The season is done, the Bulldogs are premiers and AFL players are now on holidays.
While the players put their feet up, the high performance teams are hard at work. This lot of well-educated tracksuit-wearing folk will be toiling away, planning their little butts off to create successful programs.
But herein lies the dilemma. High performance systems alone don’t produce winners.
Now you may think that a high performance environment is critical to success and you can’t possibly win without one. But let’s be honest, the Bulldogs have a high performance environment, so do the Swans, Saints, Crows, Hawks, Blues, Cats, Eagles etc. Every AFL club these days is a high performance environment.
Every AFL club has resources that would be the envy of Olympic athletes and any other team sport for that matter.
The multi-million dollar facilities and medical attention is second to none, as is the sports science. Altitude rooms and hydro rehab equipment are now staples at every venue.
The days of standing waist deep in a wheelie bin full of ice have long gone. And the old barbell rack has been replaced by anti-gravity treadmills and Pilates reformer beds worth tens of thousands of dollars.
With a tax now placed on football department spending, the gap between the rich, spend-whatever-you-want clubs and the smell-of-an-oily-rag clubs has diminished.
They all now have talent ID programs run by a network of full-time recruiters who scour the country looking at every kid or young man who may have talent.
The recruiting network and academy structures are enormous and really there is no such thing as a kid who goes unseen.
The coaches themselves now have access to world-class coaching and leadership programs that previous coaches only dreamt of.
If they aren’t off to Harvard over the break they are visiting an EPL, NFL, MLB or some world-class facility to pick the brains of the coaches and high performance managers.
Not so long ago it used to be the domain of the senior coach to go overseas but now virtually every assistant has the opportunity for a little international PD.
Winning comes from daring to do things differently—being unique and being first.
These trips on a personal and club level are seen as vital to staying “ahead of the game”.
This is despite the fact that nearly every coach I have spoken to has returned saying that AFL football is at the forefront of elite team sports in virtually every way.
This includes IT technology and equipment for reviewing and monitoring performance.
Clubs also have a multitude of staff who audit their high performance systems and report to the board—the people responsible for ticking off the massive expenditure required for all this.
Each club can talk at length on their great system and how it is giving the boys the best chance at winning.
If this is the case why are so many teams not winning?
The answer is simple. Systems do not create winners.
They produce consistency and give you the opportunity to compete at the highest level, but winning comes from elsewhere.
Winning comes from daring to do things differently—being unique and being first.
Like the Bulldogs were with their handball-out-of-trouble style.
They knew that if they wanted to win it was no use copying the other sides that have recently won.
The Hawks don’t handball out of trouble, they absorb contact, create a stoppage, shrink the ground and then use the ball out of the stoppage.
Bevo had a choice: copy the Hawks or be unique—be first with something new.
Thankfully he chose the latter and we have a new champion.
Winning also comes from taking risks. Drafting Caleb Daniel was a risk. Paying such a high price for Tom Boyd was a risk, as was leaving premiership player Matt Suckling out of the team.
Winning also comes from creating a culture solely focused on winning. It isn’t just a destination it is an attitude that pervades every aspect of your team, every day.
It isn’t a person saying that we must stick to a system. It is a club saying we are totally focused on winning and will compromise on nothing that may stand in our way.
It’s why Bevo stopped his players at Tullamarine Airport after an interstate game when he spotted the premiership cup coming back from a promotional tour.
He called every player in and said, “Look at the cup for as long as it takes. Make no mistake, that is what we want.”
This is the main difference between a system-led club and one simply focusing on winning.
The question I want clubs to ask is this: do we want to ensure our players, coaches and staff to have the most elite high performance environment, one that provides an opportunity to do their best? Or are we here to win?
If the answer is to win then I suggest rerouting some of the money spent keeping up with other sports science divisions and investing it in creating a uniqueness, a difference, being innovative and most of all getting the whole club in the mindset that you are here to win—and nothing else.
Great clubs aren’t shy to win and this is the biggest gift Luke Beveridge brought to the Bulldogs. He made them believe they could.
This week in SEN Inside Football…
- Western Bulldogs fans could be forgiven for a little dyslexia as 22 men transformed themselves from mere footballers into red, white and blue immortals. We dedicate a full page to each premiership hero.
- Nathan Burke explains why the Dogs’ premiership is a victory for coaching over science.
- Bulldogs assistant coach Steven King anoints two young ruck princes in Tom Boyd and Jordan Roughead.
- We review all of the Grand Final action. What did we learn about Sydney and the Bulldogs on the biggest stage of all?
- Crackers Keenan provides you with whispers from the corridors of power that you are yet to hear – including one about Kurt Tippett’s future.
- Titus O’Reily takes his weekly satirical look at some of the biggest stories in the world of footy in the past seven days.
- Paul Amy takes a look inside the controversial decision to boot Frankston from the VFL.
- Plus we cover all the off-season news in the VFL, SANFL, WAFL and local leagues.
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