and even even which in which positions are more important, but also too is like if if you know we were talking about with Liverpool, do you mind if I go off of this tangent? With Liverpool, we were looking at Mohammed Salah. Yep, okay. So we're looking at we're looking at we're looking at Liverpool. Liverpool, not this year, the year before, they signed one player who played one game and they won the comp. Not saying that was connected, but it just happened to be that way. And Salah was playing beautifully, and he was playing it it we're looking at the relationships around him and how they were established and how that worked, and we're giving objective markers to it. And then the start of this year was playing terribly because they'd spent 250 million in the offseason and now he's surrounded by a bunch of people he doesn't know, and then we're going, oh, look at the markers around him. Terrible. Everyone passing to him that's never passed to him before, right? But he was being individually panned for how he was playing, right? But it was like, well, is that him or is that the situation? And so that's where we're trying to get to now. It's like understanding people now. If you have a player that can play really well in a badly built team, that's a huge sign. Like if you can play well, and particularly in a position where cohesion is really important. So if you have a center playing well with the Highlanders, it's a poor, you know, it's not poorly built, but it's it's a low cohesion team, and that's a really important position. Get that guy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So yeah, people that stand out in average teams have got something, don't they?
SPEAKER_00They're in in yeah, in certain positions, 100%. But but like I know with my club in Sydney, we used to basically only seem to produce props and wingers, because we're a sort of a high turnover club, so the positions in which people didn't necessarily need as much collective skill but individual skill would do better.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is a this is a great recruitment thing, isn't it? Like when you're looking at certain positions at certain places.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's the conversation we're having with some of the clubs we're involved in, is like, let's look at what you have internally, but also let's look at what there is externally and how we judge it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love them. Do you think you can um develop that cohesion quickly? Like to get them more schooled up?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's like it's is there's always a law of diminishing returns with understanding, right? So the first thing you do, first time you and I do something together, if it requires understanding, we will be catastrophically terrible, and then we'll be fundamentally better, and then but each time we we do it more together, we'll improve, but the returns
Measuring Cohesion And Smart Recruitment
SPEAKER_00will be less. Yes. So the three hundredth game between Gregan and and Bernie didn't make much difference. So so so the early gains are always made at the start, right? But the problem is is that in those early gains, sometimes you are up against you're under no pressure and sometimes you're under massive amounts of pressure. And so it doesn't, it doesn't have it doesn't have good outcomes in an even way. Right? So let's let's use let's use rugby's terms. So let's say, let's say the hurricanes are the most cohesive team, they certainly win the final, right? And let's say you've got a you've got a center pairing who you want to look at how they defend, okay? And you come up against the Moana, and they're great, and they defend fantastically well because they have time. Because the Moana, they've just got a new 10, they've got a new 12, they've got a new nine. Everything's doing slowly, and you can defend to that, okay? So that's your first game. Second game, you then play the the uh the force, for example, right? And they're they're they're let's say they're a three out of five for cohesion, and they actually deal with that pretty well, okay. Then your third game, you come up against the hurricanes who just tear you a new one, right? Tear you apart completely. I remember talking to uh James Holbeck, and I think he was saying that he was he was playing a test once with Jason Little, and they were up against the All Blacks, and he said after the first line break, we just looked at each other and we knew there was nothing we could do. It was just we were toast, right? So so let's say the hurricanes tear you a new one. Those two guys have not underperformed in any of those three scenarios. But what they've come up against is they've come up in their third game against a center pairing and their 70th game together and a great 9-10 combination, great cohesion, great understanding. And so they're just not ready yet. But just because the hurricanes put 50 on you doesn't mean you shouldn't stick with the same pair. But they're only going to be looking bad because that was stress tested, right? So the rope doesn't break unless somebody's, you know, unless enough enough pressure is put on it until it breaks. So that's one thing is for us is like we want to be able to tell you this is not well built yet, but or this is well built. If it's not well built yet, it's going to break. But just expect that that breaking is part of that scenario.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that, man. It's a good analogy. Well, I guess what one little thing I'd be interested in your thoughts on is um in order to build up cohesion a little bit quicker, is this concept, particularly in pre-season, a lot of teams do, is sort of going away together, like camps and in those pre season overseas tours and things like that. What's your gut feel, or what does even the data suggest on that? Like, because often when you come back from those overseas tours, and I've been on numerous ones of those, you do feel like connected and tighter and like you feel like you know people better. Do you reckon it it's got
