Reaction to a thrashing .. and getting over it

[Gwylan]

Reading the thread on 13-0 defeat got me thinking about the team I help coach.

My daughter's rugby team lost by more than 100 points yesterday and. not surprisingly, the girls looked very down. It's a new team, only formed this season, and about three-quarters of the team hadn't played rugby until a few months ago. For that reason, the coaches aren't too despondent - we know that it will take some time for a team to come together.

But I know there are several coaches on here and I wondered whether anyone had any thoughts how to get the girls to get over the defeat and get them back on track. We've tried to be encouraging and urged them to think of the next game but does anyone have any tips to get them positive again?

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Reading the thread on 13-0 defeat got me thinking about the team I help coach.

My daughter's rugby team lost by more than 100 points yesterday and. not surprisingly, the girls looked very down. It's a new team, only formed this season, and about three-quarters of the team hadn't played rugby until a few months ago. For that reason, the coaches aren't too despondent - we know that it will take some time for a team to come together.

But I know there are several coaches on here and I wondered whether anyone had any thoughts how to get the girls to get over the defeat and get them back on track. We've tried to be encouraging and urged them to think of the next game but does anyone have any tips to get them positive again?

Big question with lots of answers...!

Number one priority would be to make sure the next training session is extra good fun. Upbeat and positive atmosphere from coaches with well planned activities and enjoyable "games" to develop skills.

 

[tinx]

The kids Under13s team I manage has been on the end of a few beatings, not really bad but bad enough we lost 6-1 last week for example. In the post match briefing rather than dwelling on the game we've just been involved in, I tend to focus on the next game and how we can respond positively to the defeat and what we learnt form it. Sometimes it sinks in sometimes it doesn't but the best thing with kids is they tend to have forgotten about it half an hour later as they are playing and mucking around with their friends. IT takes longer for us the coaches to get over it than they do. For most of them its about enjoying having a game of footy on a saturday.

On the opposite side we have dished out a few heavy defeats as well and sometimes they are harder to manage as they all think they play for Man U all of a sudden and go into the next game too sure of themselves.

 

[Saladpack Seagull]

This remind me of one of my boy's teams football teams. They lost every game bar a draw one season and let in well over a hundred goals! This was mainly because the coach made sure everyone got a game regardless of ability rather than picking his best team every week. The coach was SO optimistic with the boys, and never let them feel they were failures. Five-nil down at half-time? The other side were "lucky" and our boys were the better team! He kept this up week in, week out. I still don't know how the guy kept going!

 

[Machiavelli]

This thread is an illustration of NSC at its finest

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Reading the thread on 13-0 defeat got me thinking about the team I help coach.

My daughter's rugby team lost by more than 100 points yesterday and. not surprisingly, the girls looked very down. It's a new team, only formed this season, and about three-quarters of the team hadn't played rugby until a few months ago. For that reason, the coaches aren't too despondent - we know that it will take some time for a team to come together.

But I know there are several coaches on here and I wondered whether anyone had any thoughts how to get the girls to get over the defeat and get them back on track. We've tried to be encouraging and urged them to think of the next game but does anyone have any tips to get them positive again?

So long as you can keep them smiling, you're winning [MENTION=25]Gwylan[/MENTION]

Seriously - that is the ONLY thing that matters. You're not trying to develop professionals.

I watched my youngest's U16 (football) match yesterday - they're a decent side who have had their share of promotions, titles and cup final glory through the age groups, but they've lost a few players and been promoted a little too far, and now at U16 level as a small local club are having to play teams from much bigger clubs / academies most weeks.

Yesterday we watched as they played with ten men, against a very strong side with 4 (rolling) subs, and battled like absolute heroes, with mostly smiles on their faces. They lost 4-1 in the end after holding out for a good while, but no matter - they were justifiably proud of their efforts.

The notable thing about the game was that the opposition were, almost without exception, absolute little (big actually) sh1ts. Snide challenges, backchat to the ref and (volunteer) linesman. Constant snide remarks and personal insults to our lads - even once winning comfortably.

Would rather see my sons lose graciously than be disrespectful in victory, any day.

 

[chimneys]

Reading the thread on 13-0 defeat got me thinking about the team I help coach.

My daughter's rugby team lost by more than 100 points yesterday and. not surprisingly, the girls looked very down. It's a new team, only formed this season, and about three-quarters of the team hadn't played rugby until a few months ago. For that reason, the coaches aren't too despondent - we know that it will take some time for a team to come together.

But I know there are several coaches on here and I wondered whether anyone had any thoughts how to get the girls to get over the defeat and get them back on track. We've tried to be encouraging and urged them to think of the next game but does anyone have any tips to get them positive again?

