I’ve been heavily influenced by the Oatey family – the late Jack Oatey and his son, Robert. I played my first game under Robert at Norwood, and I played under Jack at Sturt. Robert is still a strong influence on my footy thinking and my life. They were very strong on a number of issues: skills, team discipline, players understanding each other’s roles, and the importance of team over individual.
Football has been very good to me. While my mates were eating pasties at uni, I could afford steak once a week because I was playing senior footy in the SANFL and getting paid $50 a week – good money for a 17-year-old back then. Unfortunately, I had to share the steak! Playing league football enabled me to buy a house at a young age, and enabled me to return to study full-time at 26-27. It has also opened up other avenues – friendships, contacts, job opportunities, etc.
I became an AFL coach more by chance than by design. I never said: “I’m going to become a coach” – much less an AFL coach – because I had other things in my life. When I retired as a player at the age of 34-35 (after 321 SANFL games), I was working full-time as a sports scientist for the South Australian Sports Institute and the Australian Institute of Sport. Then I coached Norwood (from 1991-95). Then I became the Crows’ conditioning coach (in the club’s premiership years of 1997-98). Then I migrated into assistant coaching and, by chance, it has evolved into the senior coaching role.
I was very lucky to work with Australian cyclists for 15 years. It enabled me to work with people from other sports, and travel the world with cyclists and see how other nations go about trying to be the best in the world. I saw the best nations, best teams and best individuals, and also the very poor ones. That contrast was never due to just one thing; it’s always a combination, a package. It’s the same in football. If it was just playing or motor talent, the most talented people would be the world champions, but clearly they’re not.
I learn a lot about coaching from (former Australian cycling coach) Charlie Walsh. He has an unbelievable picture of what it takes to win, particularly at international level, and he transformed Australian cycling from a laughing stock to No.1 in the world. He has been a great teacher, mentor and friend to me.
I find the opinions of coaches from other sports enlightening because we’ve been quite insular in our own sport. Soccer coaches have very strong opinions on the way they think Australian Football should be played. They say things like: “Why would you want only six defenders? You’re crazy. I’d have nine.” “Why wouldn’t you attack?” “Why wouldn’t you slow the game down?” “Why do you play man on man?” It’s also interesting listening to coaches in sports like hockey, water polo, rugby union and league, basketball and so on.
You need a picture in your mind of the key variables for success. My personal picture isn’t necessarily the right one, but based on my experience, there are a number of important variables – training quality, standards and values, real day-to-day teamwork, and possessing great resilience to handle the adversity you confront on a weekly basis: injury, loss of form, contracts, etc.
(Previous coach) Gary Ayres left our club in a lot better shape than he found it. We made the finals three years in a row, including a preliminary final (in 2002), and we copped a number of injuries to key players in Gary’s last season (2004). It wasn’t as if our club had bottomed-out – a lot of good things were happening before I took over from Gary.
We’ve established a terrific leadership program. The beauty of it is that it’s an on-site, daily program and issues always arise that present our players with opportunities to practise their leadership skills. It might be something as simple as someone turning up late to a meeting. Traditionally, the coach has looked after that, but now the players do. They decide what the standard is and what action to take. They become accountable to each other. It’s great for them because they might be dealing with their best mate. Peer accountability holds enormous weight. It’s a better system.
We’d rather be innovators than imitators. Our club is stimulated by doing new things and trying to be the first to do things. But if you do that, be prepared to make errors and be criticised. If you don’t want to make an error, don’t try anything new. You need a culture in your club that is accepting to errors for a period of time, and people at our club are open to new ideas. It’s not about doing something for the sake of being different, but based on, in my case, sound scientific information that indicates it’s worth pursuing.
We believe we’ve been the first AFL club to move away from regimented running – running without the use of a ball. It’s rare that we say: “Put your runners on, boys, off we go.” We only did seven of those sessions in three months over pre-season. We do mostly ball work, which ties in with our decision-making. I think our pre-season would be a fair bit different to other clubs. We’re using some scientific principles and technology; I don’t know if it’ll be successful, but our testing shows that we’re still well-conditioned and, if anything, we’ve made gains. Last year, we made some errors, but we’ve made fewer errors this year. We’re still fine-tuning it. The proof will be in the pudding towards the end of this year.
Scientific information is easily accessed; the challenge is to apply it. Science has existed for a long time in sport, and will only improve and tell you more, but the real question is: do you have the capacity to apply it in your setting? We’re not the first club to take the scientific route. People think it’s just a matter of affording the technology, but that’s just the first step. Let’s say we buy 20 GPS’s (global positioning systems). We then have to employ someone to look after them. GPS’s generate an unbelievable amount of data – who sifts through it and interprets it for the coach? Then you have to apply it to your training. If you can’t use it to improve performance, you’re better off not having it because it’ll be a waste of time and money and will cause frustration.
Science says you can improve on-field decision-making. Just as we all want a Brett Burton, who can run an unbelievable time over 3km, we also want an Andrew McLeod or a Nathan Buckley, who both have amazing capacities to read the play. We’ve made a concerted effort in that area – (renowned sports scientist) Damian Farrow runs a decision-making program for us. You can test it and improve it both indoors and in training drills outdoors. Indoors, film is projected on to a wall and guys have to make a decision to kick or handball to the right option. That way, you might get 50 repetitions of delivering the ball into the forward line, which you don’t get in training drills. We also design our training around decision-making, game knowledge and so on.
