Lawn Bowls Coaching for Players and Coaches 

 Robert Huddle  M.Ed (Physical Education)    

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Lachlan Tighe coaching columns 

#1  ‘EFFECTIVE TEAMS = WINNING TEAMS

#2  ‘Measuring team, developing tactically’

#3  August 2008 - What we Learn  

#4    December 2008 - Performing – a contest between stress and challenge 

REINTRODUCTION: LACHLAN TIGHE (introduction to 2008 columns)

 In October 2006, after writing 200 weekly bowls coaching columns commencing in 2000, and coaching gold medals at both the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games, Lachlan decided to put away the pen.

 In the period October 2006 to January 2008 his coaching record continued: 2007 Australian Open womens singles, 2007 World Womens Indoor singles and last week the 2008 World Championship mens singles.

 Now refreshed with a full cartridge of ink, Lachlan has opted to put pen to paper again, though only monthly, for the viewing and discussion with us bowlers. Two things prompted him he says – the noticeable absence of relevant coaching accepted at club level, and, his own preparation of a bowls coaching book aimed to appear late in 2008 titled ‘Shots Up – a new look at winning in lawn bowls’.

  Lachlan indicated he would ‘produce’ in the first week of each month beginning with the topic ‘Effective teams = Winning teams’ in readiness for the pennant finals wherever in bowlsland, and, for those in the Australian Open team formats held mid February.

 His March column will be focusing on ‘Games Performance Analysis’ again having the completed Australian Open in mind for the participants to reflect on.

 Welcome back Lachlan . Now read his column

‘EFFECTIVE TEAMS = WINNING TEAMS’

 Winning a major (teams) event is a hard slog. It probably requires 5-6 successive early round victories. All against quality opposition.

 Somewhere in those 5-6 rounds one or all of the team is going to ‘go walkies’, lose confidence, have a mini slump. What to do!!! Cry, scream, spit it – not much help except to clear the throat.

 No, a reversion back to what we agreed to do as team members accepting the roles we understood and agreed to beforehand, the roles we trained for in preparation for giving ourselves the best chance to succeed, subject to some opponents being ‘unfriendly’ and beating us.

 Knowing how good you are by systematic measures of both skill and performances, and, how good you need to be as an individual member and a team to be effective, to be in the elite winners stall more frequently than most bowlers. I asked a good young bowler to nominate his best and weakest delivery in his game: took him a while to respond and even then hesitantly; do you know your answer to that question? You should, and know it immediately.

 If I have thrown you by that level of effort you are not likely to be a major threat to the winners. That’s OK. You should just enjoy going to the Australian Open, or being in pennant rounds. Because I believe any success you have will be a one off effort and enough to keep you bending like Beckham at the bar for fellow ‘could a beens’.

 All I will say is the game of bowls is not what is occurring in elite bowls competition anymore. In a few short years since 2002, with Malaysia’s ascendancy and professional approach to coaching and competition preparation, Australia and NZ have joined with Malaysia to be leaders in bowls professionalism at national levels to compete to win bowls events. Unlike other bowlers, these representatives no longer come to ‘play bowls’. The rest of use wee bowlers do that, play bowls.

 Look closely at those who end up as quarter finalists, or better, in the 2008 Australian Open and there is a good chance their teams in pairs and triples combine well to be effective. Could they do better. Answer – always.

 In these past years coaching elite squads and players in three countries, my attempts to introduce an improved mode of operation for an effective team approach has had minimal success. My fault not winning the hearts and minds of many of these teams, perhaps. Where I succeeded in convincing the team, they won Gold.

 One proposition I liked was this one to be an effective team

Ø      Goals and Plans- everyone in the team knows and has contributed to the team goals and their role in the team, and we plan to win not ‘gunna win’

Ø      Leadership – taken, accepted, and there are standards and there is an environment conducive to a success culture set by the coach and the best players

Ø      Training- it is regular it is also a support situation and helps the player to work on strengths and weaknesses and skill development

Ø      Attitude - a preparedness to commit and to be done equally by ALL team members

Ø      Communication –lots of listening and exchanges and is equally shared and valued and thus is open (snipers beware, go elsewhere)

Ø      Rapport – reflected by trust, emotional support, intelligence, norms, standards and peers who understand the value of all this, mutual belief

Ø      Recognition – reward effort and endeavour, reward individuals, so what happens all team members know that sometime they will get the accolades.

 Effective teams don’t have, or set, false expectations as they individually and collectively have a common attitude, trained as such together, to know who does what, who has responsibility, who takes responsibility.

 A very capable name player in Victoria told my Elbows squad member (‘Pappa’) that he could not do what he saw Pappa doing  in recording his performance. As I said to Pappa that is why that player is very capable but not a really elite national level player.

Again another Elbows squad member (Deno) upon hearing disruptive and disputed communication among opposition team members quietly turned and said to me these guys lack (the right) attitude necessary for good teams. Deno knew as he understands the meaning of an effective team.

