Sport AUS introduction [00:00:03] This is a Sport Australia podcast production.

Cam Tradell [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to our coaching and officiating podcast series. My name is Cam Tradell and I'm the project leader for coaching officiating at Sport Australia. Over this series. We will look at what it takes to modernise Australia's coaching and officiating system. Each podcast, we will be joined by a special guest who will share experiences and practical tips on their topics. Today, we're fortunate enough to be joined by Mick Byrne via phone at the airport, Mick was part of a successful Australian Rules football team and won a premiership before successfully transitioning to coaching rugby and has worked across England, Scotland, Ireland and Japan before winning two World Cups with New Zealand. Mick then found himself in Australia, where he took up a role with Australian Rugby Union as the national skills coach. Welcome, and we look forward to chatting, mate.

Mick Byrne [00:01:01] Yeah, thanks, Cam.

Cam Tradell [00:01:02] Seeing things from such a broad spectrum. I'd be really interested in how you see the system working, knowing what community has to offer, what's the richness that can come from community that yes, you get your participation in community, but what does that actually offer to high performance with regards to a value?

Mick Byrne [00:01:22] I think the biggest one for me is the love of the game. I think, you know, the true community, it creates that, you know, as I say, the love of the game and people involved in sport enjoying themselves and, you know, continuing on from when you're a kid, like when you're when you're a little kid, you play sport because you love it and you have fun. And I think community has a role to play in making sure that that stays stays true all the way through. You know, I think, you know, we'll probably talk about it a little bit in greater detail. I think community can also have a have a stronger role in the way they prepare players without without losing that enjoyment, but how they can prepare players for a career. But I think the key is that whenever I talk to any players and, you know, the more I coach, the more I realise that, you know, I'm speaking to, you know, players that have just recently retired after, you know, 25, 30 years in the game. As you know, the thing that they've talked about is, is the reason why they are probably giving the game away at age 38 is the fact that they've had a great innings and they can't do the job that they love. You know, they can't do the game anymore, that they love doing. And that's the thing they talk about. It's it's it's a game that they love doing.

Cam Tradell [00:02:44] Your coach and your officials obviously play such a major role in what that experience looks like with with that sort of in mind, where do you see the benefits for coaches and officials with regards to getting that that, you know, open conversation and dialogue with with athletes and participants?

Mick Byrne [00:03:02] Well, I think, you know, having gone back to community and working with community, one of the things that's never changed and I know it was I know it was something that motivated me, and maybe that's why I chose coaching, but it was something that motivated me as a as a player. I just wanted to be able to do what I was supposed to be able to do, you know? So if I was playing, you know, when I grew up, I was playing rugby league. So if I was if I could break tackles and score tries or make tackles or kick goals when all the shooting like that, that's what I wanted to be able to do. And so every day I turned up to training. I wanted to I just wanted to be able to do those things. And I got frustrated as a kid not being able to, you know, make line breaks or break tackles. And I'd just go away and I'd work on stuff and I'd look on telly and I'll see what, you know, when I was growing up, you know, the players down at Manly Rugby League, you know, I was trying to emulate what those guys were doing. And I think that when I go back now, sport has become a lot more professional than it was back in those days for everybody. I look back and I think, you know, if coaches can continue to provide that at a community level and just keep helping young players get better and to be able to do what they want to do and not get caught up in this watching teams, and this is how this team plays and look at this move that this team does, but just continually work on helping young players and, you know, get better and keep the love of the game and turn up the training and try and be better players than they were yesterday. You know, so the whole concept of being better today than I was yesterday and waking up tomorrow and try and be better than I was today, we can provide officials and coaches and and everything can provide that for young players coming through that I will keep the love of the game because, you know, the more that the more I talk to the young players that that's what they want to do and how do I do that. Or how do you do that or how does he do that? You know, and I think that's the motivation around that is enormous. you know, we talk about intrinsic motivation, but I think we can provide that opportunity for young players, by the way, we coach them.

Cam Tradell [00:05:15] Some great insights there it is. It's the it's the environment that is created and people mistake the word fun and challenges and they sort of get them mixed up, fun is challenging people at their own level.

