Condor Performance Blog - August 2012 Archives

NRL Round 25 – ‘Keeping the season alive’

If you have been reading my blog or have spent any time with me you will no doubt have read or heard me bang on about ‘must win’ games or any other form of label that adds additional pressure to games and events.

This round there are 4 teams who are on the cusp of the top 8 and are playing for their season, hence ‘must win’. These teams are Canberra, Gold Coast, Newcastle and Wests. None of them are playing each other, so all of them have the potential to be victorious this weekend.

I bet every one of them have spoken about how important a win this week is; I bet every one of them has had a look at the draw to see who plays who next week to figure out what has be done to make the 8.

Of the 4 teams playing for their season this weekend only 1 of them won; the Raiders (who flogged the top-of-the-table-12-in-a-row-Bulldogs).

So the team playing the highest ranked opposition this weekend were the only ones to manage a win. How do you explain that?

Some will argue that the Raiders were the only team who played at home. Here’s how I explain it.

Teams on the cusp of the 8 are inconsistent because to be in that position at this time of year a team needs to have a 50/50 record. That means that they have spent all year trying to figure out how to become consistent and everything they have tried so far has not worked.

Why should this round be any different?

So, this means we have an inconsistent team going into a match that has the additional pressure of being ‘must win’ for them, whilst their opposition are not under the same amount of pressure.

If I had to pick between which team would perform the best, I choose the team under the least amount of pressure every time.

Newcastle, Gold Coast and Wests were all under pressure to win and they all failed. They all played away from home and they all did not manage to produce a win. I wonder if any of them played their best football, despite losing.

The Raiders were the exception, so let’s have a look at their situation.

Canberra were hosting the Bulldogs, who were favourites, despite stories of big betting plunges on the Raiders or suggestions that the Bulldogs were going to lie down (if you know anything about rugby league you will know that a Des Hasler coached side doesn’t lie down).

Even though the Raiders face a ‘must win’ game (which increases pressure) they are not expected to win (which reduces pressure). This situation is much more preferable to playing in a ‘must win’ game and also being expected to win, like the Titans and Tigers were because they were both playing teams in the bottom 3 of the competition.

Inconsistent teams don’t perform well under pressure, so not being expected to beat the Bulldogs would have worked favourably for the Raiders. The Knights went close against the Cowboys, but I doubt they played their best football. The Titans were out done in a game of 2nd half touch by the Panthers.

Next week it will be the Broncos and the Tigers who will be playing for the final spot in the top 8.

Both are playing at home and both a coming off a loss, although the Broncos loss to Manly (6-16) in a tough defensive encounter) is different to the flogging the Tigers got from the Roosters (20-44).

Brisbane play the Panthers, who are 15th on the ladder, while the Tigers play the Storm who are currently in 2nd place. So, the Broncos are expected to win a ‘must win’ game and the Tigers are not expected to win a ‘must win’ game.

The Broncos have even less pressure on them than the Tigers because they can still make the top 8 even if they lose. The Tigers can only make it if they win and the Broncos lose.

This season the Broncos have been more consistent than the Tigers and I have written about the Broncos’ mental toughness which they displayed earlier in the year. If they can produce that mental toughness in the final round they will play finals football

NRL Round 20 - Bulldogs, Warriors, Eels, Storm

There were too many notable events that occurred this round from the mental perspective to single out just one game, so instead I have selected 4 teams to comment on; Bulldogs, Warriors, Eels and Storm.

1 The Bulldogs travelled to Brookvale under the much publicised hype surrounding Hasler’s return to his former fortress. The post-match media conference being dominated by Toovey’s blow up about the referee’s gave Hasler’s men just the smoke screen they needed to leave the northern beaches as close to ‘under the radar’ as coach Hasler likes his teams to travel. Mentally, the Bulldogs have significantly improved under Hasler’s guidance this season.

2 The Warriors have entered this list on the back of the 18 point lead that they gave up against Newcastle. Whilst a great deal of credit needs to go to Newcastle for turning their performance around, the Warriors committed the cardinal mental sin of scoreboard watching; ‘we have this covered’. For these sort of comebacks to occur, the leading team needs to play this role, otherwise they go on with it.

3 Where do I start regarding the performance of the Eels? Hindmarsh announces his retirement early in the season and the Eels beat Manly; Kearney resigns and the Eels put on their best performance of the season to beat Melbourne. The only explanation for the Eels’ performances this season (and since 2010 when the Hayne phenomenon was falsely credited with the 2009 run into the GF) is mental. That needs to be in capitals: MENTAL. Politics aside, the players’ performance is an insult to their former coach as it begs the question ‘where was that performance for the last 2 seasons?’ Perhaps the players are happy now Kearney is leaving, or worried enough about the thought of following him out the door. They are fit enough, they are technically well drilled and well skilled, they are simply lacking in the mental department. Parramatta could employ a psychologist as their head coach and leave the support staff in place (physical and technical staff) and their results would significantly improve. Instead they are likely to find the same wrong answer to their performance problems and hire a new coach.

