Keeping fresh for the final stretch

Reaching the business end of the season is reflected in training as sessions decrease in terms of volume and intensity

IT’S OCCASIONALLY instructive to note how behaviour patterns in one sport can creep into another, a thought that struck me when I listened to Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson in the wake of his side’s defeat to Chelsea at Old Trafford.

The calculated manner in which he shifted the pressure away from his team following a poor performance and looked to try to influence Chelsea’s upcoming midweek fixture against Bolton raised a smile.

It was a classic Ferguson gambit. He bemoaned the fact the Bolton match was a foregone conclusion; that Chelsea would win it easily enough because their opponents wouldn’t have much for which to play.

The upshot was that Bolton produced a very committed display, had two penalty appeals turned down and Chelsea were fortunate to escape with a 1-0 victory. Ferguson had elicited the reaction he craved and it very nearly paid off.

It’s starting to seep into the rugby culture. Coaches are looking to get subliminal messages across in either the build-up or in post-match dissertations. Using the media as a vehicle to indirectly influence extraneous factors is becoming more commonplace.

It’s been embraced by captains too, a specific example Steve Borthwick’s comments in the wake of England’s atrocious performance against Italy in this season’s Six Nations Championship. Borthwick was slated by a host of former internationals including Lawrence Dallaglio for focusing on what he believed to be the positives that emerged from the performance.

I have a certain empathy with what he was trying to do. Borthwick wasn’t trying to fool the media per se but rather not dump on his team-mates. They, as a group, would be well aware of what he says in print and would rather see him adopt a supportive stance, at least in public. There is obviously happy medium in choosing this pathway.

As a captain you can not treat your team-mates as fools in rewriting the history of the previous 80 minutes but you have to be careful not to undermine individuals. That would be counterproductive for all concerned, team and players.

Ireland coach Declan Kidney is always careful not to provide the opposition with any additional motivational tool by being careless or disparaging verbally. It’s definitely an Irish trait. The issue of media relations is something that most clubs take reasonably seriously.

At London Irish we use Sky Sports commentator Will Chignell and his communications company to school players in the art of dealing with the media. That relationship is an integral part of the life of a professional player. It’s particular helpful for some of the younger players who would be very inexperienced when dealing with the media. It gives them that little bit of additional confidence and makes it less of an ordeal.

I noted Northampton coach Jim Mallinder’s comments in the wake on the Heineken Cup quarter-final defeat to Munster. He was very generous in acknowledging Munster’s performance and the fact they deserved to win on the day but then went on to talk about feeling handicapped, or perhaps more accurately, constrained, by having to play largely the same team for 30 weeks and the salary cap issue. This was viewed through a prism of how the Irish provinces are allowed to prepare for big European games. There’d probably be a better time to tease out those views.

Reaching the business end of the season is reflected on the training paddock. Sessions decrease in terms of volume and also intensity in relation to the collisions. There is very little contact because of the desire to keep the players fresh and injury free. There are more walk-through patterns and also a greater emphasis on analysis and blackboard tuition.

It’s a completely different dynamic from pre-season and also that October-November window where you’d do some additional conditioning work.

Training now starts later so players can have a bit of a lie-in. Monitoring energy levels includes being weighed and evaluated for fluid loss; that determines the size of the recovery shakes. Throw in the ubiquitous ice baths and you’ll note that post-training, players are either drinking or freezing.

The GPS unit that we wear really comes into its own. It lets the coaches know not only how far you have run but when in sessions you start to get fatigued and the impact that it has on your performance.

This part of the season is all about keeping players fresh. I’d love to be out in the sunshine playing golf at the moment but that’s not a runner. When we’re not training the advice is to go home and rest.

Players are told to leave the club immediately after a session, no hanging round. The coaching mantra is that you’re in to work and then it’s time to skedaddle.

It’s not all shakes and ice baths though and there are some traditions from the amateur days that still linger, one of which is the Court Session. We had ours after the victory over the Worcester Warriors and it’s a great way to have some fun and laugh at ourselves or more importantly, your team-mates.

We had to go out in fancy dress as a sports star and there were some scary sights. None more so that our huge, hairy South African prop Faan Rautenbach dressed as Serena Williams complete with short tennis skirt. I intended to go as a jockey but one of the backrow boys claimed that privilege and I ended up wearing Nick Kennedy’s old basketball gear.

On a less frivolous note we auctioned the specially-designed jerseys worn by the London Irish players for what we call our St Patrick’s Day Guinness Premiership fixture, raising €17,000 for the Matt Hampson Trust. It was nice to be able to present a decent cheque for such a worthy cause.