During February 2008 wherever you are in team formats for bowls events, take note of the processes and behaviours of the finalists and the winners. Effective!

(April 2008 column)

 ‘Measuring team, developing tactically’

 The situation that follows is familiar to all of us who are in a fours team whatever the level of competition. Let us assume it is a pennant game of 25 ends which will have long periods of time if you are losing.

 Beforehand your team sets out to win, no surprises so far. The Skip as always says to us let us see how we are going after 5 ends. By end 5 the score is 0-11, now there are surprises, where were the opponents in our pre game plans.

 What caused 0-11? It must have been one of the two other players, it certainly was not the Skip, it never is. But, our Skip does know, he watched the game disintegrate. But did he know (read she for ladies pennant). Not really as he said let’s see how we go after 5 ends. Now we know  - we are being crapped on.

 At this point of 5 ends, the Skip and his team have facts to discuss (briefly mid green). What happens in reality is that the bowlers walk past one another, probably heads bowed, Skip snarling, like ships in the night.

 Now if I as coach am sitting in the stands observing I would be asking myself have they stuck to their agreed game plan which might have been to play maximum length ends with the lead on the forehand, the second on backhand and both to aim to have 2/4 deliveries per end in the head for say 3/5 ends. And individually each of these 2 players have 5/10 effective deliveries after 5 ends.

OK, we have a placed a good Skip in our team. From the stand, I can see he meets mid green after end 5 and looks at the facts of all 4 bowlers deliveries as recorded by the lead. Yes you read correctly, the lead. It may be the front end team only had 2/4 bowls in the head for one end and both players have 3/10 effective deliveries so far. No doubt the Skip and third are operating at the same level but in their defence they are chasing the opposition because the front end team are currently below par.

 The typical Skip will grumble and carry on…..up the Khyber…presumably to a disastrous loss. Our good Skip might see a turnaround in the next 5 ends where the 5 end score is 4/6 giving a cumulative total of 4/17, which is a marked improvement on the first 5 ends.  Our other rinks notice the containment approach too, they feel encouraged.

 For the ends 6-10, our front end team both score 4/10 effective deliveries and had 2/5 ends with 2/4 bowls in the head. All well and good if we keep thinking and applying ourselves so on this ideal the score for 20 ends in 5 end segments is

      Ends 1-5 score 0-11, total 0-11

      Ends 6-10 score 4-6, total 4-17

      Ends 11-15 score 6-4, total 10-21

      Ends 16-20 score 8-2, total 18-23

Which team continues the momentum? Is our team self satisfied at our effort and rapt if we lose say 20-28. Does the opposition fire up and win 11-0 in the last 5 ends as they did at the start and eventually inflict a defeat on us of 18-34, an even worse outcome than where we were after 5 ends.

             Much of what occurs from ends 11-25 has to do with the capability of both Skip and third to think tactically in some of these ways

·         Keeping alert to any one member playing a hand or length better than anyone else in the rink

·         Keeping alert to switching all 4 players from an unkind hand, or length,

·         Taking ‘A grade’ risks with the third / Skip when they are playing at a ‘C Grade’ standard

·         Poor calls such as inaccurate distance calls from jack to the nominated bowl

·         Third not being quick to consider either safeguard or attacking options to suit the end

·         Skip not providing any input to team mates as he is solely focused on his playing game.

·         Minimizing losses per end to maybe 2 shots.

My observer position in the stand enables me to see these tactical areas as the real weakness

in the team because when we play well it just happens. But how well do we all play well. How often do the opposition ruin our fun and play as well if not better.

 It is at all times the third and Skip need to be switched on, on red alert and not coasting because we are in front. When we are doing well someone has to be watchful that the winning standard is maintained.

 When we have this mental and tactical skill in place to contend with the opposition we can lift performance to a level where it just simply happens…………..that level of playing well.

POSTCRIPT

I played recently with a traditional Skip who, though pleasant, and is a good player who  never gave much in the way of instruction, never showed adventure, never gave any insight tactically, played those up in the head shots (which have a knack of keeping going beyond the head) rather than the discipline draw. Fortunately we had a third who assisted we two team mates with advice, tactical options, preferred length and his input in effect won us the game. And still the Skip simply was there ‘to play the game expecting to win’. Amazing.

As a team we won, he probably thinks he won it for us. Bowls needs to exchange ‘he’ for ‘we’ as part of understanding what team is all about.  

Performing – a contest between stress and challenge  (December 2008 column)

 Since the column last week, two elite level bowlers with good recent form in national competitions, have approached me over concerns they have about the variation in their level of performance, one game they blitz the next game they struggle.

The first thing I suggest for them is don’t be too critical, it will happen, just learn from the experience(s) with a view to minimizing the (lower) range of performance..

Just had to make this conversation a special December column as it is familiar to all of us in sport, not only bowls.

