Its Pantomime Season, with McLeish and the RFU the Stars of the Show.

I’m worried. My two biggest sporting passions are rugby and football. My two biggest passions are embodied by the England Rugby team and Aston Villa Football Club. At the moment neither are doing much to justify my lifelong support. The thing they appear to have in comment is the thing they lack.... someone in charge who has a clue what they are doing.

Both organisations appear to be intent on making the respective teams a laughing stock within their sports and how they are viewed nationally and globally. The RFU have made the decision to take their time in replacing Martin Johnson. Finally a reasonable decision! However, personally, I would have given him chance to build upon the experiences he had and the lessons he learned from the World Cup. I’m confident he would have shifted the old guard from his Elite squad. Those like Moody, Thompson, Tindall and Nick “£35k down the toilet” Easter should go. To be outwardly mocking younger players for training too hard is an absolute disgrace. I hope that hasn’t left a lasting impression on both the young players and any potential new coach. Hunger is a vital component of a successful team and not a quality you can buy.

I’m still unclear as to who is in charge of what at the RFU. Rob Andrew, the man with more titles than Man Utd, has had another change of role which apparently see’s him in charge of everything in Elite Rugby, except the Elite squad itself. I saw no evidence of input from him pre-tournament or during. I assume he remains with the RFU because the aspects his role has responsibility for (that he claims responsibility for at least) appear to be progressing well. I refer to the Saxon’s and the age-group teams. Andrew’s position is further strengthened by the success of the Seven’s squad who have retained their Dubai 7’s title.

The players let themselves down at the World Cup. I believe Martin Johnson was right to trust them. They abused that trust. At the end of the day they are grown men and fully aware of their responsibilities as professional athletes. They are also meant to be at the more intelligent end of the sportsman spectrum. Mike Tindall needs to look up the word scapegoat in the dictionary!!

The RFU have let themselves down post-World Cup. At one point there were 5 different reviews going on into varying aspects of the tournament performance, the results of which were then leaked to the media. Rob Andrew refuses to take responsibility for anything, then changes his mind but refuses to resign. Johnson resigns. Martyn Thomas fines Tindall then gets sacked. Chris Ashton and James Haskell are found to be not-guilty of any wrong-doing, yet given suspended fines  anyway with the RFU having apparently advised them to pay the alleged injured party hush money! It is Pantomime season I guess!

The RFU are now looking to recruit one of the best coaches in the world, with money being “no object”. I hope the new man can see past the Pantomime Donkey that is the current RFU structure and see that there is a pool of highly talented, young and hungry players who want to play for England because it is the pinnacle of your career, not because you get a £35k win bonus.

Talk of Pantomime Donkeys brings me to my beloved Villa and Alex McLeish. I was concerned when he was appointed, not because of his association with the inferior side of the city, but because he was a negative tactician whose sides play boring defensive football. I was prepared to give him a chance and initially it looked like he was winning his battle to convince the Villa fans he could deliver positive football.

Alas, it appears he is proving my initial fears to be correct. Against Spurs recently he played two right backs in an attempt to quell the threat of Gareth Bale. Bale contributed the assists to the two Spurs goals which tells you all you need to know.

And then there is Heskey. The striker who can’t score, converted to an attacking midfield player who can’t pass or create! Genius! My only hope is that now Martin O’Neil has returned to the Premiership with Sunderland he will buy Heskey (again). He is more than welcome to take a number of others he wasted money on when he was at Villa Park.

Its not as if we are without talent, in particular with our young players. Bannan, Herd, Albrighton and Delph provide a good balance of creativity, steel and energy. We should be creating plenty of chances. According to recent Opta stats we aren’t. Opta shows that Darren Bent has the fewest touches per match of any player in the league. No wonder we aren’t scoring enough goals. We know that Bent is good enough, he is a 20-goal-a-season striker.

In terms of defence it wasn’t that long ago that we possessed one of the strongest in the league. We comprise an Irish international goal keeper, a Scottish international right back, an (ex?) England international left back, and Welsh & Irish international centre backs. You would expect that level of experience to be able to defend set-pieces with ease.

