Player power is like a sup of whiskey: it is better in a pub measure, and with a mixer, so that nobody loses the run of themselves. Every elite coach, though, must be able to handle a drop of it. For authoritarian set-ups to work now the authoritarian figure must have an extraordinary talent: somebody like Alex Ferguson or Bill Belichick. Whatever dialogue was facilitated in those environments didn’t include a waiver for dissent.
So, in modern sport, there are senior leadership groups, established in a spirit of collaboration. These groups cannot exercise a veto, but, to a degree, it is governance by consent. No manager worth his or her salt wants to face a room of dead-eyed jocks waiting for instructions to be punched in, like a vending machine.
The relationship between the coach and the players must be dynamic, fuelled by two-way feedback. Modern players think too much about their performance to be excluded from the processes of planning and reflection. Unless the players feel ownership, the whole enterprise is doomed. For the coach, that involves an element of risk. If the coach is any good, the risk is immaterial.
Within all of this, though, there must be boundaries too, and a clear chain of command. When Katie McCabe implored Vera Pauw to make changes midway through the second half of Ireland’s game against Nigeria at the World Cup, she crossed a line. It doesn’t matter that McCabe is Ireland’s captain and best player, and it doesn’t matter if she had a point about the need for changes: she had no right to make that intervention.
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The suggestion in recent weeks is that Pauw may have “lost the dressingroom” – a common diagnosis – and the FAI review of Ireland’s World Cup may yet reach that conclusion. None of the players has said that Pauw should step down, and nor would you expect them to say such a thing out loud. The chilling aspect for Pauw has been the absence of publicly expressed support. Instead, the players have been diplomatic, silently inviting us to speculate between the lines.
For Pauw to elaborate on the exchange in the press conference directly after the match, and publicly name the player that McCabe wanted to be replaced, exacerbated an already dysfunctional situation. That was a management failure. At that moment, Pauw needed to take the matter in hand and in-house and at least create the illusion of rising above it. She handled it poorly.
This is not a direct comparison but it has some parallels. In Andy Farrell’s first year as Ireland’s head coach Johnny Sexton was taken off against France in Paris, with Ireland trailing by eight points heading into the last 10 minutes – a set of circumstances that he would expect to influence. As he left the field the Ireland captain was clearly fuming. His initial reaction was disrespectful to Farrell’s decision and, in that sense, implied an element of insubordination. No more than McCabe, sanctioning substitutions was not in Sexton’s brief.
Over the next few days, though, both men handled it beautifully. They spoke about it privately after the match and again the following day, as the storm spilt out of the tea-cup, and Sexton’s thunderous face was replayed over and over. Sexton apologised to Farrell and repeated the sentiment in public.
At the next press conference in midweek Farrell was asked if he felt “undermined” by Sexton’s actions and he skilfully deflected the very notion. “You know, the last thing that I want to do to Johnny is stop him being himself as well, or else we all suffer, don’t we?” Farrell said.
For his part, Sexton put his hand up. “I apologised and said, ‘Look, it shouldn’t have happened.’ It did, it was a split second, and obviously I let myself down in that regard. But you learn and you move on really. I suppose it’s not the first apology I’ve made in my career and it won’t be the last probably.”
The last thing Farrell needed – or expected – was Sexton to go into his shell. You cannot lead a group of hugely talented, highly ambitious, strong-minded athletes by coercion, or by constantly reminding them who’s in charge. It must be a partnership. Players must feel involved beyond their station.
“One of the leadership hard rocks is back to Sun Tzu, back to Eastern philosophy,” said the former Dublin manager Jim Gavin a couple of years ago. “To gain control, you have to give control away. You have to empower – uncomfortable as it might sound to you – you have to empower your players to give you feedback. ‘What you’re doing there Jim, I don’t believe in it,’ or ‘I don’t think it’s the right thing to do at this particular moment.’ That’s what you want them to say.
“I’ve had lots of those conversations and if you’re not used to it they can be very uncomfortable. But as a leader it’s about being comfortable in that uncomfortable space.”
For the team to function, though, the most influential players in the dressingroom must believe in the coach. Farrell and Sexton have that relationship. Can we say that about McCabe and Pauw?
In modern sport player power takes many forms but it cannot be ignored. In the GAA, over the coming weeks, some intercounty managers will leave their posts, some of them pushed on the basis of feedback quietly harvested from players.
You won’t find players sitting on recruitment subcommittees but it is inconceivable now that any intercounty manager will be appointed without the back-channel approval of key influencers in the dressingroom, and it is unthinkable that a manager will continue in the face of entrenched dressingroom resistance.
One intercounty manager, who was unceremoniously removed from his position around this time last year, received a visit from two players, delegated to tell him that he had “lost the dressingroom”. There is no way back from that.
Will Pauw be in charge for the next qualifying campaign? Will she even make it to the match against Northern Ireland in September? The FAI will decide. The players will inform the decision.