Surprises me that in such situations the coaches dont take the initiative and agree at half time to rest a couple of the winning team (well rolling subs so they all still get some game time) to make it more of a game for everyone. Unless of course it was a league/cup game?

 

[LeicesterGull]

I've just taken on an U6 team. We've been winning all our friendlies and have a star player that is head and shoulders above everyone else. I took him off on Saturday for the final 10 mins (we play 40) to give the other boys game time to develop. At the end of the game he threw his shirt at me saying he didn't want to play for the team again! It's not a direct reply to the OP but wanted to share my angst with someone!

 

[Gwylan]

Surprises me that in such situations the coaches dont take the initiative and agree at half time to rest a couple of the winning team (well rolling subs so they all still get some game time) to make it more of a game for everyone. Unless of course it was a league/cup game?

Not as straightforward as that. Because it was half term, we only had 11 players and they had 8 - we therefore played 8-a-side, with rolling subs for us. It sounds like the dice were loaded in our favour but the players we had were mainly forwards and there's were mainly backs and you're playing Sevens (which is what we were playing, in effect), a team with backs is going to win every time.

That's one of the reasons that the coaches weren't too down - not only is our team new but it wasn't really an even contest. We have a return with them in two months time and I predict that a 15-a-side game will be a lot closer.

But, it's all very well the coaches being pragmatic, we need to encourage the kids and there have been some helpful suggestions so far. The challenge is to make things fun and not discourage them, while building their skills.

The good thing is that in rugby, you very, very rarely get the sort of team that Hans is talking about. The opposition were gracious winners and very encouraging ... and it was good to see the girls all mixing in the clubhouse afterwards

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Surprises me that in such situations the coaches dont take the initiative and agree at half time to rest a couple of the winning team (well rolling subs so they all still get some game time) to make it more of a game for everyone. Unless of course it was a league/cup game?

It is sad but years of involvement in children's sport would end with you being less surprised by what goes on...

Doing something (i.e. ANYTHING..!!) to avoid these sort of one-sided thrashings is so obvious and easy to anyone looking on, and employing at least one brain cell, but seems so impossible to the people closely involved who should know best how to go about doing it...!!

I forgive my 18 year old self for 30 years ago allowing an U13 cricket team I was running to bowl the opposition out for 9 - but I am still ashamed and wonder what on earth I was thinking....

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

There used to be a Brighton-based American Football team called the B-52s back in the late eighties/early nineties. They once made the mistake of playing a game against the SF 49'ers touring college team. At Withdean. Took me kids along. SF fairly quickly racked up a score of 100 points, after which they mercifully stopped counting. Or maybe the scoreboard only went up to 99. The B-52s disbanded shortly after.

Not sure this information actually helps [MENTION=25]Gwylan[/MENTION] in any way tho...

 

[Gwylan]

I
Doing something (i.e. ANYTHING..!!) to avoid these sort of one-sided thrashings is so obvious and easy to anyone looking on, and employing at least one brain cell, but seems so impossible to the people closely involved who should know best how to go about doing it...!!

But it's not obvious and easy. As I said, we couldn't substitute their best players. We could have stopped the match early, but I think that would have been even more dispiriting for our girls. We could have mixed the teams up (which is something we did a few months ago, when they started) but we're trying to build a team ethos, we'll never do that if they don't play as a team.

I don't see what else we could have done. The question is not how to avoid a beating, but how to get back on track afterwards.

 

[Normal Rob]

Reading the thread on 13-0 defeat got me thinking about the team I help coach.

My daughter's rugby team lost by more than 100 points yesterday and. not surprisingly, the girls looked very down. It's a new team, only formed this season, and about three-quarters of the team hadn't played rugby until a few months ago. For that reason, the coaches aren't too despondent - we know that it will take some time for a team to come together.

But I know there are several coaches on here and I wondered whether anyone had any thoughts how to get the girls to get over the defeat and get them back on track. We've tried to be encouraging and urged them to think of the next game but does anyone have any tips to get them positive again?

I think NSC should sponsor them, or at least one of the awards (if you do them)

Keep up the great work, such a worthwhile thing.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Not as straightforward as that. Because it was half term, we only had 11 players and they had 8 - we therefore played 8-a-side, with rolling subs for us. It sounds like the dice were loaded in our favour but the players we had were mainly forwards and there's were mainly backs and you're playing Sevens (which is what we were playing, in effect), a team with backs is going to win every time.

When the score reached 50+ to 0 (?) then I think you could have got together with the opposition coach for a conversation about how to make it work better.

You could have played 9 or 10 against their 8...?
If willing, then one of their best players could have swapped sides to see what she could learn/achieve faced with a challenging situation?
Their coach could have made a rule for his/her team that every player in the team has to have touched the ball once (or even twice) before the team is allowed to score another try...? If using the boot to any positive effect then a no kicking rule/policy can also add challenge to a dominant rugby team.