We place great importance on what we call ‘the learning environment’ – the way individuals best learn. Players prefer to learn in different ways, whether it’s visually, audibly, on a whiteboard, or by actually doing it. People tend to prefer a cross-section of two or three of those methods but often one stands out. That affects how you communicate with players and perhaps introduce new concepts. We divide those groups and teach them that way.
There’s so much knowledge sitting in your own backyard, why not use it? There’s great value in “collective wisdom”. We have guys who have played 10, 12, 15 years of AFL football with a high quality product, so I’d be mad if, for instance, I didn’t ask Nathan Van Berlo to talk to Ben Hart about playing in defence. Ben’s the expert, not Neil Craig. I can talk to guys about midfield because that’s where I played all my footy, but I’d be crazy if I didn’t also access Ricciuto, Goodwin, Edwards, etc.
Coaches are dictating how the game is played. People think it’s the rule changes, but coaches are clearly driving the game. Many people want to see the game played like it was 10 or 20 years ago, but what rule says you can’t take big pack marks? There’s no such rule. I could tell our players: “Boys, just kick it in long and high so ‘Burts’ (Brett Burton) can fly for hangers. He might only take three out of 10, but they’ll be worth seeing.” But it may not be conducive to winning.
The keeper of the game, the AFL, has a responsibility to look after the game. They need a vision of what the game should look like and perhaps introduce rules to bring that vision to fruition.
If they want high marking, they need to devise a rule that encourages teams to take high marks. Don’t leave it to the coaches.
Most people don’t like change. They say: “Don’t tinker with the game,” but how did the four-man interchange come about? How did the centre square come about? If we didn’t “tinker” with the game, we’d still be playing with the goals a mile apart. The AFL has been very responsible in asking: “Can we improve the game?” and getting feedback from science, coaches, supporters, etc. If you stick with the philosophy of: “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”, nothing changes and the game stagnates.
“Tempo footy” is often described as ugly, but what would people have us do? (In round one) Collingwood kicked three or four goals in a row very quickly in the third quarter. In that situation 10 or 15 years ago, the instruction would be: “Man up, crack in harder, lift your intensity, or even start a fight!” What if that doesn’t work? Most teams now throw numbers behind the ball to shore things up and try to stop the opposition scoring for a period of time.
The style of play will often depend on what coaches want at specific times in games. You might want to just keep possession, or keep possession but go forward; other times you might prefer to go forward so quickly that you’re not fussed whether a forward marks it because you’re relying on a contested possession at ground level. If you want speed, your precision won’t be as good. If you want precision, you need to slow the game down. You could also rely on “random variability” where you bank on the ball going your way. It depends on your structure.
Where possible, our players are assessed on how they play without the ball. When Mark Ricciuto had 39 possessions against the Kangaroos at Telstra Dome (in round six, 2003), we calculated that he had the ball for 1.5 minutes in a 100-minute game. So what was he doing for the other 98.5 minutes? He was playing the game without the ball. Earlier this season, we scored a point without touching the ball. The opposition kicked out, went backwards and sideways a few times, the ball spilled and they had to rush a behind. There are numerous things you can do without the ball to enable us to go forward and score, or get the ball back.
That’s where I personally believe the next big advantage can be gained in our sport. Coaches from other sports talk about it all the time. Sometimes it’s all they talk about.
The bench has evolved from being injury-driven to being work/rest-driven. Coaches are telling players: “Push back into defence and when we get it, push forward. If there’s a turnover, run back.” Players might say: “I’ll do that, but I’ll need a rest after 15 minutes. But if you don’t want me to go back and forth, I can play the whole quarter. What do you want me to do?” Some people want more interchange players, which would make the game even faster and more intense. But players are getting bigger and heavier and if we keep asking them to play at greater speed and intensity in a game where you can come from any direction, it’ll be a recipe for high-impact collisions, and we’ve seen some horrendous injuries this year. It might be great for the game as a spectacle, but you’ll have an occupational health and safety problem. But if you leave fatigued players on the ground, there will be more soft-tissue injuries. I’m happy to play under any rules, as long as we all play under the same rules!
If my AFL coaching career ended tomorrow, there are other things I’d be more than happy to try to do. One day the Crows will say: “Sorry, Neil, but we don’t want you to coach us any more.” There are very few Kevin Sheedys in the world, that’s why it’s important to have other interests. If coaching is the be-all and end-all, sometimes you make incorrect decisions. If I have to coach, I might take a job I shouldn’t take, or make a decision I shouldn’t make, which wouldn’t be good for me or the club. Malcolm Blight didn’t have to coach and he made some fantastic decisions.
When it’s over, I’d probably get back into sports science. I’ve dabbled in the scientific aspect of horse training, which I found exciting and satisfying. Obesity is a huge health problem in Australia, so I could explore the role of exercise and sport in people’s lives. There’s a range of possibilities.
