Lessons from Eddie

JOHN SHEPHERD RECENTLY READ ENGLAND RUGBY COACH EDDIE JONES’ AUTOBIOGRAPHY. DID HE LEARN ANYTHING THAT WOULD AID ATHLETICS COACHES?

- JOHN SHEPHERD

I AM an avid rugby fan. This caused problems when both the Rugby World Cup and the World Athletics Championships were running side-by-side for a while last autumn. Some of the matches in Japan were scintillating, especially those up to the quarter-finals featuring the host nation – and of course England’s dismissal of the All Blacks in the semi-final (we won’t talk about the final!).

Eddie Jones has always been known as a coach who thinks out of the box. Although on reading his accounts – some of his coaching suggestions/ideas and comments, perhaps need to be taken a little more lightly.

Indeed, the Australian even admitted to only not saying what he had calculated to say in press conferences a couple of times (in itself an indicator of a coach who is thinking about every performance influencer).

In distilling what I learnt from Jones from a coach’s standpoint I realised that there were some lessons that I – and therefore hopefully other athletics coaches could learn from.

Force athletes to be more self-reliant

Jones realises there is only so much you can do as a coach to get players to win and play tactically astutely. He therefore aims to empower them to make their own “right” decisions within a leadership framework. One that enables them to best control the outcome of their efforts within the framework of the team’s prior learning.

Okay, you may argue this is more of a rugby necessity, but I’d argue that creating strong, autonomous functioning runners, jumpers and throwers is equally important. I want an athlete to be able to adapt, motivate and control their performance each time. I don’t want them running to the sidelines unsure of what to do.