WANT TO LEARN HOW TO COPE WITH PRESSURE? Gazing ... · case study it was the fact that it was so easy to use and was built around an understandable process. www,gazing.com E: [email protected]

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Final Results Table - 2005

Date Match Ground Result

01 Jan Northampton Saints vs Leeds Tykes Franklin’s Gardens 18 – 9 LOST

28 Jan Leeds Tykes vs London Irish Headingley 16 – 5 WON

04 Feb Worcester Warriors vs Leeds Tykes Sixways 22 – 15 LOST

18 Feb Sale Sharks vs Leeds Tykes Edgeley Park 19 – 10 LOST

25 Feb Leeds Tykes vs Saracens Headingley 5 – 14 LOST

13 March Wasps vs Leeds Tykes Causeway Stadium 30 – 15 LOST

27 March Leeds Tykes vs Leicester Tigers Headingley 23 – 22 WON

09 April Gloucester vs Leeds Tykes Kingsholm 15 – 33 WON

16 April Leeds Tykes vs Bath (Powergen Cup Final) Twickenham 20 – 12 WON

26 April Leeds Tykes vs NEC Harlequins Headingley 21 – 10 WON

30 April Bath vs Leeds Tykes Recreation Ground 6 – 10 WON

What Changed?

Based on these 2005 results it would be reasonable to assume that Leeds Tykes were in trouble by mid-March. They were! Bottom of the Premier league and 5 points adrift from Worcester the next closest team. Therefore it would be reasonable to assume that to avoid relegation to the (significantly less lucrative) National Division 1, they had gone down the time honoured route of either firing the coach or bringing in some major new signings to bolster the team?

Refreshingly, the club did neither and stood by both its coach, Phil Davies, the second most capped Welsh forward of all time, and stayed loyal to the existing squad.

So what new ‘strategy’ did the team employ, to pull off one of the strongest end of season turn-arounds yet seen in Premier League rugby?

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it was the fact that it was so easy to use and was built around an understandable process.


Unusually, the club decided to invest in a new ‘mental coaching’ methodology that is attracting growing interest within the RFU for both its simplicity and the dramatic impact that it’s having on those individuals and teams that adopt it.

The mental coaching technique in question, is provided by Gazing Performance Ltd, then, a Richmond, Surrey-based training company who were already working with the RFU’s Performance Department.

So what was it about Gazing’s approach to mental conditioning that attracted Leeds Tykes? According to Phil Davies, who first heard about Gazing whilst attending a workshop given by Gazing CEO, Martin Fairn, in November last year, it was the fact that it was so easy to use and was built around an understandable process. This appealed to Phil, who in a twenty-five year playing and coaching career - that included winning forty six caps for Wales

- had been exposed to his fair share of sports psychology.

In a nut shell, Phil knew that his squad were both well prepared and knew their jobs. Strategies for both their game preparation and post-game recovery were in place and the team was continuing to play expansive and ambitious rugby. But, the squad also knew the looming

dangers inherent in being dropped from the Premier Division; not just the estimated £3million loss of revenue that the club would suffer as a result of lost television rights, but, more pertinently, lost jobs as well. Playing under this sort of pressure called for a certain sort of ‘mental toughness’. A mental toughness that Phil had seen Martin describe in the workshop.

Martin Fairn, the company CEO and a founding partner who was responsible for first introducing the concept to the RFU, describes their approach in this way “the mental strength required to consistently deliver a superior performance whilst under pressure is a skill that can be learnt, like any other technical skill, (as Johnny Wilkinson proved in 2003!) But it needs awareness and practice to deal with predictable mental distractions. Our approach provides that awareness and helps build the mental toughness to deal with those distractions”.

With 6 weeks to go of the season, Martin and fellow Gazing trainer Bede Brosnahan met the Leeds coaching staff and worked on the ‘diversions’ that could potentially detract the players from the task in hand: “Avoiding Relegation!” They then worked with the squad to adopt the mental techniques required to manage these diversions and stay ‘on task’.

According to Phil, the players responded well and, pleasingly, a sense of humour returned to the squad. He said, “The training introduced a lot of positive peer group pressure and the players started using the language almost immediately. As high performance athletes (the majority of the squad play for their country as well as the club) they already knew what they had to do, but the Gazing approach allowed them to do just that. It enabled them to




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relax more and had a profound affect on what we were doing”.

Even the intense pressure of a Twickenham cup final versus Bath in front of 60,000 spectators with a chance for the winners to play in Europe, or a trip to the hotbed of Kingsholm against Gloucester, were all dealt with successfully by the Leeds squad and their coaching team. And due to the many possible relegation permutations on the final day Leeds needed to stay ‘on task’ right to the last minute of the last game away to Bath. They did and won with the final move of the game.

Gazing and the Leeds coaching teams are now developing a programme and map that the club can use over the next three years. Known as ‘Inside Leeds Tykes’, these documents will provide a ‘road map’ that charts where the Club wants to get to over the next three years. Interestingly, the map covers not just the playing side of the Club, such as developing the player’s technical, physical and mental skills but broader aspects as well, including such concepts as the Club’s ‘core values’ and the players’ ‘personal development’.

Not surprisingly, Martin and his team are proud of the role they had in supporting Leeds and the impact that they had appeared to have on their crucial end to the season are looking forward to developing this further into 2005/06. The table below indicates the bottom half of the final league table and what Leeds achieved.

But the last word must go to Phil Davies, who said” Mental skills conditioning must now rank right up there alongside physical and technical skills development and Gazing has given us a map that has allowed the players to deal with all sorts of diversionary pressure. It’s a powerful tool that we will make more use of in the coming seasons!”

Premier League Table as at 30/04/2005

Team Played Won Drawn Lost For Against Points

7 Newcastle 22 9 2 11 475 596 47

8 Leeds 22 9 0 13 380 431 43

9 Worcester 22 9 0 13 365 493 42

10 London Irish 22 8 0 14 378 421 40

11 Northampton 22 8 0 14 410 473 40

12 Harlequins 22 6 1 15 416 45 3




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Documents

WANT TO LEARN HOW TO COPE WITH PRESSURE? Gazing ... · case study it was the fact that it was so easy to use and was built around an understandable process. www,gazing.com E: [email protected]