The ex-Wallabies prop unpicking the secrets of rugby
As any good school counsellor will have told you, sport has a number of transferable skills. Ambition, communication, dedication, teamwork – the list goes on. That said, the question of what rugby players do after retirement from the game has received increasing recognition of late, with a number of former players noting their difficulties and current players discussing their plans. Coaching and the media aren’t for everyone, after all.
A particularly interesting example is Ben Darwin, the 28-cap Australia prop who found himself retiring early through injury and taking a natural-seeming step into coaching before realising his interest and talents lay elsewhere.
Now the co-founder of GAIN LINE Analytics, an operations and management consultancy founded on data analysis from his coaching days but applied to the business world as much as sport, the 43-year-old is able to draw some fascinating conclusions from perceived difficulties or disadvantages.
Darwin, the old Australia tighthead, is preaching his gospel to a host of sporting and non-sporting industries and is clearly absorbed by the work and its potential application. “The first thing to know about me is I have really bad ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), but I see that as an advantage I didn’t do very well in school, even though I went to a Sydney private school.
“But when my parents broke up, I dreamed of playing for Australia,” Darwin told RugbyPass. “I put my head down into that goal but I wasn’t a very good player at the time. I sort of just put my efforts into it to try to put my attention somewhere else.
The biggest secret about great teams is there is nothing special about the players and nothing special about the coaches. It’s the system and the process.
— Ben Darwin (@bendarwin) February 2, 2020
“Eventually, I was part of the Brumbies, which was this kind of team of off-cuts that didn’t even make sense when you look at it in a different manner. Then we won the Super Rugby title and I made the Wallabies, played for a couple of years for the Wallabies before I had my spinal injury in 2003.
“Then I jumped into some coaching in a whole different bunch of places: Western Force, Melbourne Rebels – two expansion franchises. That’s really important to this process because I saw that you can’t just throw teams together and win. And then I was in Japan where I coached two teams.
“I jumped around in my coaching quite quickly and saw a lot. I’d go to one place and the team would never lose. And then I go to another place and do exactly the same thing and the team didn’t win. So I started to understand as a coach I had very little input on what was happening.”
It was this that drew Darwin into data analytics. “I looked a lot at the stuff that data analysts do, looking at how teams play and go about that process, and I started to realise that everyone was looking on the wrong side of the coin.
“There’s two sides of the coin – the causative side, and the output side. Even the ability to improve a team is an output of the way the team or club is run. And everyone is looking at the output side and maybe following the wrong kind of leads as I would put it.
“My last job in Japan, the team I had went undefeated and I was fired at the end of the season. So I was like, ‘Coaching sucks! I’m going to jump into video analysis and data analytics’. I really didn’t have any idea what I was going to do but I had two kids at the time and I just had to make it up as I went along.
“The first thing I did was I built a database of all the players in the world in league and in union and I was looking at when they were coming off contract.”
What Darwin started to notice was that the most successful teams all have one factor in common – and it wasn’t what you might expect. “There are some coaches that underperform but 90 per cent of coaches are where they should be.
“Now, here’s what’s interesting: When we looked at coaches joining teams, we looked at coaches with experience as head coach and we looked at coaches with no experience as a head coach. There’s no statistical difference between the two of them except the experienced coaches underperformed in their first year because they come in and they change things.”
Culture, he added, was also misleading. It might correlate to successful teams but it’s not causative. There are plenty of wildly successful teams with objectively horrible cultures, he explained, citing the Wimbledon football Crazy Gang in England during the 1980s and ’90s.
Darwin also highlighted the AFL West Coast Eagles who made the finals 16 times between 1990 and 2007, winning three Australia Premierships despite “it becoming apparent over time that the club had a horrific drug culture, with the death of the ex-captain due to a drug overdose in retirement, the addiction and repeated incarnation of its best player Ben Cousins, and up to eight other players arrested on drugs charges or assault.
“We tend to retrospectively place culture as a cause after the fact whether it be to negatively or positively attribute the cause of success or failure,” explained Darwin. So, if the decisive factor isn’t coaches or culture (or facilities or money), what is the factor Darwin sees as the predictor of success? Cohesion.
