Rugby League Coaching Manuals

Roy Masters, SMH - Canberra coach Dave Furner was working at his desk at 5.45am recently when an ARL development officer dropped by the Raiders office to collect some footballs for a coaching session at a distant school. NRL coaches seem to operate on the theory that the less they sleep, the more they'll win.

Footballers speak of metaphorical wake-up calls - but often sleep past actual wake-up calls - while coaches are seemingly permanently awake.

Their obsession with being across every detail is both conquering and consuming, magnified by use of statistics company Sportsdata, which is capable of producing 14,000 pieces of information on a game,

Such is their devotion to detail, their patron saint should be Saint Teresa of Avila, the 16th century Carmelite nun who wrote The Way of Perfection.

It wasn't always like this.

Furner's father, Don, was a first-grade coach of the Roosters and Canberra, and took the 1986 Kangaroos on their undefeated tour.

"I was not known to rise early," said Don, an understatement considering he was often last tourist out of bed before training.

"None of this studying stuff with me. Everything was in my head. Wherever I went, the football knowledge went with me.

"I tell Dave the field is 75 yards wide and 110 yards long, and I could always tell people what happened inside it."

The modern game is no more complex than it was in Don's day but the web of information around it is. While it could be argued today's coaches are involved in the same kind of brinkmanship that drove the cold war arms race - mutually assured destruction - the truth is those who work hardest win.

This is evidenced by results that follow the sacking of a micromanaging coach and his replacement with a laid-back, chilled out dude. Players initially welcome the relaxed training regime of the new coach, and the club directors congratulate themselves when a few wins follow.

But the players, undisciplined for their errors and unprepared tactically for their next opponents, start losing. Suddenly that detail-oriented, obsessively text messaging coach who emailed vision off to players at 3am didn't seem too bad after all.

Exhibit A: Michael Hagan replacing Brian Smith at Parramatta. After reaching the 2007 grand final qualifier, unluckily losing to premiers, Melbourne, the Eels were expected to have a great 2008 but failed dismally. Hagan is gone, and Smith's deal at Newcastle has been extended.

Exhibit B: Chris Anderson replacing Ricky Stuart at the Roosters. Anderson was sacked before the season finished, and his replacement, the formerly laid-back Brad "Freddy" Fittler, found himself revisiting Stuart's game plans.

Clubs overcorrect when they make a change, referring to the old coach in terms the bride's family usually reserve for ex-husbands, while blind to the faults of the new man.

Because the detail-oriented coaches work so hard, they occasionally have atomic blow-ups so big they could be measured in megatonnes.

Supporters of the A-League's Aurelio Vidmar, the Adelaide United coach who savaged his city, club directors and players at a press conference after a 4-0 hiding by Melbourne Victory, claim he was tired and frustrated after two relentless years where he had taken his team to Asia.

The Storm's Craig Bellamy also went berserk at a press conference after his team defeated Cronulla in last year's grand final qualifier, accusing the media of bias, and angering the tribunal.

Bellamy works longer hours than a 7-Eleven shopkeeper.

Stuart did not explode at the press conference following Australia's loss to New Zealand in the World Cup final but he was still pent up the following day when his shoulder charge of the referee cost him his position as national coach.

OK, all three over-reacted and magnified the role of the perceived enemy, be it a "pissant town", an agenda-driven media or a referee.

The role of press conferences is interesting. Most of them are as bland as a block of processed cheese.

The quotes are produced by precisely the same process: automated, uniform, each wrapped in protective cellophane.

The media sit before an elevated authority figure, similar to a classroom, only with cheesier questions.

Press conferences replaced the old dressing room interviews where coaches often made accusations about referees and biased administrations.

Their outbursts usually led the back page of the paper - pronouncements the late Frank Hyde labelled "sermons on the mount".

Administrators began fining the coaches for these statements about the same time press conferences came into vogue.

They suit today's busy coach because he is not required to give multiple interviews, and they please the paymasters, TV, because the vision and sound are not compromised by the cameraman being edged into the showers.

We were shocked by the outbursts of Vidmar and Bellamy, mainly because they were a rare piece of ripe blue vein in a mainly cheddar world.