SPEAKER_00So if cohesion in some ways is about time, you know, I think I think there's the emotional context. So let's let's take the emotional context first of getting to know each other better. What our research would probably say is that having an emotional connection to someone allows you to have conversations about the stuff that's important. You know, the uncomfortable conversations. When you run this line and or you're defensively, you're shooting out, you're doing my head in, mate, you gotta hold, stay with me, you know, whatever it might be. So so and and in terms of like, mate, I see you're late for training every day. You gotta turn up, start turning up. You know, whatever's going on in your life, I can help you with that. You know, people feel comfortable talk about it, but the outcome is they're on they start to be more on time, people start to trust you more in games, whatever there might be. So I think I think uh you know, understanding each other is extremely helpful to having the difficult conversations, but just you know, I've known my sister my whole life, that doesn't mean we can play 10-12 together, right? Right? So so on that part we would be starting at zero. Okay. Now I think that the what we actually found was with COVID is is, and I I don't know if I've mentioned this before, and because what is this, our fifth conversation? We we took a lot, mate, don't we?
SPEAKER_01And we should talk so much off air too, mate, that it's it'll it's hard to remember.
SPEAKER_00It's hard to remember what we do until don't talk about in COVID in the AFL and rugby league. So these are the only two teams we sort of found, because COVID was really interesting because it took a lot of things off the table, but the teams that were having to be tick forced together in the hotels started to outperform the numbers. And and I remember the Warriors coach, who's now the Cowboys coach, was saying, you know, normally they finish training and their their brothers will come pick them up and and then they leave. Whereas they just kept training, they just kept sitting there and talking about it, right? And I know with the Brumbies where we all lived together. I know statistically there was some evidence there that I think that helped. Because I would, you know, like I remember I lived with Des Two of I, I don't actually remember Des he. I do, he played down Southland, actually for the Yeah, and and I was so bad at the plays, I would just put them all up on the wall and I'd just go through them with him at nights, right? And I remember Nick Stezak, I think he and his number 10 lived together, and they would just be sitting there just talking about stuff, right? And you know, um Joey Johns, you know, this is a silly example, but they were saying, you know, in the 97 grand final, the greatest grand finals in the history of rugby league, because I'm a Newcastle Knights fan, you know, something came back to them that they'd been watching together on television 10 years earlier about how Spud Carroll, when he defends close to the line, tends to drift to the wing, right? And if Spud Carroll was literally there and he picked up the ball and chased him, and that created the hole that then he put Darren Albert through the hole, right? And it was just like this little thing, but they both knew, right? Yeah so so everything counts, but everything counts in terms of information on the field. That's what I would say. So if you do these trips, it's like you're gonna be using this time, it's like cramming for an exam, right? You're getting more time together to do the things you need to do, to have the extra conversations, to say, I'm not sure on this, help me with this. You know, in the in the team room or whatever it is. So I think that's where it does help.
SPEAKER_01We actually have a cool example of that. We've had we've got a halfback and a prop who's a big ball running prop for our first 16. And they do this little play, the old Greggan ball inside, you know, the backflip as he runs across and flicks it in.
SPEAKER_00That's ball.
SPEAKER_01Yep, wh whatever you'd like to call it. And they do it often. He's probably scores a try a game through it. And I crack up when other coaches say, Oh, you guys must put a lot of work into that. And there's no work into that whatsoever. It's just those two are so connected through all the years of school together, playing in every age group together, they just do that. There's no it's act it's not a scripted thing at all. The coaches of that team don't even say to do it, like it's not practice at all. They just know each other so well and they enjoy doing it, they chew the fat over how they're gonna do it. It's their own little thing, and it comes across like it's a team set play or something, but it's just a little connection piece between two blokes that have spent a lot of time together.
