Life is good. Said the Italian rugby player Lo Cicero when he left this sport. Others have not been able to say goodbye to rugby till now. Players like O’Driscoll and Wilkinson, rugby legends, they had all from this sport and they did all for it, and they continue to stay on the field for another year. About the mind of the rugby players read more on:
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The first news is that Jonny Wilkinson is passionate about quantum physics. “All my life I have been obsessed with achieving perfection and was disappointed. Until one day I started looking for another way to get a different perception of the world and my work. First of all, I turned to Buddhism (…). And shortly after I found out that there were ties between my work and quantum physics. “In particular, to have fascinated Wilko is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The German scientist said that in certain fields natural laws do not lead to a complete determination of what happens in space and time, the occurrence depends form the game of chance. “If even in quantum physics not everything is controllable, Wilkinson must have thought, why should it be rugby? Better to relax.” There’s a first level that you can handle: the ball. If you kick the ball a hundred thousand times, in the end I can reach the same result in the game. And little by little I feel I can control everything. Then there is a second level, in which many things are inscrutable, in which another part of me is called into question, the part about instinct, deep emotions. And that’s where I can really be myself, connect to the world, and even learn something new.” So it turns out that, paradoxically, for Jonny the kick is the least interesting of rugby. At one point, describes him as “a work from postman.”
Italy rugby has always been a nice unfinished, sometimes it won a game but usually it fell so ruinous by the more relevant teams. Some weeks ago Brunel, the national coach, said that any team can make an exploit and win a game, but the teams technically and psychologically mature are able to win others and to be competitive. This season, Italy had behaved in this way a few times, winning against France and playing on par with the British and quite well with New Zealand, but then it was lost again with Wales and Scotland. In other words, he had lost games who would win, Wales and Scotland, where then the greater was the competitive pressure, which stemmed from the knowledge that they can get a positive result; whereas it was certain to lose and so scarce was the level of pressure, the team played its best games while losing. This showed that the technical-tactical and physical condition were good but lacked the confidence to play with opponents of the same level, where the difference was much more the team played less obsessed by the result and this has allowed it to play better. The match against Ireland was then a good opportunity for the national team to prove that it was able to play to win against an opponent of equal level and, therefore, in a situation of maximum competitive pressure. The national team has won and then passed this test of maturity and it’s not been casual the team did many points with kicks which have always been a weak point and on the contrary in this game have been placed at the sign.
It was not easy to repeat and confirm the result after winning exploits against France, it would be the demonstration that the change in attitude was something relatively stable. Till the end of the match against Scotland the rugby Italian team has always fought and this is certainly a step forward compared to the past. In my opinion there has been no the collective belief, it means to know that your teammates are willing to do the impossible to help you play at your best. Without this belief the team cannot win any game and leave the field domain to the opponents. Italy has committed many mistakes that show the lack of this mentality: the error by Orquera at the beginning of the match, some players arguing with opponents, balls lose for superficiality, no fighting spirit and too shy. In essence, good the players’ pride but to play it is necessary to attack, knowing that you can lose the ball and that is why the ball must be kept tight and every player should know that next to him has a partner ready to help him.
After the victory of Italy over France rugby, the Italian players have said that Brunel has taught them the meaning of sport, to enter in the field with the desire to win and to achieve this we must dare. Means having the courage to dare to do something that is risky. I want to note that this approach is the basis not only of winning mentality but also motivation. For the reason that human beings are motivated by three needs: competence, socialization and excitement.
The latter, the excitement, is supported by the ability to perform activities perceived as exciting, to know how to take risks (calculated) is the way this need is accomplished. It’s a need that is already present in childhood and the box below shows the main reasons.
Knowing how to take risks
It’s related to be able to move thinking during the activities. For example, in football more and more coaches say that the young players rarely shoot at goal or do a dribbling. Pull the ball into the goal is a situation where it is possible to have wrong execution and to be accused for the other guys to want to play alone. The young player take this risk if he knows that the coach appreciates this kind of behavior, if rewards the daring and not only the correct actions or those that have been previously prepared with the team. From the cognitive point of view, to be able to think and take a risk during the game are two aspects which improve the development of motor intelligence, which is highly developed among athletes.
As we can see, we should not get in national team to dare, just create training situations in which young people should take initiatives to meet the needs of the exercise.
Jacques Brunel, the new coach of the national rugby team, is teaching Italian players to be audacious and have fun in a sport so tough and physically combative as rugby. Brunel has entered exactly in the deep mind of his boys if an experienced player like Andrea Lo Cicero says, “One who believes in us. He does not want to destroy but to build. Fun. A man that is teaching us what is really the sport.” It would be interesting to know why the previous coaches were not able to get into their mind so deeply, and how the field experiences against strong teams have allowed players to reach a level of awareness that they did not have before and made them ready to follow the approach of this coach. Perhaps the solution lies in the interaction between the coach and the team’s attitude. It is still interesting to note that the Italian rugby got the best results with French coaches, current and George Coste, compared to those overseas, perhaps even in the same European mentality is the secret to talk to the players
Never stimulate too much the English pride, it can be dangerous. It has been the expense of the All Blacks. The English team had been, up to this game, a lot of criticism and it was also nine years that it did not win against this team. How did they play so well? Using criticism received as energy for motivation. “We played with the heart and soul,” said the English captain and it came out an excellent performance. Talk about about heart and soul is not rhetoric, because these are the two words we use in the psychology of common sense to explain that it was played at a maximum level of emotional intensity. ‘This is the emotional level necessary when the tean wants to enter in the field to win against opponents equally competitive. You cannot just be aggressive or play with the head, so only technically. You need the thrill you feel before the match telling that it will be a great day.
Rugby is commitment, progress and aggression and Italy has made one of his best games because it showed continuity with this attitude. Rugby is a sport where you cannot play without commitment, you can notpull the leg back, you ca not isolate yourself from the game, you cannot at the last second to pass the ball to a teammate because you are afraid of making mistakes. Italian players today have done all this, playing at optimal level . They lost, it was assumed, struggling with intelligence until the last minute.
