Should I pick the most talented player or the one with the best attitude?
Quick answer. There’s no settled answer, and the coaches split. Adam Commens says take the talented player and build an environment that challenges them, and when a coach defends a pick on attitude alone he asks whether that player meets the selection criteria at all. James Kerr and John Wooden argue the opposite: character first. Katrina Powell sits in between. Pick the best players for the way your team wants to play, because a player who won’t fit has to be exceptional to be worth it.
That’s the short version. Here’s why the coaches on The Hockey Site would tell you not to stop there.
Adam Commens asks whether attitude is actually a selection criterion
Adam Commens‘s objection isn’t to committed players. It’s to an argument that never touches what the team needs. In Common themes of top teams he describes the pitch he hears from youth coaches: “Quite often I’ll hear a coach say, I want to pick this player because they’ve got a fantastic attitude. They’re always at training on time and they’re a really coachable young player. And and then I asked them, do they possess, any of the the selection criteria that we’re after?”
His own position is direct: “I wouldn’t suggest that you you take the more committed player. I would suggest that you, take the talented player and try to create an environment where they’re challenged”. The second half of that sentence is the obligation. Picking talent puts the standard-setting on the coach, and he says so: “we have to look within as coaches to try and make the the environment more, challenging and and interesting for those, players to get that commitment out of them.” He limits his own argument too: “of course, we’re not going to, you know, have a have a group of of lazy and uncommitted players.”
His criteria aren’t vague either. Belgium’s youth teams work from what he calls the port of entry. One selection criterion gets a player in the door, more are expected at each age group above, because “just working hard and being committed and having a good attitude is not enough at the top level.”
James Kerr and John Wooden make the case the other way
The character-first argument has serious backing. James Kerr’s book Legacy, written around the All Blacks, argues that talent which undermines the standards of a group costs more than it returns, because every selection either holds the standard or quietly lowers it. John Wooden recruited for character on similar logic: he believed a coach can’t instil it in a player who arrives without it. Neither is a field hockey source, and neither was written about a club side picking from the players who turn up. That’s a question the books leave open.
Katrina Powell picks for the way the team wants to play
Katrina Powell coached the Hockeyroos at Paris 2024 and had to reduce a squad she rated to 16. In her AMA about Paris, asked what separates two players of equal technical skill, she said: “yes, you are looking for the best players, but the best players that can deliver the the way you wanna play.” On the player who won’t fit: “You have to be bloody bloody brilliant hockey player if you’re if you’re gonna be, picked and not weigh into the the way you want the team to play because that’s that’s the kicker, isn’t it?” And on why fit beats a collection of names: “Great players, good. But if they’re not playing well together, if they’re not able to put it on the park together, you won’t win.”
She’s unsentimental about the task itself: “you pick the team that will give you the best chance of being successful. That’s what it comes down to. That’s that’s the job.” But she guards against being read as inflexible: “so not just here’s the way of play, you play my way or it’s the highway. That’s not what I’m saying.” She expects the playing style to be agreed through discussion and belief, not imposed, and a player who struggles with it is supported (psych, well-being, cultural) before anyone decides, because “It’s not just a a one off where we tried to convince you this and you haven’t got it. So see you.” And she refuses the either-or in the question: “You’ve gotta have good players, good teamwork, and the commitment, a physicality, a fitness in order to win. One thing isn’t enough. Not anymore.”
One trial is thin evidence, which is why Commens makes every session count
Most club selection rests on a trial or two. Daniel Kahneman’s work gives several reasons to distrust that. The halo effect means a strong opening few minutes colour everything you see afterwards. Regression to the mean means the best and worst performances in a small sample are partly noise, so both extremes will drift back. What you see is all there is means you judge on the evidence that happened to appear in front of you and not on everything you never saw. And the illusion of validity means a tidy story from thin evidence feels more reliable than it is.
Commens’s structural answer: “every training that we have with the national team is a selection opportunity.” A larger sample doesn’t remove bias, but it does stop one evening carrying the whole decision. Whether permanent selection pressure suits a junior or club group is a judgement only you can make for your players.
Tell the player where they stand before the final call
Powell’s view is that the damage is usually done before the cut, not at it. “you need to try and fix these things now, not when it comes to the final selection, and I’m giving you that feedback, then that’s of no use to high performance athletes.” She applies the same logic to the players who are in: “the first thing in their development plans is this is why you’re picked in the squad.”
Wade Gilbert, in Coaching Better Every Season, treats the non-selection conversation as something to plan before trials rather than improvise on the day: tell the player why, in a way that’s personal and relevant to them, name their strengths, and point them to where else they can play and keep developing.
Two questions this usually raises
What if the talented player damages the team?
Commens would say the environment is the coach’s responsibility, so the first question is whether you’ve actually built one that challenges them. Powell sets a harder bar, but not an unsupported one: a player who won’t play the way the team wants to play has to be exceptional to be worth carrying, and she’d put support around them before concluding they won’t. Kerr and Wooden would simply not pick them. All three are defensible. The question to ask yourself is how much of a standard you can realistically hold.
How do I tell a player they haven’t been picked?
Katrina Powell’s point is that this conversation should contain no new information. If the player is hearing what’s missing for the first time, the feedback came too late to be useful. Wade Gilbert says to plan the conversation before trials: a reason that’s personal and relevant to the player, their strengths, and where else they can play and develop.
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Read next: For the coaches in more depth, and for a Dutch Olympic champion coach who left his league's top scorer at home: Talent or attitude: who do you pick?, The power of a team according to Jeroen Delmee.
More coaching questions: How do I keep juniors coming back without letting the standards slide?, How do I motivate field hockey players who have checked out?, How do I build confidence in field hockey players that survives mistakes?, How do I help a field hockey player let go of a mistake and reset?. All of them are in Field Hockey Coaching Questions.
The experts mentioned in this article
Adam CommensAustralian coach. Coached Belgium's men at Beijing 2008 and Australia's women, then became high performance director of Belgian hockey.
Katrina PowellHead coach of the Hockeyroos, the Australian women's team, at Paris 2024.
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