Quote Itchy Arsenal="Itchy Arsenal"Some good points taken onboard and I think we broadly agree. I think we're we probably don't entirely agree is that I think we have gone way ott on fitness and structure at the expense of individualism and skills.
Could it be that improving players skills other than defending is a lot harder and more time consuming than fitness work etc? Do coaches take the "easier option"?
In a nutshell I just want a bit more excitement from the game ideally with fast open competitive rugby. I don't want 42-38 games I love a tight physical game but a tight physical game with the odd moment of genius or superlative skill that you wait to get back to the pub to regale about.
As I've said on previous posts the game historically works in cycles so I'm hopeful the day of the wrestle and incessant 5 drives and a kick won't last forever. I'm not convinced about LM but more than happy to be proven wrong that he can instill/allow a more attractive style into our game'"
First things first
A Number of times this thread has mentioned that the games not as exciting - I've said it numerous times I agree - But that's a different subject.
The issue I have is that simply saying we want the game to be more exciting isn't going to stop the coaches from looking for that winning edge and Winning comes first - Also because the game isn't as exciting it's too simple to equate that to less skill, the Skills may be in different areas than they used to be but it's like saying that players of yesteryear couldn't tackle, they could, the emphasis though just wasn't on them defending as well and as structured as it is now.
The players of today are skilful, they just have to be skilful in ways that fit into the structures being coached.
With regards to going way OTT on fitness that's the issue though, We can't stop teams getting Bigger stronger, faster etc.
I feel the game needs to tweak the rules to assist us in Opening up the game more, reduced Substitutions, shot clock and quicker restarts will go some way to doing this by bringing in more of a fatigue factor leading to more space for "Flair" type players and attack to exploit it.
What I will say though is the interesting point you make about :-
"Could it be that improving players skills other than defending is a lot harder and more time consuming than fitness work etc? Do coaches take the "easier option"? "
I coach in a different sport, a sport that IMO has a better balance between Fitness & the Core Skills of the game (Cricket - With players U20 down to 7/8yr olds).
I've coached for 15 years now and learned a lot in that time and I do think that "The Coaching Manual" tends to teach coaches how to do things By the Book so to speak. That in itself can lead to a stagnant way of doing things and occasionally it needs innovation or outside the box thinking.
I've already Bored the pants off people too much so don't want to go on too much but Many years ago A player of mine was struggling in certain areas Batting. He had gone from being a free flowing/natural type player into someone who just looked so out of place at the crease he looked like a different person. Now he'd gone through a few issues "off the field" and my natural reaction was to talk "technique", Basics, focus on what he was doing wrong and work on those errors in his game and to be honest for a month or so we weren't getting anywhere fast.
I was going to look at some more intensive coaching from better/more qualified coaches than myself when an experienced guy I spoke to said he'd gone through something similar with a player a few years earlier.
His answer - Go into the nets, throw a hundred Balls at him and forget everything, forget technique, forget detail - just hit them, enjoy hitting them
We did this for a couple of sessions and the old player came back, started the season well, remained in the representative team and performed as well as he had ever done previously if not better.
I've used that 2/3 times more with players who seem to be struggling and it's amazing how if you remove all of the technical stuff and free up their minds to "Just Play" it can help.
The paradox is that you can't just do that in isolation - Because the game will expose other weaknesses that you have to work on and invariably those who work the hardest and focus on other teams weaknesses, and work on their own structures etc. invariably win.
So I do think that coaches do often "Take the easy option" although I would word it more along the lines of they get Stuck in their world, focus on the textbook too much and the problems they have they look for the answers within the same structures and working harder on those when that got them into those problems in the first place.
It's very complicated with everyone looking for that 1% winning edge and the answer for each player/team/coach isn't always the same, what works well for "A" may not work as well for "B" and that's what separates the winners from the Losers.
I'm not Lam's biggest fan and I do believe he spent the 2nd half of the year putting things Back in place defensively that had been overlooked early on in the year for the idea of playing a more "Open" type rugby. It was only when we got things defensively better that IMO we could start to play with the ball a bit better.
Ultimately it wasn't good enough and I think it took too much out of the tank catching up on the bad start but it showed to me that you can't just decide to Play more open, you still have to have the structures and systems that sit behind it.
'"
How time flies.
