How to Break Through as a Coach (Without a Playing Career)

A Champions Cup-winning rugby attack coach who never played professional rugby should not make sense and that’s exactly why Noel McNamara’s story matters. We sit with the uncomfortable truth that the “perfect CV” is often overrated, and the real separator is how you think when an opportunity is risky, unglamorous, or confusing to everyone around you.

We dig into what stood out most from Noel’s journey: a very low fear of failure and a willingness to say yes early. One move leads to the next, from New Zealand to South Africa to France, and suddenly the career looks inevitable even though none of the individual steps looked “reasonable” at the time. That launches a bigger reflection on the trap Justin Welsh describes: a chain of sensible choices that builds momentum, makes future decisions automatic, and eventually makes changing direction feel reckless. For coaches chasing a professional coaching career, that chain can quietly pull you away from the work and life you actually want.

We close with three practical takeaways for ambitious coaches in rugby and beyond: back yourself before other people back you, chase learning not status, and choose adventure over comfort. If you’ve been waiting for permission, waiting for the perfect job, or trying to keep everyone else comfortable with your choices, this is your nudge to trust your gut and build your path on purpose. Subscribe, share this with a coach who needs it, and leave a review with the boldest “unreasonable” step you’re considering.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Get out of team. Welcome to the Midweek Reflections. Today we're just going to dive into uh following up on Noel McDamara, the attack coach for Bordeaux. He was on the show this week. Episode came out Sunday and it was a cracker. When you have someone who's absolutely outstanding like that, it's it's lovely just to give it a little bit of time and reflect on it. So we had him on. He is fresh off winning European Champions Cup, one of the most respected attacking coaches in world rugby. And what I love, what I reckon is absolutely fascinating about Noel is he's never played professional rugby. And in fact, he's never really played rugby at all. We joked on the podcast, and numerous people told me beforehand, he's a math teacher who never played rugby. And yet today he's coaching some of the best players in the world. And I think there's a lesson in that for every coach who has just asked, how do I get ahead? How do I do this? How do I break through? How do I get into this industry? How do I be pro? How do I get paid to coach? And Noel is probably the

Why Noel’s Story Hits Hard

SPEAKER_00 2:21

very best example of that you'll ever see. Not long ago, he sort of referred to the fact that he was coaching an under-13 side. Now he's coaching European champions. And for a person that hasn't played the game, wowie! How good? And this is actually the uh the question I get asked all the time here running this podcast. I get people asking me, how do I get opportunities? How do I move up? How do I get noticed as a coach? Now, listening to Noel, it's very clear there wasn't one defining moment. There was just a way of thinking when I asked him what a secret was. He said, very little fear of failure. Now, I think this important thing to think about. Not there was no fear, just very little. Every decision he made, he believed it was the right one at the moment. When an opportunity came to New Zealand, he took it. It wasn't glamorous, certainly wasn't financially attractive. Most reasonable people would have probably said, probably don't go on that one. In fact, I think his dad did. But he went. And then he said that experience led to an opportunity in South Africa. And South Africa led to an opportunity in France. And France led him to becoming one of the most sought-after coaches in Europe. Which made me think maybe careers aren't built on one big decision. Maybe they're just built on a lot of small decisions that don't really make sense to anybody else. And I love this. And a guy that I also read of and love listening to is a guy called Justin Welsh who writes about these sort of things. And I want to just reread something that this other guy, Justin

Fear Of Failure And Saying Yes

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Welsh, wrote called Unreasonable. And it's a piece he wrote on taking the option which feels gut-feel right for you and where you want to go. And he talked about the status quo and will fight against making decisions like this. And I want to read this little segment just to give you a little bit of insight and relating it to coaching journeys for all those coaches out there that are looking to try breakthrough and can't do it. And for a number of reasons, you can't. Maybe you don't want to leave the job you've got or take the down and pay, all that stuff. So here's what Justin Welsh said. His piece, which I've picked the best bits of, called Unreasonable. This is what he says. Every reasonable person in my life told me to pass. I'm glad I didn't listen to one of them. The status quo looks something like this. Go to a good school, get good grades, take the reasonable job, say yes to the city job that wants you to move to,

The Chain Of Reasonable Choices

SPEAKER_00 4:49

meet the guy or girl, date and get married, take the promotion, move again, have kids, send them to a good school, take the next promotion, buy the house and mow the yard. On it goes. And the fact is, every one of those choices is reasonable. Nobody could blame you for saying yes to the stuff that makes sense, but there's a catch. Because every time you make a reasonable choice, it makes the next decision a little easier to make too. Without thinking too hard. It doesn't matter if you're facing a decision about the industry you're in, the promotion you're offered, or the titles you require along the way. Each next choice comes with a little less friction every time. Another promotion, it's more money, sure. Move closer to the office, will make life more efficient. Yeah, I don't love the industry, but this offer from a competitor is pretty compelling. I should look at it. The aggregate total of all these reasonable choices creates a long chain. Each choice you make is one link, and each link makes the next choice a bit more automatic. Then somewhere around year 10 or 15 or 20, there's so much momentum that breaking the chain feels downright irresponsible, reckless even. So most people will never break that chain and they just keep trucking along. What's the worst thing that could happen? Well, one day you wake up 40 years later and realize you built your entire life this way on autopilot, one reasonable choice at a time. And a lot of people who wake up there don't like the life they find themselves in. For a lot of people, the chain is building in the opposite direction of the life they really want. But they can't see this happening because each link they added was so small and so logical that they never stop to question the direction the chain was going. Now, that is the piece by Justin Welsh, paraphrased by myself, called unreasonable. And I think you get the drift of that. Like these small little things you keep doing because you think you have to, they're the reasonable choice, they're the sensible thing. And when it comes to coaching and chasing this coaching dream, this gig of coaching, it is not something which is always comfortable. The chances are, if you want to do this as a profession or get up the ranks, you're gonna have to make some uncomfortable things. You're probably gonna have to move away. Most cities in the world don't pay their coaches a heck of a lot to coach rugby, or any sport for that matter. So you have to chase it. And I love that. I just think it's something that we should just have in the back of our brains. If you're wanting to know how to get ahead in this industry, you're gonna have to make some what seems like unreasonable choices at times, and people won't understand it. I've done this myself where I've made calls based on gut feel, because I knew it was right for where I wanted to get to, to chase this thing. People would say, You're giving up a whole lot of money. You're you're you've just bought a house here. You can't move.