4 Melbourne is starting to put together a list of consecutive losses that is un-Melbourne like. The key explanation will be one word, Origin, and rightly so. Playing positions at the Storm have been shuffled around to accommodate injuries and the star players are likely experiencing some physical and mental fatigue following a very demanding Origin series. The Storm already have their great start to the year in the bank, so this will hold them in good stead. The task for the Storm is to find the balance between being well rested, to cope with the fatigue from Origin, and putting in the effort to get back into the grove from earlier in the season. Coaching always brings new challenges, so coach Bellamy will no doubt be better for this experience.

Shayne Duncan is an expert in the mental / psychological aspects of Rugby League and is one of the Performance Psychologists at Condor Performance (www.condorperformance.com)

He can be emailed directly at shayne@condorperformance.com

Round 19: Newcastle v Manly

Click here to view or download PDF with image

This match presents an opportunity to contrast a match that heavily favoured one team on the scoreboard and the other team with the momentum chart. This highlights the difference between momentum (possession and field position) and scoreboard pressure (scoring points). Most people view scoring points as momentum, which is incorrect; scoring points is scoreboard pressure.

The Knights won this game 32-6; a comprehensive win by any standard when measuring results (scoreboard), however, the momentum chart tells a different story.

There were 7 trends in momentum during this match; 4 down trends (Newcastle have momentum) and 3 up trends (Manly have momentum).

Trend 1: Sets 4-8 favour Newcastle. Set 8 finishes with a completion (touch finder) following the Uate try in Set 7.

Trend 2: Sets 13-21 favour Manly. Momentum shifts to Manly via consecutive penalties to them (sets 13, 14). Manly earn 6 again in Set 15 and Set 16 ends with a Manly error. Cherry-Evans kicks a 40/20 to complete Set 18 and momentum ends on the back of a Manly error in Set 21.

Trend 3: Sets 36-41 favour Newcastle. After 15 sets of possession alternating between the two teams, Newcastle win the arm wrestle and build momentum that
starts with a penalty to them (Set 36). Newcastle score in Set 37 and half time occurs after Manly complete Set 39. The 2nd half starts with a penalty to Newcastle (Set 40) and this trend ends with a Newcastle pass over the sideline (Set 41).

Trend 4: Sets 44-48 favour Manly as Newcastle make an error in their own half (Set 45). Manly receive a penalty (Set 46) and end Set 47 with an error. Newcastle again turn the ball over via error (kick out on the full) before
Manly end this trend with a knock on (Set 49).

Trend 5: Sets 50-55 favour Newcastle who complete Set 50 while Manly turnover the ball in their own half (Set 51). Newcastle score in Sets 52 and 55 in this
trend.

Trend 6: Sets 56-63 favour Manly as they shift momentum by regaining possession from a short kick off. Manly earn a line drop out and score off the next set
(Set 57). Manly receive a penalty and end this trend with a completed set (touch finder).

Trend 7: Sets 64-67 favour Newcastle. Momentum shifts due to a penalty to Newcastle (Set 64) and they score in each of the next two sets (Sets 65 and
66). This trend ends with a Newcastle completion following scoring points (Set 67).

For the bulk of the match, momentum favoured Manly; they enjoyed far more possession in Newcastle’s half, especially in the first 40 minutes. Hence, Manly were successful at building and sustaining momentum. However, Manly were unable to convert their momentum into scoreboard pressure.

To Newcastle’s credit, their defence was able to hold Manly at bay and when Newcastle did get the ball in good field position they were able to score. Therefore, Newcastle found it more difficult to build and sustain momentum, but they were regularly successful at building scoreboard pressure.

This turned out to be the difference between the two teams; Newcastle had fewer point scoring opportunities but they converted most of them into points (scoreboard pressure), whereas Manly had plenty of opportunities to score points (momentum) but only converted one of them.

The above analysis leads to a different interpretation to the performance of both teams as reflected by the comments at the media conference. From Manly came statements about not turning up to play or playing poorly, which the above analysis shows was not entirely correct. Specifically, Manly were let down by an inability to convert momentum (possession and field position) into points; they just couldn’t get across the line and as the match wore on this lead to frustration and poor decisions in defence.

Newcastle’s attitude in defence was outstanding as they continually turned Manly away. On the back of this, Newcastle were able to score points every time they built momentum (4 out of 4) and during Trends 5 and 7 Newcastle scored twice.

This demonstrates a comprehensive performance in both attack and defence for Newcastle, which will relieve some pressure on the team (and coach). It will also build some genuine confidence, not just because of the win, but rather, because of how they went about producing it.

Some other statistics that show how close the teams were during this match are listed below:

• 21m difference in total run metres (Newcastle 1449 to Manly 1428)

• 122m difference in total kick metres (Newcastle 723 to Manly 599)

• Manly had 11 off loads after 19 minutes (22 for the match; 7 were just from Tony Williams) to Newcastle’s 1 (7 for the match)

The content of Shayne’s Round-by-Round Analysis is the property of Condor Performance and can only be reused by getting permission from the author. He can be emailed at shayne@condorperformance.com