SPEAKER_00Well, that was that was the try in the World Cup final, you know. Gregen bounces out, hits hits Owen Finnegan from the Brumbies on the S ball, Owen goes 30 metres up the field, scores, you know. Like it's and it's just I don't know how that play developed, it was already there when I got there. They never let me do it. But but you know, but that was that's that organically arrived, I imagine, over time, right? Yes. Through through the strengths and weaknesses of both guys, and that was something that was a bit of a specialty, and it literally played out in a final. Yeah in a World Cup final.
SPEAKER_01Mate, it's so awesome. That's that cohesion is the hidden architect of performance, and that is the performance right there.
SPEAKER_00You should come work for us.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I've got a few of them if if you want a few more. Talent doesn't disappear, cohesion does.
SPEAKER_00I like that.
SPEAKER_01People overestimate talent and underestimate familiarity.
SPEAKER_00Well, actually, there was a great quote by Tom Brady this week. Tom Brady was doing a podcast and he said, you know, and I you have to if you could find it, is he did an interview with uh so you know some of the English guys uh from Man United, Harry uh Roy Keane and those guys. Yeah, and he was saying consistency is the most continuity is the most undervalued thing in sport. And he said that's we built the Patriots upon it. And I know like their numbers were spectacular during that time. And he talked about how you know oftentimes all the little nuances of understanding between each other. There was a guy who there was a guy who was a wide receiver or a tight end with the was it Gorkowski, but if if Brady would go on holidays, he would go on holidays where he was, just in case Brady wanted to work out and they would do sessions with him, and it's like just just to get that little edge, right? Because they couldn't train as a group in the offseason, but if he wanted to throw, he could be there to catch for him, right? So I think like like all of those little things make a huge, huge sort of uh contribution. And the other thing that Brady was saying was when you've been somewhere a long time, you actually understand what the problems are. And he said, you know, when my TV doesn't work, I get somebody coming in and they don't just fix the they don't just try to fix the TV, they try to fix the entire wiring of the whole place. And he said, that's the problem with coaches. They come in and they try to fix, they're trying to change everything. No, no, no, just fix the TV.
SPEAKER_01Right? What sort of advice would you give? Coach a listener today, if they did to change just one thing that would because of your work, what would what do you reckon is a good one for for a coach to change?
SPEAKER_00There's three things to this. One is if I if I was a coach now, I would go and learn a new sport or a new team sport that I've had nothing to do with before. Because most of the time coaches, coaches are generally ex-players, and and generally people hire them because they've been very in very successful teams. So they haven't probably been in a hello cohesion environment in a long time. Right? They haven't been in a low cohesion team in a long time because people don't generally hire coaches have lost their entire lives as players. So, so the and the problem for guys like that, and it was a problem for me because I was really lucky to be part of some good teams, is understanding what it's like for a player to be learning something new, right? And how hard that is. So, so like get yourself out of your comfort zone, go and learn how to do something new, like learn the violin or something like that, and actually begin with all the knowledge you have of your experiences, but actually begin with the fundamentals, and then I think that'll affect your ability to coach. And the other thing is, the other thing I would go and do is try to take a skill that you have and try to change that skill. Right? To which fundamentally means you have to unlearn something. So if you've been passing spirals left to right your entire life a certain way, change your hand grip on that and then try to and then try to execute it just as effectively, and then put yourself under pressure to try to still remember to do it at the right time. Because I think that that oftentimes a a coach will come into a club and has been doing something himself for a long period of time and go, Oh, that's easy, I can do that. Try to get the players to do it, and the players can't do it, or they struggle with it. So as a coach, go and go and do a skill that you've already been doing for a long time and try to unlearn that skill. And then you might start to think, hey, unlearning something's really hard. Maybe I need to cut back on how much I'm trying to change in this environment. Does that does that make sense? Like go through that experience yourself. So so learn something from blank of a blank canvas, but also do something where you have to change something that you're already doing. So it could be as simple as go and drive on go and drive in North America on the right-hand side of the road, see
Camps, Fast Cohesion, And Coach Advice
SPEAKER_00how comfortable that is. Right?
