You know the world of sport is spinning off its axis when Warnie starts to make sense.
Didn’t you just love his remedy for the recent dissention in Australia’s Test cricket ranks – “Lock ’em in a room and get them on the grog together”.
At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I reckon Warnie’s on the money. In fact I’d bet my Boonie Beer doll on it.
Yes, good teams have standards, disciplines, structures and processes, They have common goals, frequently met. But they’re characterized by honesty and trust, sharing and sacrifice. They operate in an environment where individuals are not made to contribute, they want to contribute. And heaven forbid, they have fun.
When do you think this Aussie “team” last shared a decent drink and a laugh together? When the sports scientists told them to, would be my guess. You can almost hear the instruction – “Listen up lads. You’re allowed 220ml on Wednesday, and up to 245ml immediately after the match, but only after you’ve lowered your lactic acid levels to six on four, and you’re isotopes readings are above 12. And don’t forget your protein shake beforehand. Enjoy. ”
There’s one of the problems. Sports science – unquestionably valuable to a point – has over the past five years hijacked elite level sport.
Data is collected and crunched, then spat out onto spreadsheets, which corral thought and heavily influence decisions. He’s soft, he’s a freak, he’s tired – he needs a rest.
Remember the good old days when coaches and selectors assembled teams on gut instinct? Performance and ability were obviously critical, but they also factored in the less tangible elements – attitude, courage, character, mental toughness, tenacity, determination, even “lockeroom fit”.
Now it’s all about psychometrics and anthropometric profiling, the G-force impact of an NRL forward, the aerobic capacity of an AFL midfielder, the fast bowler’s angle of refraction at the delivery stride.
I’ll put it too you the last thing any athlete, coach, even administrator needs in this day and age is more data and analysis. What they need in more meaningful human interaction. How was Mickey Arthur going to garner the thoughts of underperforming charges in India.”Email or text them to me..” Any chance of a chat, face to face, over a coffee or – perish the thought – a beer?
Darren Lehmann almost insists on it – a bit of time together at the end of play, a couple of beers if you like. It doesn’t seem to be hurting the Queensland Bulls.
What can we do to fix it? Here’s an idea – we ring Alan Jones and borrow his chaff bag – the one he was going to put Julia Gillard in. But instead of abducting the prime minister, we fill the bag up with sports scientists, and dump them at sea.
And while they’re drifting listlessly back to shore, we return control of sport to the rightful owners – namely the athletes and the coaches, even the fans. And we tell everybody else to butt out
I’d drink to that.
The Golden Lance for Brand Erosion
Very crowded on the Podium of Fools this month. Let’s start with Raider reject Josh Dugan – he’ll work out one day how many potholes you have to fill in to earn $600k over a calendar year. And be all the better for it. Not a bad kid, apparently. Suggest he just needs to find a better environment with new influences.
The very busy Usman Khawaja – he gets told the truth by a brave manager and promptly sacks him. Terrific. No doubt he’ll find a new manager – somebody who tells him what he wants to hear. That’ll work well.
Sole trader Magpie Travis Cloke parking in the boss’s car park – that’s worthy of a mention. Nothing selfish about him.
Rugby knuckleheads Kurtley Beale and Copper Vuna for their stink on the Melbourne “Rabbles” team bus in Durban. Vuna then escalates the issue by telling the world Genius. Isn’t there any such thing as a private thought these days?
In a similar vein, David Warner “giving” it to the Indians on Twitter, after our first “reasonable” day of Test cricket in what – two seasons? Dave – shut up.
All worth erosions but the gong this month goes to Shane Watson, who as a senior leader of Australian Cricket, responded as badly as any athlete ever has to an authority call – a correct call – against him. Whooska – toys out of the cot. Wonder if that’s how he’ll be telling his new baby boy Will to behave when he grows up? Hope not. Watto, I don’t know whether you realise this, but we’re trying to admire you, mate. Throw us a bone.
Third Half Athlete of the Month
Ironman Shannon Eckstein, who recently won his seventh Australian Ironman title, eclipsing the record of the great Trevor Hendy. You don’t hear much about these guys amid all the clutter and noise of the modern sporting age. Once upon a time, the boys were on telly every week, and getting flown across to LA to hang out with Pamela Anderson and the Baywatch crew. Now they just go quietly about their business, training, working, training, competing, no fan fare, no peptides, no petulance, just wholesome endeavour. Eckstein – a seriously good athlete. And from what we can tell, a pretty decent bloke. Google him. And judge for yourself.
Honorable mention: James Pattinson – the only Indian homework dodger who immediately put his hand up and conceded: Yep. Sorry. I got that wrong. I would have had him captain the last test well before Watto. Then again, I would also have had Bart Simpson.
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