Lachlan
Tighe coaching columns
#1
‘EFFECTIVE TEAMS =
WINNING TEAMS
#2
‘Measuring team, developing
tactically’
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.