So we have a striker who can score goals, the potential of a very creative midfield and an international defence. It begs the question where is it going wrong? The answer has to be in the coaching and tactics. The tactics come from?? Yes, McLeish.

My hopes for the last bit of 2011 and the start of 2012? Villa start playing to their potential, remove the negativity and aren’t dragged into a relegation scrap and the RFU allow Stuart Lancaster the freedom to pick and coach his own Elite squad for the 6 Nations.

My worries for the last bit of 2011 and the start of 2012? McLeish continues to fit as many defenders into the team as possible and plays Heskey in goal and England continue to stifle the young, talented and enthusiastic players in favour of “experienced” players who aren’t good enough (and never were).

Is Technology more important that the "Art" of Coaching?

“If you win in IT, you tend to win.”

It appears that Sir Clive Woodward is taking his superb attention to detail to a new level. The ex-England Rugby Head coach is well known for his use of technology when it comes to coaching and preparing athletes & sports teams. He is now using his approach with the British Olympic team alongside a company called Dartfish.

During his tenure as England Coach between 1998 and 2004 he implemented a number of methods with which his team could gain “half a percent” advantages over the opposition. He employed a large number of coaches to cover specific aspects of the game, a practice previously un-conceived. He brought in Sherylle Calder, a visualisation specialist who worked with the highly successful Australian cricket team of the 1990’s. She developed a software package to help the players improve their spatial awareness. He also worked with the team’s kit supplier, Nike, in order to develop a tighter fitting shirt. This made his players more difficult to tackle.

Woodward also introduced ProZone, a technology package that fed him data on his players from a series of cameras placed around the Twickenham Stadium and allowed him to analyse their levels of performance. The methods employed produced results of the highest quality...winning the Webb Ellis trophy.

Sir Clive is now continuing to use his technological innovations in his current role as the director of elite performance for the British Olympic Association. In speaking at a recent BOA event he outlined how highly he rates the Dartfish technology and expects it to have a similar impact on the Olympic preparations as ProZone did on the England Rugby team.

The package that Dartfish provide allows the coaching staff to access live feeds from their athletes during competition, analyse the pictures which are sent directly to ipads and laptops and then make decisions using the most accurate performance data.

The Dartfish product has already been given a resounding thumbs up by Peter Bentley a performance coach with the British Sailing Team and the British heptathlete Louise Hazel. In speaking at the same event as Woodward, Hazel stated that she would often disagree with her coach, however after seeing the analysis and footage she agreed with his assessment and was able to adjust the settings of her blocks for races in the recent World Championships. She ran a PB in the 100 metres hurdles. She also feels that in being able to study her performances in detail she has been able to improve her technique and avoid injury.

Whilst I fully accept that the use of technology in professional sport makes a significant difference in the levels of performance I do have concerns that there will be an over-reliance on video analysis and less on the innate skill and intuition of a coach.

 There have been recent arguments in both Football and Rugby that in England in particular we are not producing coaches of a strong enough calibre. I have often felt that coaching is as much of an art as a science. The best coaches of course will have a balance of the two, however for British sport to be encouraging the development of coaches surely the intrinsic qualities required to be successful should over-ride the ability to be handy with a PC.

I agree that technology works, but I worry that the ability to inspire, the inherent skill to improve people and the inborn gift of working with others will be lost in favour of a generation of computer geeks. The coaches who had the biggest influence on my love of sport Steve Edwards at Wolverhampton Rugby Club, Dave Evans at New College 6th Form and Pete Carter at Nova Utd FC fed my enthusiasm and improved my skills, knowledge and understanding of the sports that remain an important part of my life. They matched my passion with theirs and with their committment on many a cold and rainy sunday morning. I would hate to see people like them shy away from coaching and aspiring to develop as coaches themselves.

Perhaps England doesn't produce good coaches because the best ones would rather stay in the amatuer ranks of sports and enjoy working with athletes and sports men and women rather than spend more time with their eyes glued to a laptop, concerning themselves with broadband speeds and data downloads.