How do we keep winning close games?

[pietillidie]

The human brain is generally wired to perform better under moderate duress for short periods. Increase the intensity or duration of that stress, and the mind and natural self withdraws. Instinctive action is replaced by an inhibiting and draining inner dialogue. Fear and even panic can set in. People can start feeling like bumbling fools. The intensity of that experience is such that it is self-reinforcing.

But when people respond healthily to a challenge, moderate, time-limited stress acts as a performance-enhancing stimulant. It brings the best out in people, particularly athletes and performers. And I think that's playing a role in what we're seeing, and has grown out of a shift of culture and coaching. It wasn't planned as such, but some very conscious and enlightened dynamics of the new approach have set into this amazing rhythm.

Apart from cases where someone is reacting to severe trauma or emotional deficits, somehow driving them to excel at something (making them anything but a role model, BTW), and the odd exception (life throws up unique psychologies that defy expectations), working these dynamics is known to be central to high-performance coaching.

Optimal stimulation ('flow' in popular talk), is the ultimate state of performance where the challenge, skills and belief align. Time slows down. Everything becomes clearer. Complex patterns suggest themselves. Things just click, mystifying outsiders.

The club is now about the whole. It's about a team, including a team of high-performance coaches. It's about each individual working his own advantages. Players who enjoy what they're doing and aren't phased by mistakes. They don't like making mistakes, but it just doesn't shift their experience of themselves and footy.

Darcy Moore can loose a marking contest to a monster forward, or kick a howler into someone 20 yards out, but the next minute he can cut you up with a switch of play or piercing kick, or deflate you with spoil after spoil.

Pendles is not built to beat animal monster mids with head-to-head explosivity at the stoppage. Nor is Sidey. If they were to focus on that as their contribution they would become drained, self-conscious, withdrawn. Instead, Pendles cuts you up with a baulk, brilliant decision, and laser-like pass. Sidey hovers over bigger bodies and gets a hand or boot in, then invents some manoeuvre over his shoulder or through someone's legs. They're not 'soft' in the musty language of past times; they're tough as nails. But skill sets and body shapes differ.

Cameron never thought he belonged. Lipinski came to the club vulnerable to the same thought. If Lipinski thought he was being measured by his work under the pack, rather than his run into space and delivery, his strengths would be crowded out by doubt. Jamie would miss clutch goals. Ash Johnson would hate footy if he wasn't allowed to let his natural game flow, which can plenty enough hurt sides.

Ginni would retaliate and spit the dummy. Josh Daics would berate himself when he misses a target, weighed down by the Daicos name. McCreery would obsess over his disposal count.

Maynard has long been good and is less prone to inner doubt, but his last-minute 1%ers are better than ever before. He takes on the game more, even if it means the odd goal back over his head. The opponent scoring is part of life, not the end of the world.

And on you could go through the list.

That's what contemporary high-performance coaching at its very best across the world in every endeavour looks like. You don't have to win every ball or contest, you have to enjoy and embrace the moments that matter most, when the level of stress lifts. Instead of fearing mistakes, you start looking forward to that moderate, short-term injection of stress.

People already know what their weaknesses are. The problem is they've often been made so self-conscious of them by others, they devote far too much emotion and cognition to them. Reacting to them. Fearing them. Feeling ashamed of them. They just don't need the stare of death or the tacit sense of letting people down.

In the right environment, as people's confidence grows, they start managing their own weaknesses, drawing on the confidence gained from enjoying their strengths. They'll ask for a hand. They'll seek out confidants. They'll watch role models. They'll take up opportunities. They'll work away quietly.

Lethal, of course, whom both McRae and Wrighty won premierships under and worked under, was from a different era. But he clearly doesn't advocate the old him. Sensibly, though, he's also not one to wallow in regret about the old him, which wouldn't change a thing, except to hinder his own evolution as a person:

[Pies4shaw]

Talent wins football games. Nick Daicos, Josh Daicos, Pendlebury, Sidebottom, Ginnivan, Johnson, Maynard, Elliott, Moore, Howe, WHE, Quaynor etc are all genuine A-grade talents. They are not all “A-graders”, of course, but they all have the ability to execute with exquisite skill. Other teams don’t have nearly as many such players. Focus, hard work, buying into the pressure game plan etc are all important components supporting the string of results but basically Collingwood’s team contains more talented actual footballers than most other teams.