A unique way of looking at Sport and Corporate governance via #CohesionAnalytics. Subscribe to The GAIN LINE Report #Governance #Sustainability #TalentIsNotEnough #CohesionMatters #singnalinthenoise https://t.co/YvFGZZJDgq pic.twitter.com/LYkHc8XA2V
— GAIN LINE Analytics (@GLAnalytics) June 23, 2020
They are two metrics for measuring cohesion: teamwork index (TWI) and key cohesion markers (KCM) that identify “the quantity and intensity of linkages within a team”. The higher the number, the higher the cohesion – and the more likely the organisation is to be sustainably successful.
The inspiration came from studying military and hospital data before assessing 15 other sports, and these metrics are now applied across industries. In rugby union, however, these metrics led Darwin to this: a seeming lack of resources can be beneficial because it creates cohesion out of necessity.
Darwin claimed it was a factor in the success of the Australia teams he played in. If he had a bad game, for example, there was rarely an obvious replacement, meaning he stayed in the side and developed alongside his fellow players.
This similarly applied to Leicester City’s 2016 Premier League title win. Darwin did the maths. No team in the competition that year had a TWI of above 40 per cent heading into the 2015/16 season (for reference, last year’s Super Rugby-winning Crusaders were at 93 per cent).
A pivotal time in New Zealand Rugby as they ponder their internal structure. Will they be asking the right questions about the areas that matter? And if they make the wrong decision 1/2 https://t.co/1JPutMyKqh
— GAIN LINE Analytics (@GLAnalytics) April 30, 2020
Coach Claudio Ranieri, previously nicknamed ‘Tinkerman’ for his approach to team selections, left the side as unchanged as possible throughout the season, especially in defence. Leicester went from strength to strength despite pundits expecting them to tail off.
How does this apply to rugby union then? If you don’t have a team that knows each other inside out, what can you do? The cohesion metrics are kept a secret but they are based on three simple components – interpersonal understanding, system understanding, and role understanding.
“The most important thing in the short term is to actually understand what you have in front of you: in chaos, great players can look terrible,” said Darwin. “As an organisation, in the long-term, the only way to win is through long-term stability. We know that instability is almost guaranteed to result in losses. Therefore, the only way to win is to be stable and lose, and that’s where teams get unstuck.”
Darwin cited an Australia NRL example: after a team loses a game by 20 points, the instinct is to make changes. But according to Darwin’s stats, “If you make three changes to the team, when you lose a game by 20 points or more, the chances of you winning next week are 34 per cent. If you make two changes, it’s 39 per cent. If you make one change, it’s 43 per cent. If you make no changes, it’s 49 per cent.”
The former Australian front row believes that you have to act with the long-term in mind and the board have a huge role in setting that agenda. Players that appear supremely skilled in one environment can struggle in another, as a number of French club owners have discovered.
You might get lucky and be able to buy temporary success in the right context but, as Darwin’s research has shown, it’s not the approach itself that is responsible for that success.
Since Jimmy Peters first pulled on an England jersey in 1906, black players have forged sporting careers in the game of rugby union, often despite the odds
– @rhigarthjones looks at the stories of 9 black rugby players, who deserve greater recognitionhttps://t.co/I67CHtIgz9
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) June 21, 2020
Comments on RugbyPass
Oh wow… “But as La Rochelle proved in winning in Cape Town this season, a cross-continental away assignment need not spell the end of days.” La Rochelle actually proved quite the opposite. After traveling to Cape town and back they (back-to-back and current champs) got mercilessly thumped the next week. If travel is not the reason, why else would a full-strength powerhouse like La Rochelle get dumped on their @r$e$ one week later?
26 Go to commentsYou know he can land a winning conversion after the full time siren is up. (Even if it takes two attempts.)
5 Go to commentsA very insightful article from Jake. I would love to know how South African’s feel about their move to Europe. Do you prefer playing in Europe or want to go back to Super Rugby?
2 Go to commentspure fire
1 Go to commentsA very well thought out summary of all the relevant complications…agree with your ”refer the Cricket Test versus 20/20 comparison”. More also definitely doesn't necessarily mean better!
2 Go to commentsMust be something when you are only 19 y.o and both NZ and France want you. Btw he wasn’t the only new caledonian in french U20 as Robin Couly also lived in Noumea until 17. Hope he’s successful wherever he chooses to play.
7 Go to comments“Several key players in the Stade Rochelais squad are in their thirties” South Africans are going to hate the implications of that comment!
