An old line, and one Potter says has not changed in 50 years: the way you train is the way you play. Train lazily, find excuses about the cold, settle for a session that felt nice, and that is what Sunday or the first game in Tokyo will look like. It runs through corners, structural work and games at training, and coaches have to drive players to arrive with a plan to improve. Watch the full masterclass: Culture relating to performance.
Potter’s question is not how he wins games but how he sets the team up to win them: communication, skills, mental preparation and taking players towards what they want. Get that process right, he says, and they go out and win it themselves. If the win matters more to the coach than to them, he reckons he is in the wrong job. Watch the full masterclass: Culture relating to performance.
The Kookaburras train every day bar one, and Potter treats each session as a selection trial rather than saving his best for the four weeks before a tournament. Staff review and analyse every training, and the players hear it two or three times a week. Training badly is not the problem in itself; what matters is how you come back the next day. Watch the full masterclass: Culture relating to performance.
Courage, for Potter, has nothing to do with diving or sliding. It is a decision at a critical moment, like the left winger on his seventh international throwing the ball across at the World Cup and the forward who jumped in front of the keeper to score. Coaches owe the same nerve back, telling a player mid-game that the ball now goes elsewhere, and with buy in they accept it. Watch the full masterclass: Culture relating to performance.
When the staff took over they pushed players back into study and work, tradesmen on two or three days a week, and anyone doing neither sent off to coach. Training starts early, warm up at half six and done by half eight, which leaves the rest of the day free. Potter finds they train better, pay closer attention to detail and become better people for it. Watch the full masterclass: Culture relating to performance.