I agree that it isn't easy in the moment, and sometimes almost impossible to make something positive out of a complete mismatch, but in my experience people don't try anything like hard enough and are far too easily pleased by a big win (and a heavy defeat for the opposition) in their children's sport.

 

[Withdean South Stand]

My boys were entered into a competition once, and we lost the first two group games without scoring. It was 1-0 in the first game, the goalkeeper was outstanding and the in the second he was a bag of nerves and we got stuff 5-0. The boys came off the pitch either crying, or close to it. We all sat in a circle in silence for a few minutes, then we got up, grabbed a ball and went to have a kick around before our next game. The boys felt better about their football, we went into the third game without any expectation and dished out a narrow 1-0 win with a ridiculously controversial handball goal late in the game to win it. We won the final group game 1-0 as well, to scrape into the knockout phase and got to the semi final without conceding a goal, before getting dicked 3-0 by the team who went on to win it.

In my experience, kids feel the defeat and don't need to be told about it. We will just resume playing football, focus on things which didn't go well in the last game (generally the boys don't spot the link between the previous match and the drills we're doing in the following training session) and make sure to finish with something positive - anything which involves them sticking the ball in the net is generally a winner. I don't think there's a right or wrong way to respond to a heavy defeat, it's just about finding out about your group and doing whatever works for them, rather than you.

 

[Falmer Flutter ©]

I played in the school rugby team. We beat a few of the local schools and thought we were the bollox. So did the PE teacher who subsequently entered us into this pretty decent knock-out competition, which was a first for the school.

First round we were home to some public school. Alarm bells started ringing when their brand new, top of the range minibus pulled up, and some seriously big lads all in pristine kit bundled out. Think we held our own for the first half and it was 12-12 or summat. Then fitness (and talent) showed. Midway through the second half the ref stopped keeping score. We were getting absolutely pummelled. It was like that scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life of the Masters v Pupils rugby match. Bodies everywhere.

Seriously brought us down to earth with a metal-studded boot the face. Think we only played a couple more games after that, but no-one's heart was in it any more and the PE teacher basically gave up on us.

So in short, don't do what he did.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Several of you on here will know I coach cricket to an elite performance level - Shropshire county boys. We play Derbyshire, Worcestershire, Cheshire, Herefordshire, Staffordshire & Warwickshire - when we play the first-class counties, some of the boys are already mentally beaten before the toss - you need to be able to find the right words to eek out and remove any inferiority complex, but worse can be complacency too.

In the situation of a thrashing, it is critical you decouple the result from the performance - look for positives in the performance [what did they do well] - things they tried to do but didn't execute particularly well [areas to develop]. In the debrief, I try to talk less and get them to self analyse - they usually know what they did wrong and if the analysis comes from within, its not seen like blatant coach criticism, No disgrace in losing to a better team - SO LONG AS you all tried your best - if you have players who's heads drop, you need the chirpy team-mates to get them over it [we've all seen this in park footy at some point, I'm sure]

Another favourite is to identify something they did badly [but already worked on in training] - often the youngsters can execute a skill really well in training, but under match intensity [pressure] the skill evaporates [was not used]. Try and find such a skill and focus the next training session on it so that the skill becomes second-nature.

After a big loss, you must remove "fear of failure" - stick to basics and perform them to the best of your ability.

Also worthy of consideration, what was the losing ingredient? Were the opposition tactically better, technically better or [esp for rugby] physically stronger?

One closing line I also like to use in the debrief: "Close your eyes and think back to the last game you won - what did you learn in that game that has improved you as a player now?" 30 seconds to think about it - hands up whose got 2 or more? Then hands up whose got one, then lastly, hands up whose got not learning takeaway from winning? "Now think back to the game [thrashing] we've just finished - what have your learned from that which could improve you as a player next time? [aka what could we do differently with our performance that might change the result]" Show of hands as before - "Morale; You learn more from and improve by losing, winning is just fun while it lasted!"

Hope this helps ....

 

[Paul Reids Sock]

It is sad but years of involvement in children's sport would end with you being less surprised by what goes on...

Doing something (i.e. ANYTHING..!!) to avoid these sort of one-sided thrashings is so obvious and easy to anyone looking on, and employing at least one brain cell, but seems so impossible to the people closely involved who should know best how to go about doing it...!!

I forgive my 18 year old self for 30 years ago allowing an U13 cricket team I was running to bowl the opposition out for 9 - but I am still ashamed and wonder what on earth I was thinking....