In those circumstances, it’s to be expected that the more talented team will beat the others by winning more of the key moments.

At the end of the season when the inevitable DVD is released, it will be chock full of breathtakingly exciting moments of great skill because the team is full of players with those skills. I doubt that they are, collectively, big enough, fast enough strong enough and sufficiently structurally sound as a team to win the flag but, nevertheless, this is one of the most talented collections of players Collingwood has ever assembled. Not running machines or contested possession winners or any of the other things that are about athletic attributes - just the football skills we have all admired since childhood.

In our game against Carlton, we only managed a dozen goals but more than half of those were created by brilliant skills, not (just) hard work. Sidebottom, all 3 Ginnivan goals, Johnson, Elliott’s 2, McCreery, WHE’s gather and handball to Crisp - just to mention a few - were all goals another Collingwood team might never have created the chance to score, let alone to have nailed.

Outstanding results in areas of human activity that require excellence do require hard work, careful preparation, an appropriate mental focus and the ability to “get with the program” but basically, all those other things being more or less equal, talent will out.

[Skids]

^
I reckon you might be over thinking it a tad

[Johnno75]

Once upon a time remember we use to concede territory and kick backwards into our D50 then ultimately cough it up in a dangerous position. Now in close games we move the ball forward and try lock it in in our F50.

Can’t really recall us kicking 50m backwards under pressure this year.

[Pies2016]

Wonder if there’s any chance we could be that little bit fitter than the opposition. You won’t continually win many close games of footy without being at least the equal of the oppositions fitness levels.
You knows what they say “ the harder you train, the luckier you get “

[Pies2016]

D P

[pietillidie]

[the fuzz]

^ Finals fever?

[Mr Miyagi]

Can’t underestimate the mental training Fly is doing with these scenario sessions. It’s not just about skills, athleticism, and game plan, which makes up the majority of player coaching — he’s literally coaching composure, belief, grit, tenacity. Changing minds. Yeah all coaches talk about it to their teams, but I don’t think I’ve seen it coached in this way before. Bucks tried it with Leading Teams and Adlerian philosophy. Fly is keeping it simple, especially with the talking. We’re not “fluking” these close wins by pure luck — without these training sessions, we probably would have lost a few more. It’s a huge reason players look happier and more free this year — they’re not being coached to be robots and follow instructions exactly. Coach of the year.

[Skids]

[pietillidie]

^
The cure? A premiership cup!

[Take_a_Screamer]

After our win against Port last night, here is an article looking at how we create wins coming from behind.

Footy Fix: ANOTHER Magpie magic act sinks the Power - here's how Collingwood pulled off their greatest heist yet
by Tim Miller
https://www.theroar.com.au/2023/07/23/footy-fix-another-magpie-magic-act-sinks-the-power-heres-how-collingwood-pulled-off-their-greatest-heist-yet/

[Pies2016]

^^^

Thanks. Enjoyable read and explains the Port tactics very well.
Drag us wide ( divide and conquer and take away the corridor ) and then scrub their kicks in any way possible, rather than long measured kicks into the arms of Moore and Quaynor. Worked well …. for three quarters, until we shot the lights out with a ridiculous conversion rate in the wet.

[Jezza]

This morning, Matthew Lloyd gave a very good analysis of how we won last night's game in the dying stages. Keep it in tight and don't let the ball spill out of the stoppage. It was very reminiscent of the way we beat Melbourne in Round 21 last year.

For those watching the video, please ignore Kane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yELCCQtDs_w

[K]

At the time, with 1:40 left, it felt like we dodged a bullet when JHF stormed through the stoppage but Farrell dropped the mark 45m out directly in front. Farrell has a beautiful left boot. Maybe the best at Port.

On replay, though, maybe the mark was difficult? (As so often, Steele there with the spoil. Remember 2010 against Melbourne?)