Why Coaching Demands Discomfort

SPEAKER_00 7:46

But you do. And you look back and go, geez, I'm glad I did. And it's got me to where I've got to. And these decisions make you better coaches, make you better people so long as you want it. And I actually think um what I what I'd like to sort of talk about is three things that I reckon every ambitious coach can take from Noel's journey. If you haven't listened to Noel's podcast, it's a cool one, because not many coaches haven't played rugby then to go on to become the one of the world's best rugby coaches. That's very unusual. So here's the three three things that I think is important for ambitious coaches to take from Noel's journey. The first is this back yourself before other people back you. Back yourself before other people back you. For me, too many coaches wait until someone gives them permission. You know, permission to apply, permission to leave, permission to coach at a high level, permission to believe they're good enough. Noel didn't wait for someone else to say something like that. He just backed himself and he went. Trusted his gut and his desire, his ambition. Believed in him, believed in himself. That is gotta be the first thing you gotta do if you want to be good in this industry, is just chase

Three Rules For Ambitious Coaches

SPEAKER_00 8:55

it. There's no right or wrong way to do it. There's just your way of doing it. Do it your way. Second, the thing that I got from Noel from ambitious coaches is this chase learning, not the status. One of the cool things that he said was he's a parasitic learner where he steals ideas, not in a dishonest way, but he takes something from every coach, every environment, every experience he has, and sees how he can use that later. Bang bang. The more experiences he had, the more things he could steal from what he was learning himself. And the best coaches of MEP don't defend in what they know, they don't hold it tight and keep it really locked into the chest. They they're happy to share. Because they themselves have collect collected information and they're obsessed with learning. There's this kind of feeling like when you share what you've got, gee, a whole lot more comes back. When you're open with people, openness comes back. So you're chasing the learning aspect. How do I get better here? Not simply the status of I'm coaching the best team in Europe. You're chasing the learning. I'm learning so much from this experience, whatever that is, even if it's under-13s and you don't want to be in under 13s, you're learning something. So long as you're chasing the learning. And number three that I got from Noel was this, and I love this personally. Choose adventure over comfort. Because, gee, coaching is an adventure, it is a fun adventure so long as you approach it as such. And for me, there's gonna be stressors in Australia. It has to be. Coaching has never been a safe option. There are way easier careers, more stable careers for starters, better paid careers for for sure. But coaching isn't a job. For most people listening to this, it's kind of like a calling. You know, you just you just it's just you. It's the thing that keeps you awake in it because you love thinking about it. It's why you watch games when everyone else is watching Netflix, it's why you you replay training sessions over and over, and it's why you get fastidious over like the flow of your training plan and writing it all down because you want it to be smooth. You don't choose coaching because it's sensible, you choose it because you can't imagine not doing it. It's a rush, it's an adrenaline hit and it keeps coming back to you. But that doesn't mean being reckless, it means asking yourself a simple question. Like, when you're 60 years old, what will you regret more? Taking the opportunity that didn't work or never taking it at all. Now, Noel's story for me reminds us that there isn't one pathway to coaching, there isn't one qualification. In fact, qualification sometimes means very little if you're chasing this thing. Getting out there and getting amongst people and doing your thing is the thing that's gonna do it. There isn't one background, there isn't a perfect CD, C V. And and the C V all all the little things you've done, some of the big ones can be good, but the bulk of them, man, if you're there just doing it, you're gonna you've got people are gonna be seeing that. So there are just people prepared to keep learning, keep moving, and keep saying yes to opportunities that scare them. And maybe that's kind of the bigger lesson from Noel. Stop worrying so much about whether the path makes sense to everybody else. I I've certainly been and gone through this stuff where a lot of people call me weird and all different, and for doing some of the things I've done, traveling around, getting as bigger experience as I can dealing with people across every continent of the earth. We've just gone, had children at different places. And yes, there's barriers to that, and yes, we can and can't do stuff, and yes, we've got all these other responsibilities, yes, yes, yes. But all those little yeses are building up, making a chain of reasonableness which becomes very hard to break. If it feels right to you, back yourself. Everything else, the rest, does have a funny way of taking care of of itself. Until next week, people. I hope this conversation has sparked something in someone out there to just back themselves and go for it. Trust me, it's it's something that you won't regret. Go for it.