SPEAKER_01I think it's a lovely concept, particularly doing another sport that you have no idea about, because you're actually like it you're doing taking away the exercise of what you know, and you're actually learning the coaching art of how to get through to people to draw out good questioning and and those sort of skills, right? Like it's it's it's actually the craft of coaching to be able to coach a person rather than the skill. I think that's a really once you get good at something, you can tend to be able to just coach the skill. Whereas I think the middle point is coach the person the skill. And it's the coaching of the person and all the nuances around people that is the art of coaching. And by doing what you said there, I think is a wonderful way just to leap into the boiling hot cauldron and see how you go.
SPEAKER_00The other thing, the other way I sort of looked at it was if I was to come into a club, I think I think there's a couple of things here. So one is if if you if you're arriving at a club, I think it's really important to understand their tolerance for pain. Right? Like everyone interview when people interview for coaching jobs, they they basically generally say a whole bunch of things they they can't deliver on, but they think they can. Particularly if they're new to coaching, right? I can win a title and I'll fix it, right? And then they come into the environment, they're like, oh god, I can't fix this place. Right. But but I think one thing too is understanding its history. So one problem you often have with clubs is is their previous success. Right? So let's let's say you let's say you're playing a 20, 20 game season, if the teams just just got they've gone they've won 15, 16, 17, and they've won a title, then they've gone 12 the next season, and they've decided off the back of that, like we're a team that wins, we're gonna fire the coach. And the next year you come in and you you win nine, right? How do you not get fired in that scenario, right? And so I think that that's that's about tolerance because if the expectations from the club is one, they don't even sometimes even understand why they did win. So then when it goes awry, they don't understand what's going on there, they just want it to be turned around, right? And they'll generally blame it on a person, either a coach or a player or something, not themselves. So so that's a very different scenario than if you're a team who's gone three, five, six, nine. Right? So that to the that team's got a lot of tolerance for pain. And a lot of the big dynasties in sport have actually sort of come out of failure. If you look at the Lions when they came back, they were thrown out of the comp, came back into the comp, playing finals in two or three years. But they during that time they decided to do things differently. They grew their way out and they kept the same group together and then they, you know, off the back of the Lions and they won. Or if you look at the Crusaders when they first started, like their '96 season was horrendous, right? And they changed some things, but there was some tolerance for some pain there, right? The hard part is when you've got intolerance to pain, which is we win, we are better, we don't know why we're better, we just are better than everyone else. And so, so in that type of scenario, you've actually got less time to to fail, you know, or less time to not have success, unless they can understand exactly what's happened, right? What's taken place? And the and the hard part too is is that is that those type of places too, they'll look at the guys who are now generally on the board, who won, and they won't necessarily understand the context under which they played. So let's say they played in an ultra high cohesion team and they won titles, and now the team isn't built that way anymore, and they look at those players who look terrible, they're not they're not playing very well, there's a huge amount of misunderstanding, huge amount of mistakes, huge amount of ambiguity, and they say they don't have any pride in the jersey anymore, or they don't want to play for each other, or there's not a single first grader on the field. And I there's a specific club we we we we uh worked with, and uh at a certain point the coaches said, you know what, I don't think any of these players are up to it. And the owner said, No, no, no, you're gonna keep them. And I think four of them played for the British and Irish Lions, and then later on the coaches are saying, We always knew they were gonna be great. We always knew they were gonna be great players. Like, no, you want to get rid of these guys, right? So they don't necessarily always know who's gonna be great and who's not gonna be great, but oftentimes it's around the circumstances. So that's attribution bias. We overly attribute performance to the individual, not to the collective, and and so many times we make mistakes on that front of looking at a player going, he's just not up to it. I've got to get rid of him. Oh, well, it's the circumstances under which they're, you know, under which they're playing too.
