Compare and contrast

by Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler Sat 24 Nov 2012, 8:22 pm

Sir Clive Wordcupwood, speaking last week

“When you are coaching any team, the biggest thing is to be smart ahead of the game.

“If you are all sat down in the classroom on Thursday night, you say ‘Right, here is a situation where we are 20-14 down with 22 minutes to go and we have a penalty you know is kickable.

"The ball is slow and they are well set up defensively, so what are we going to do?’

“In the cold light of day, the right decision was to kick for goal and reduce the points deficit to just three.

“If you opt for the lineout and go for the try, you HAVE to score. If you don’t score, that gives huge momentum back to the defending team.

“The key thing about this is not making decisions in the heat of battle. It’s about thinking through every single decision in advance.

“You have to get these things into the players’ heads before you go into the match, so they know what will happen in every single situation.

“They have to understand very quickly that international rugby is a tough business.

“You have to be smart — and smartness comes down to the way you train, and the way you want to play.

“There is no point in reviewing the video after the game when you have lost. You have to review these scenarios before you go in — and that’s the secret to coaching

Stuart Lancdisaster after todays game :

"I think we need to review all our decisions," he said. "I am not going to comment on individual decisions. We pushed them to the line and we should have got over the line but we couldn't. We'll sit down as a group on Monday morning when the emotion has gone out of the game and reflect on it. We discuss all the decisions. Some we get right, some we don't get right and that's part of any side's development. We're just disappointed to have lost the game, a game we felt we could have won.

"The players have to make decisions on the field, as coaches we can't influence that. We back the players and support them and if we can learn from it and do better next time that's what we do. The purpose of having a captain in a team is that he makes decisions and the players back him. That's what should happen.

If your captain is massively inexperienced and previously described by Jeremy Guscott as "not very sharp" is it a good idea to :

a) Make sure there is a clear gameplan and that various scenarios have been worked out and visualised in advance so that decisions are made based on a rational and well considered view

b) Leave it till after the game to talk about your captain spent over a minute trying to decide what to do, including asking the referee if he could change his mind...then "back" him by saying it was his fault.

Inexperienced, under prepared, lacking in leadership.
At least Gatland had the guts to admit it was his gameplan Wales were following today when they chose to kick for touch