For any profile bowler, sports person, winning is something they expect regularly, hence their profile as performers in our sport. However these profile players have one added contest in that every game they enter an event – EVERYONE wants to beat them, simply to be able to gloat, they did (win).

You profile players out there need to get used to that (stress or pressure).

One of the two elite bowlers I mentioned spoke to me about the ‘stress of the match’ that affects him. When he explained further it appears that frustration differs from singles to the fours team format. In the fours the distraction or stress may be more the demeanour of others in the rink displaying poor (stress) coping behavior.

He mentioned getting help ‘reaching a level of relaxation’ in the bowls event. He has answered his own concern, i.e. find your own relaxation level.

Immediately I react by referring to further mental skill work in our training. Remember these two blokes are elite level. They need to be on top of these emotional ‘intrusions’ into consistent performance. Not so for the rest of us scallywags who try our best with minimal or relevant training.

My first reaction is to steer the topic around and ask them to explain the game plan they took into the events and a discussion analyzing the results against the plan. That may reveal a lot about the varying performance levels, especially in the absence of any plan.

How I intend going about this relevant training when we next train together (though one of the two bowlers is interstate so my advice is via technology not direct supervised coaching) is to step up their current level of technical skill delivery rating to start with. Again note, every training session should have a purpose, otherwise what are you training?

Just one note though – all these delivery ratings are of minimal value if your mental and tactical skills are vastly inferior to your delivery skill. Poor choices and inferior focus or emotion in competition, where it counts, will always hinder your advance despite a great technical or delivery skill.

Did you know Jack Nicklaus, golfing great, worked harder on his mental and tactical skill as he already observed he was not as technically fluent as other profile golfers? Learn from these examples bowlers.

Then, most important, train with simulated heads or conditions that appear in games and are seen as ‘stressful’ or ‘pressure’ and have the bowler, repeatedly, apply their honed deliveries to work out which option is best suited to the situation to convert or to maintain damage. Importance here is the repetition of the precise delivery with the repetition for the mental and tactical skill operating too.

 For example in our sessions intensity includes the knowledge and application of rehearsal and recall of choice, delivery and outcome. That enables the player to be familiar to a competition setting, or head, where the training becomes the game and the brain snaps into (familiar and repeated) action transferring training to the event situation.

Stress is personal. We will have to get the players to describe to me what pressure is to them; then set up such a practical situation and make it familiar to them. Sorting through various delivery options to erase the pressure so that when it appears in a game, and it will why else are we labeling it pressure, the player is accustomed to the situation, and, to the options open to him, and, the best choices to consider based on training solutions.

Again in discussion with these players, they and others voiced their frustration at their range of recorded performances in events. Meaning, they can play from 50% effective one day up to 70% effective. And it can vary depending on the perceived level of the opposition.

Welcome to the human race boys (and girls, I do coach gals too)!

My advice, don’t stress out on the result of the opposition. Challenge your delivery ‘pbs’. We use one part of training to gauge player delivery ‘pbs’ and it is invaluable to see if these can be applied, subject to good tactical choice, in each and every game the bowlers compete in.

That training means we train at an intensity similar to that expected in elite level events, training though spiced with a bit of fun. Training also in a squad, like athletics and swimming, where we have peers with the same mindset who can keep us honest, who can instill a desire to perform better. Hence I reckon the players can take that skill rating and intensity from training into most events. Note most events, no guarantee all events. Never any guarantees.

Note also the important events, not every event. Because not every event is important. Keep your best for the best.

Hawthorn club won the nationally televised AFL Football premiership in September though losing 4 of 22 games during the year. This week their coach reportedly said the runners up, Geelong , was still the leader in the competition having lost only 1/22 games. He saw them as the ‘pb’ team despite their loss in the final.

Keep that football mindset at the forefront of your approach.

Interesting that our two bowlers have expressed this stress and pressure concern. In July 2007 I met with Safuan, Boy, Lina and Chooie in Malaysia for some coaching, and Saf expressed exactly the same concern re stress and pressure. All I did at the time was sit and listen and then advise about the joy of the game, the chase of the challenge. His passion and dedication to succeed. As we know Saf is the current dual world indoor and singles champion.

What should drive us is the passion. That passion to perform well or in my case to coach as best I can. What I try to weed out of bowlers is the preoccupation with the fear of failure, or the annoyance or envy of allowing another player to roll us in a game. Worse if you think they are inferior. Are’nt we all compared to someone else on this earth! Too small minded, but human too.

 Passion will drive you to enjoy, to strive, that is train, further, to thrill at the chase (of the challenge being in bigger bowls leagues), to thrill at your constant application of skill at each new and higher level.

For my two bowls mates concerned about their current concerns, let’s explore these concerns, these possible solutions at training in our squad surrounded by others keen to learn and contribute to our collective advancement; all of us driven by the passion to be better as players, or coach, trying always to do it well, to excel.

No more, no less. Enjoy

p.s congrats Brett Wilkie on a fabulous tournament in UK , just falling short of the big one

    Questions & Comments Welcome

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