Mick Byrne [00:05:27] Yeah. Look what I talked about this last year with the team I was coaching. They were talking about, you know, they'd had a bad run, they hadn't won for a couple of years and they were talking about they're not having any fun. You know, they're not having any fun in their environment and we talked about it. One day we went out to train and it was snowing and it was about minus two and we were doing some line-out sessions and we had a big Fijian guy, and he was really struggling in the cold weather and we have these lineout lifting aids, you know, the stretchy ones you put over your legs and he couldn't even put them on and the boys had to help him put them on because his fingers were frozen. And anyway, we got out, we went inside and afterwards and we had some breakfast. And the noise in the breakfast area was unbelievable how loud it was. And we had our team meeting and I said, honestly, boys, we've talked about fun. Did anybody have any fun today? And they're like, Oh, I looked at the Fijian fella, and I said, Did you have fun this morning? He goes NO! "I didn't have fun at all". I said, But how do you feel now? He says, "I feel unbelievable. I loved it" because it was the fact that you went through it together. It was the way we created the training and and the fact that they got through that together, that created an enormous amount of enjoyment from them. And we didn't go out there to try and have fun. But guess what they had in what was the worst environment was they they finished training and they're like, oh, how cool was that? It was awesome. And so, yeah, I think it's if you create the right environment and, you know, we've talked about this before about creating the right learning environment where players are finding things out for themselves and problem solving. It doesn't matter what what you're doing, they'll have fun. At the end of the day, they're going to have fun.

Cam Tradell [00:07:15] It's interesting, because you're talking about the the team meeting afterwards. And, you know, when you started to interrogate afterwards and you're getting that player feedback that really helped you so that you start to create that environment. How important is that feedback for a coach to learn and to understand themselves better?

Mick Byrne [00:07:31] I think if you're, if you... I think for me, Cam when I first started, it's important that you realise you've got two ears and one mouth, and when I was young, when I was a young coach, I forgot about that proportion, you know, so I tended to use my mouth like I had to two mouths and one ear you know, like I was I just didn't I thought that was my role as a coach. And, you know, really, you know, if you use that, you know, the two ears and one mouth concept, then you got twice as much listening, as much talking, and you're probably going to be a reasonable coach. And, you know, you do have those moments through your career where if you're listening, you actually hear some some things that you can learn from

Cam Tradell [00:08:16] looking at those those moments that that the "aha", the penny drop moment for an athlete, with you with regards to this could be in high performance, or community. Have you got any sort of insight  to methods that you use to sort of bring the best out of players and how does that sort of  work for you?