SPEAKER_01Penny Darwin. Jeepers, these these chats go deep every time we have, and that's why we have so many of them, mate. That is that is our smooth hour, mate. We like to keep it to an hour because we will probably chat for a gazillion hours later, mate. But there is an absolute truckload of gold in there, mate. I'm not gonna summarise my top three, mate, because they're just there's so many good ones, mate. But I bloody appreciate your time. And I always walk away with a little bit of intrigue, mate. And I'll go back to that opening question, which we said, is culture a load of crap? And uh it's a you're the person that I asked that to because your insight is so different to so many people, mate, and it's when we're talking about this sort of stuff, it's always lovely to hear contrarian views and different views and and other perspectives, and you always shed some beautiful light from a different direction, mate, one that not everyone sees. So thank you, mate, for your time once again.
SPEAKER_00Well, when when I first when I first contacted you, I thought you were going to tell me to piss off. Because because there's a culture in culture podcast. I wonder if that's all it is. So I thought I'll give this guy a contact. And then what are we now? Fifth one? Yeah, which I think too is is is a really interesting response to criticism's the wrong word for it, but you're very, very open to have these conversations, which has been really refreshing, which is great.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think that this is a little this is a little digress here, but like from a coaching perspective, I think coaches need to be open to the alternative views of their own. Like just like there's nothing around coaching which is hard right and hard wrong. It's just the way that you do things. So the more exposure you can be open enough to expose yourself to to other ways of doing things, the more it sort of merges and melts in your mind. And you can then take that information and and sort of do with it what you will. But if you don't have that information in the start or that different perspective, mate, you're just you you're just narrow. You're you're you're just driving on a one-way road, and sometimes you want to get off that road. But if you don't have your vision there to see the turns and things like that, you're never going to go anywhere other than the one-way.
SPEAKER_00I think if there's one industry in the world that is theoretically more different in reality, like like everyone thinks they can coach in theory. This is what I would because everyone's a fan, right? This is what I'd do with this team, this is how I'd fix it. And then when you're in the situation of actually being the coach, I don't think any job is more different than what you actually think it's going to be.
SPEAKER_01Well, that even starts as a player. I remember when I first was a player, like you always have your thoughts and oh, when I get my chance, I wouldn't do it this way. I don't know why. And as soon as you get in that coaching role, you realise, okay, so, and it's a simple, even if you're coaching eight-year-olds, like when you stand up in front of them and you've got all the parents in the background, you've got like 40 sets of eyes looking at you, and this pressure's there, which you have no idea about until you're up there, and you're like, wow, there's a lot coming at me here. And that pressure and that exposure, and you are exposed standing up there, makes you react in weird and different ways which you would have never seen coming.
SPEAKER_00And it's not for everybody, but I think too, part of it is no, no job is more risk misrepresented in the media, like in movies and stuff like that. Like, like, like I I thought when you're going to be playing in a in a World Cup
Expectations, Bias, And Final Takeaways
SPEAKER_00semi-final, everyone would be like fired up and screaming at each other. And instead, it's like Jeremy Paul making jokes, you know, and grabbing grabbing Justin Harrison on the arse and stuff. Because the more relaxed we were, the better we played. Right? It's actually school school boys' rugby's more fired up, more screaming, more rev-ups. You don't need that stuff. Like, if you're playing in a final, you know, you that that's gonna you'll be up and about anyway, right? So it's actually it was so fundamentally different to anything I've ever thought it was gonna be in those environments.
SPEAKER_01It's a wonderful uh profession, mate. And if you get the if you get the bug for it, it's it's addictive. It it certainly is, and that's why um we can do podcasts like this, mate. It's such uh such great reception from uh those that call coaching a profession or a love. Yeah, or a hate sometimes. Benny Darwin, thank you, my friend. What an absolute pleasure. Cheers.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Ben.