Reminds me of a cricket match I played in when about 14. I had only been playing a year or so and was in a good team. We were romping it after only a few overs so they said to swap a player over, as the newbie and (by far) worst player, I was swapped over. The coach gave me a bit of a pep talk about showing my worth. I took 2 catches including our captain and scored a few runs as the underdogs won by a tiny margin (about 4 runs if I remember)

I walked back into our dressing room after with a beaming smile and took a load of abuse for not deliberately dropping the catches - you can never win some times!


On the topic of picking the kids up after defeat I think it is tricky. Myself personally and a massive confidence player and as such will dwell on a game until the next one, there is literally nothing that can change that. I have always been the same and probably always will. Others will be like my son, he played in goal for his team last week as the normal 'keeper didn't want to. They lost 5-0 and I was worried he would be down, however he came off the pitch with a massive smile on his face because he had 'been like Stockdale' and 'did you see the saves I made?'. I couldn't help but be immensely proud of the little guys

So, I would say it is a balancing act and just be aware that some kids are just as petulant as I am and it is a case of getting back to the next match. Also, if it was reduced numbers then that will help as it wasn't a proper game anyway.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Several of you on here will know I coach cricket to an elite performance level - Shropshire county boys. We play Derbyshire, Worcestershire, Cheshire, Herefordshire, Staffordshire & Warwickshire - when we play the first-class counties, some of the boys are already mentally beaten before the toss - you need to be able to find the right words to eek out and remove any inferiority complex, but worse can be complacency too.

In the situation of a thrashing, it is critical you decouple the result from the performance - look for positives in the performance [what did they do well] - things they tried to do but didn't execute particularly well [areas to develop]. In the debrief, I try to talk less and get them to self analyse - they usually know what they did wrong and if the analysis comes from within, its not seen like blatant coach criticism, No disgrace in losing to a better team - SO LONG AS you all tried your best - if you have players who's heads drop, you need the chirpy team-mates to get them over it [we've all seen this in park footy at some point, I'm sure]

Another favourite is to identify something they did badly [but already worked on in training] - often the youngsters can execute a skill really well in training, but under match intensity [pressure] the skill evaporates [was not used]. Try and find such a skill and focus the next training session on it so that the skill becomes second-nature.

After a big loss, you must remove "fear of failure" - stick to basics and perform them to the best of your ability.

Also worthy of consideration, what was the losing ingredient? Were the opposition tactically better, technically better or [esp for rugby] physically stronger?

One closing line I also like to use in the debrief: "Close your eyes and think back to the last game you won - what did you learn in that game that has improved you as a player now?" 30 seconds to think about it - hands up whose got 2 or more? Then hands up whose got one, then lastly, hands up whose got not learning takeaway from winning? "Now think back to the game [thrashing] we've just finished - what have your learned from that which could improve you as a player next time? [aka what could we do differently with our performance that might change the result]" Show of hands as before - "Morale; You learn more from and improve by losing, winning is just fun while it lasted!"

Hope this helps ....

This is well intentioned advice and could have come out of the pages of any "elite performance" programme coaching manual in the section under "Mental Toughness" or whatever terminology they are currently employing for the same sort of ideas...

Gwylan's Girls need two things that are far more basic:

1) Well organised practice sessions with the emphasis on fun and enjoyment first and skill development second - lots of inclusive activity and lots of games they enjoy playing and working hard at to master skills...
2) Well organised matches with commitment from both sides to creating a positive experience for as many players as possible. Winning/losing and the occasional mismatch are inescapable but if you keep going with the right approach to it then the good experiences will prevail.

 

[Brovion]

There used to be a Brighton-based American Football team called the B-52s back in the late eighties/early nineties. They once made the mistake of playing a game against the SF 49'ers touring college team. At Withdean. Took me kids along. SF fairly quickly racked up a score of 100 points, after which they mercifully stopped counting. Or maybe the scoreboard only went up to 99. The B-52s disbanded shortly after.

Not sure this information actually helps [MENTION=25]Gwylan[/MENTION] in any way tho...

It was actually only 76-0. When city college returned the opening kickoff for a TD I knew it was going to be one-sided! Great day though and Withdean was packed, 12000 or so IIRC. PS - Brighton played a return game in San Francisco and the score was much narrower.

And [MENTION=25]Gwylan[/MENTION], this won't help you deal with the current situation, but if it looks like happening again you should maybe take a leaf out of what I've seen French soccer coaches do when a match gets one-sided - switch the teams around. (Doesn't happen in England of course where the important thing is to get a load of 8 year olds all to have matching kit). I can't say what it's like for Rugby but for football in France it's about player development and ALL the kids (from both clubs) enjoying themselves. In England it's an awful lot about the coaches/parents ego and winning meaningless leagues. And if that means one set of boys humiliating another, well fine. League rules and all that.

EDIT: i see from another reply you didn't want to do that as you were building a team ethos. Well think of it as a team with a few extras 'just to help out'.