5 Go to commentsI know Leinster did a job on La Roche but shortly after HT Leinster were 30-13 ahead of them and at a similar time Toulouse were trailing Exeter. At 60 mins Leinster were 27 ahead but after 67 mins Toulouse were only 19 ahead before Exeter collapsed. That’s heavier scoring by Leinster against the Champions. I think people are looking at Toulouses total a little too much. I also think Northhampton are in with a real chance, albeit I’d put Leinster as favourites. If Leinster make the final I expect them to win by more than ten and with control.
5 Go to commentsHey Nick, your match analysis is decent but the top and tail not so much, a bit more random. For a start there’s a seismic difference in regenerating any club side over a test team. EJ pretty much had to urinate with the appendage he’d been given at test level whereas club success is impacted hugely by the budget. Look no further than Boudjellal’s Toulon project for a perfect example. The set ups at La Rochelle and Leinster are like chalk and cheese and you are correct that Leinster are ahead. Leinster are not just slightly ahead though, they are light years ahead on their plans, with the next gen champions cup team already blooded, seasoned and developing at speed from their time manning the fort in the URC while the cream play CC and tests. They have engineered a strong talent conveyor belt into their system, supported by private money funnelled into a couple of Leinster private schools. The really smart move from Leinster and the IRFU however is maximising the Irish Revenue tax breaks (tax relief on the best 10 years earnings refunded at retirement) to help keep all of their stars in Ireland and happy, while simultaneously funding marquee players consistently. And of course Barrett is the latest example. But in no way is he a “replacement for Henshaw”, he’s only there for one season!!! As for Rob Baxter, the best advice you can give him is to start lobbying Parliament and HMRC for a similar state subsidy, but don’t hold your breath… One thing Cullen has been very smart with is his coaching team. Very quickly he realised his need to supplement his skills, there was talk of him exiting after his first couple of years but he was extremely shrewd bringing in Lancaster and now Nienaber. That has worked superbly and added a layer that really has made a tangible difference. Apart from that you were bang on the money… 😉😂
5 Go to commentsNot sure exactly what went wrong for him at Glasgow but it’s pretty clear he ain’t Franco’s cup of tea. Suspect he would have been better served heading out of Scotland around the same time as Finn, Hoggy and Jonny!
1 Go to commentsBulls disrespected the Northampton supporters and the competition. Decide quickly, fully in or out.
26 Go to commentsI wonder if Parling was ever on England’s radar as a coach? Obviously Borthwick is a great lineout coach, but I do worry he might be taking on too much as both head coach and forwards coach.
1 Go to commentsJason Jenkins has one cap. When Etzebeth was his age he had over 80 caps. Experience matters. He will never amount to what Etzebeth has because he hasn’t been developed as an international player.
2 Go to commentsSays much about the player picking this gig over the easier and bigger rewards offered to him in Japan. Also says a lot about the state sanctioned tax benefits the Irish Revenue offers pro rugby players, with their ten highest earning years subject to an additional 40% tax relief and paid as a lump sum, in cash, at retirement. Certainly helps Leinster line up the financial ducks in a row to fund marquee signings like this!!! No other union anywhere in world rugby benefits from this kind of lucrative financial sponsorship from their government…
5 Go to commentsTrue Jordie could earn a lot more in Japan. But by choosing Leinster he’ll be playing with 1 of the best clubs in the world and can win a champions cup and URC…..
6 Go to commentsThanks for that Marshy, noticed you didn't say who is gonna win it. We know who ain't gonna win it - your Crusaders outfit. They've gone from having arguably the best Super Rugby first five ever, to having a clutch of rookies. Hurricanes all the way!
1 Go to commentsGeez you really have to question the NRLs ability to produce players of quality. Its pathetic. Dont the 25mil in Aus produce enough quality womens players. Sad.
1 Go to commentsBulls fan here, and agree 100% with the conclusion (and little else) of this article. SA sides should absolutely f-off from the champs cup until we get fair scheduling, equal support for travel arrangements and home semis. You know, like all the european teams get.
26 Go to commentsI’m yet to see why Grace would be an ABs contender. He’s pedestrian and lacks the dominance required of a top flight 8.
11 Go to commentsGee my Highlanders were terrible. They have gone backwards since the start of the season. The trouble began when we left Millar behind to prep as the 10 against the Brumbies and he was disconnected from the team that came back from Aussie. We rested Patchell for that game and we blew an avalanche of ball in good attacking positions in the 1st half. Against the Rebels we seem to of gone into a pod system with forwards hanging off from the breakdown leaving Fakatava to secure our ball!
80 Go to comments