Mick Byrne [00:08:35]  Yeah, I think for me, you know, you'd spend you could spend a lot of time, you know, imparting your knowledge and it not be received. And and I think one of the things I've learnt is to create Problem-Solving opportunities of training and asking questions about, you know, where the where the knowledge is that from your playing group. And I went out did an under 10s coaching. So is this works for the community as well, you know, and you go out and you do you know, I worked an Under 10s team up on the Sunshine Coast and we were doing some tackle tech and we were working on getting there, getting their wrap and getting their feet in. And we were doing it on the tackle bag. And and the thing is, I just asked the question, you know, you're sort of working away and you say, you know, tell me, how did that feel? Did you get a good wrap on there? Where were your feet when you made contact and, you know, were you feeling strong or were you in the right position? And they ask. And then the thing is, when you ask the question is you wait for  the answer and sometimes you don't get the answer. And when you're when you first start off as a coach and you start asking these questions sometimes five seconds can feel like five minutes and you've just got to be patient and let them sort it out. You know, because I hear a lot of coaches these days because they've been told, you know, ask questions, ask questions, they ask the question. And if I don't get an answer within two minutes, two seconds, they're like, well, that's what we need. What we need to do here is we need to get our feet in close. And everyone, justs nods their heads, but they don't understand what they're actually nodding their head about. So I think it's for me, it's about asking questions and giving them time to answer. And if they do give an answer that they're not quite sure of. And I know you've experienced this with me a couple of times. I might say ask a question. And they. And the guy look at me and like," well what were your thoughts", and he might say something with a with a sort of an inquisitive answer and I'll say, do you think is that what you think or are you guessing? "Oh I don't know..." Well, let's do it again. Let's just let's just do it again and see what you feel and tell me, "Oh OK...", and then you might ask him again and he goes, obviously, I'm not doing it because you keep asking me questions and I'm like "that's ok mate," and then all of a sudden they'll turn around, and they'll go " Oh, now I feel it" and then you're done, you know, like the fact is that, you know, some players that some, especially kids, they don't realise, they think they're doing something and until they actually realise they're actually not doing it or your instructions aren't going to help them. And I think that's the thing I found with when I went to the Under 10s, even at Under 10s. And then I come up afterwards and this kid gets knocked over in a tackle and his dad says to him, "Oh what happened there?" he goes. Well, I just didn't get my feet in close, and I knew it as soon as I got hit. I didn't have my feet in close and I just got knocked over. And he Dad looks at me and goes " What have you done to my son?"  And I said well, he's done it himself mate, I didnt do anything. He did it himself. You know, he found that out for himself. And I think that's the you know, that's the challenge as a coach is to create these learning environments where you're asking questions, but you're allowing the players to find the answers themselves. And, you know, some players are really good at it. Some players have great awareness. And, you know, like straight away, they realise what they're doing. Others take a little bit longer and we can grow this into a team environment as well. What do you think we should do here, this position on the field and have they have the have the team sorted out for themselves as well? And it's very easy. I like to make the sort of I won't use the words I usually use here Cam, but we we you know, you can have great Mondays to Fridays and average Saturdays as a coach, or you can have average Monday to Friday and great Saturdays. And what I mean there is you can you can be a coach who runs you really great training sessions, tell players what you want and players go out and do exactly what you want. And I get the Saturday in this struggling or you can create Monday to Fridays where there's a bit of chaos at training, there's Problem-Solving. No one's really going well. You finish training, and you thought" gee that wasn't a great session, we really struggled through that". But then you come out on Saturday and the players deliver everything you've asked of because they sort sorted it out for themselves during the week. And that that to me is one of the big things is, you know, if you can create an environment as a coach, you have to get comfortable with this. You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable in sometimes your training sessions just don't go exactly the way you'd like them to. As long as you've created problems and they're getting solved, you know, the answer will be good at the end of the day. So. I think that's the challenge that I sort of found myself needing to change.

Cam Tradell [00:13:39] That empowerment for the players. And the moment you almost had those dual celebrations between the coach and the athlete and them making the instinctive decisions on the field, I think becomes so important when they're competing rather than the conscious mind taking over rather than the instinct and having that chaos is so crucial at the training.

Mick Byrne [00:14:01] And you don't want to be out of control though, you don't want to be just throw the ball into the middle of the field and say, let's go for it. Or, you know, what you're doing is you're creating the environment that's in the context of the game so that they can sort things out. And and that's the challenge of a coach, you know, like "What do we want to achieve here?", we want to achieve that player's awareness of what we're doing, I want them to be thinking about the decisions they make in a game. And the big one is we want them to be able to enjoy the fact that they're contributing to it, you know, and and they're not going to do that if you're saying things and the players don't really understand what you're saying. If players are sitting there in a room and not so, I don't really know what he means by that. And they're too embarrassed to ask the question. And I'm only saying this because I went through it as a coach, you know, like you don't realise it, but you sit there and you're delivering stuff that's really good because, you know, you've done the the hours of the research. You've looked at the footage. You're really clear in your head what it looks like and you get up and deliver something. And if someone doesn't understand it, it's like, well "what's wrong with them?" You know it's pretty clear to me what what we need to do. And for any coaches that that are feeling that, you know, try and teach a, you know, a primary school kid, that three plus two equals five. And when they don't get it, try and explain to them. Then you'll know whether you're a good coach or not. Just, you know, because three plus two equals five. Yeah, well, we all know that. But at the end of the day, when you're learning it for the first time, sometimes it's not as simple as we think. And this is the part of being a coach.

Cam Tradell [00:15:35] Fantastic inside there, Mick, thanks so much. The having clear purpose and context as sessions becomes so crucial to creating these positive learning environments. Mick Byrne, I want to say thanks very, very much and I look forward to catch up again soon.

Cam Tradell [00:15:52] Thank you for joining me today, if you'd like to find out more about Coaching and Officiating or have any feedback or questions, please email us at Workforce@sportaus.gov.au. My name is Cam Tradell and I look forward to you joining me for the next podcast in the coaching and officiating series.