Coaching is an Art based on a Science

Or

The Art and Science of Scoring Goals

I grew up in Colac, west of Geelong, and played junior football there in the seniors before I went down to Collingwood for three years. While there, I studied physical education at The University of Melbourne and history at Secondary Teachers' College, before finally getting a Bachelor of Education from Deakin University.

By 23, I was back at Colac coaching the senior team in the Hampden League and working as a physical education and history teacher. I saw coaching as an extension of teaching physical education and although I was very young, I was coming out of League football, so I had a bit of credit. There are things I did then that I wouldn’t do now and other things that I would do better.

I coached in Colac for three years but I was travelling everyday from Colac to teach at Belmont High in Geelong. I still played with Colac and ended up coaching Anglesea for three years until I injured my knee and ended my playing career. The Anglesea team went from last in the first season, to last in the second season, but it was a better last – winning five games! The second year we improved again, and the year after I left, they won the premiership!

Geelong Football Club advertised for a skills coach and that’s where I really started my coaching career, working under the legendary Tommy Hafey, who became a lifelong friend. We had one year together before Tom left, then John Devine arrived for a three-year stint but then we all got the sack as the team performance was pretty mediocre.

I spent some time after that writing for the local paper about Geelong in the Advertiser and presenting in the AFL’s coach education courses under the direction of David Parkin. In 1991, David was appointed as coach of Carlton again and he asked me on board as an assistant. Then opportunity knocked again when Essendon contacted me and asked me to be their development coach full-time.

It involved driving from Geelong to Melbourne every day in 1992 to work with Kevin Sheedy, who gave me great freedom to explore new ideas regarding training and playing. I worked there with Denis Pagan, who was appointed reserves coach, and football manager Danny Corcoran who went on to be CEO of Athletics Australia. Denis left the next year to become a great coach of North Melbourne. Danny and I were there for the Bombers premiership of 1993 with the “Baby Bombers”. I stayed there for six years and in 1998 became Football Manager and assistant coach of Collingwood FC until we all got sacked so that Mick Malthouse could bring in his own team. Then I went to Richmond for seven years before getting an invitation in 2007 to go back to Geelong where we won two premierships under Mark Thompson. I knew Mark personally as I had coached him at Essendon and we had an excellent relationship. Geelong appointed a new coach, Chris Scott, in 2011 but I got a call from Ross Lyon at St Kilda asking me to come down and help their assistant coaches – to teach the teachers.

Since 2009, I have worked as a mentor for the Next Coach Program. Run by the AFL Coaches Association, Players Association and AFL SportsReady, it targets players who are coming to the end of their careers who want to be assistant coaches and new assistant coaches. The program has been very successful with 55 people already through including Adam Simpson, senior coach of the West Coast Eagles, Simon Goodwin who will be coach of Melbourne in 2017 and 30 others who are currently coaching in some form in the AFL system.

The Art of Scoring

Coaching is both the art of teaching and people management. The stats are important but the greats know it’s a people business.

Coaching offence or attack is an art based on science. There are certain principles which then lead to lots of preferences. There are only a few truths but endless options using those truths. The science shows you the facts. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion (art) but not their own facts so we should look at the patterns (science).

For years, the average score per team per game has been 90-93 points. In 2014 and 2015, that dropped to 86 due to the domination of defence. This showed that the game is moving more towards a defensive game. The theory is that it is easier to break down a sequence of events than to build one. In the most recent Super Bowl, the number 1 defensive team beat the number 1 attacking team.

Principles are few. Methods are endless.

How?

We start by looking at how goals are scored. Around 50% are scored from set shots (marks and free kicks) while the other 50% come from play (on the run, snaps and ground balls). Better attacks score proportionately more points from play than lesser attacks. Better attacks move the ball faster and involve a bit more random football. This allows for individual flair and player talent. To control this style of play, you need elite coaching to allow freedom within set boundaries. Too much organisation is as bad as not enough organisation. The art is to get the player to express themselves within the discipline of the team game.

Where?

The other statistic shows where goals are scored on the field with 75% of goals being scored from the corridor with only 25% being scored from the angle. As for distance, we see that again – 75% are scored from between the 15 and 50 metre range. Any closer than 15 metres and it gets too congested to win many possessions or the ball can be rushed through for a behind, and shots from outside 50 metres only make up 10% of the goals. These figures show that you need to go to the corridor between 15-50 metres many times to score heavily.

If you add superior accuracy, to numerous entries, then you have the complete attacking package. Good attacks kick to places rather than people, lesser attacks kick to people who might take the team to the wrong places. Ideally, you want to pass to the most dangerous person in the most dangerous area. Football is a game of mathematics played by flesh and blood! The more you go inside 50 metres, the more shots you will have and 50% of those shots will probably be goals. The methods are endless (long kicking, fast short kicking, run and carry and handball) but the key to the speed required is that in a good attacking team no one holds onto the ball very long – no one holds the team up.

What?

The real key to working out what a team should score comes down to the average number of shots. Last year, the league average inside 50 metres was 50 per team per game, which should have resulted (in theory) in around 25 shots. It actually was 24 shots while winning teams had 27 shots. If you have 30 shots a game, then you will probably win and if you get to 35, then you will rarely be beaten due to the large probable score and the fact that it also becomes a form of defence as the ball must have been down your end a lot! The stats show that around 50% of these entries will result in a shot and 50% will be a goal (“The 50% of 50%”principle). This gives us the ability to calculate the probable average score based on number of entries and shots within 50 metres, given that AFL average accuracy was 53%.

For example, last year, the premiers Hawthorn averaged 57 inside 50 metres entries a week, which, at 50% produced 29 scoring shots (50% of 50%) and with their 58% accuracy equals theoretically 16:12 (108 points) a week. Their actual score was 111 points.

Decision-making

For the last five years I have visited the football department at Stanford University, taking St Kilda’s Ross Lyon one year and Simon Goodwin another. When I go to Stanford University, I feel smarter! I especially have enjoyed contact with Burke Robinson, who lectures in decision-making.

As an example of decision-making, he explained, “If we were to have a drink and were both over the limit, you might drive home and arrive home safely. It was a bad decision with a good outcome. I decide to go home in a taxi which, on the way, has an accident. It was a good decision with a bad outcome. History will show that if we keep making good decisions then we are more likely to produce good outcomes and vice versa. So the key to a good attack is the ability to make good decisions.” I teach decision-making first and technique second, but not secondary. I do not discount technique, but if it is not baggage then the “smarts” are the difference between the elite and non-elite players throughout the world. Teach what before how.

Elite coaching now addresses decision-making based on cooperation. The coach has to get players to conform to the plan and understand that their individual brilliance will not suffer by working with the team. They still need to express themselves and display their flair and creativity but for the good of the team. Self-interest is important and I’m a strong believer of the star factor, but games are won by teams. It’s not golf! It is much easier to be recognised as a great player in a great team, than a great player in a poor team.

The statistics don’t lie – the more shots you make from the right positions, the more points you will score and the more games you will win as long as you have a balance of attack and defence.