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Snippet of insight into Woodward's time at Saints in today's Guardian.


Midfield_General
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Talks about his theories for improving penalty-taking, how he tested those theories at Saints, and how he thinks they could help England in the World Cup:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/may/19/clive-woodward-england-penalties-brazil-world-cup

 

Always thought Woodward had some utterly brilliant ideas that are only now being taken on board by the vast majority of clubs. It was shocking how backwards football was with their attitude to coaching and technology only a few years ago.

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Lowe was given a right kicking over Woodward's appointment but getting someone at the top of their game in that area was a materstroke at the time. Redkanpp wouldn't have it though. As he managed to finish bottom a few conversations with SCW surely couldn't have hurt. And to think, HR nearly became England manager!!! Jeez.

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A year or so ago Woodward was discussing this topic with Roy Hodgson on Sky Sports. Woodward was saying that the practice needed to start back then not a few weeks before the tournament. My impression was that Hodgson was uneasy at being lumped in with laggard coaches such as Redknapp, and whilst Roy was polite he did not appear to agrees with Clive's assessment.

 

The series was called sporting heroes, it is available to view on YouTube, broadcast December 2012

Edited by positivepete
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A rugby penalty is totally different from a football one. There is no keeper. If you staged your run-up, the keeper would have a good idea from scout reports which way to go.

A better way to practice would be to get Rickie Lambert coaching them, or better still get Sir Matt involved.

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Check your facts, he joined us before we were relegated.

 

Interesting, i ain't checked my facts but that ain't how i remember it either. I feel like we got relegated and then lowe made him a director or something.

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Can't believe you get coaches saying you can't coach penalties.

 

To me that just smacks of a bad coach. If you can't coach someone to replicate hitting a dead ball on target from 12 yards you are a pretty poor coach.

 

Yes, it's nigh on impossible to replicate the pressure, but doesn't that apply to every part of the game? Is coaching a training exercise impossible as it is not the same on the training pitch as it is in front of 30k people on a Saturday or the millions watching a final/World Cup game etc.

 

You aren't attempting to replicate the conditions, you are trying to teach/coach the player to do things (right) without thinking, making the right decisions instinctively through practice. That's what training is, and that's where coaches earn their crust. If a player knows what to do instinctively, it means they think less about what they are doing. Watch any pro or pundit, they'll say you want to be acting on instinct.

 

If you are thinking too much in high pressure situations you are more likely to make mistakes. As the article says, a penalty shoot out at a World Cup is not the time to be taking a pen for the first time. You want players stepping up who have done it so many times they could practically hit the side netting in their sleep.

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Interesting, i ain't checked my facts but that ain't how i remember it either. I feel like we got relegated and then lowe made him a director or something.

 

SCW joined Saints in an official position in July 2005, after we had been relegated. But he had been speaking to Rupert well before then so might have had unofficial influence.

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Amazing how our recollection of history can be inaccurate, even when it's recent history. The facts appear to be that Saints were relegated from The Prem to the Champ in May 2005, which was before Sir Clive took up a role with Southampton. Sir Clive was a friend of Rupert Lowe and the possibility of his involvement with the club had been discussed in 2004 before Redknapp was appointed manager in Dec 2004. Eventually Sir Clive was appointed as Performance Director in July 2005 but his role was opposed by Redknapp who walked ouyt of the club in Dec 2005 to move back to Portsmouth in December 2005 with George Burley becoming Head Coach and Sir Clive promoted to Director of Football. There had been a threat of a second successive relegation in 2005/06 but after Redknapp left results improved and we finished a creditable 12th. However, that was followed by Michael Wilde ousting Lowe in June 2006 and in August that year, Sir Clive left the club.

The following year, 2006/07 we were close to being promoted back to the Prem but as Lowe had predicted the club couldn't support the cost of the St Mary's Stadium in the lower division and the financial situation went from bad to worse. We stayed in the Championship for 2007/08 and 2008/09 but it was a struggle as players were sold and loaned out until relegation to L1 for the 2009/10 season and the 10 point deduction for going into administration.

Whether keeping Lowe and Sir Clive would have made any difference to the narrow miss of promotion in 2006/07 no one can ever know, but even if we had, life in the Prem would probably have been a struggle. As it was, we could have folded altogether or sunk with SISU like Coventry but Marcus and Cortese rode to our rescue like the US Cavalry and Sir Clive went back to Rugby.

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Can't believe you get coaches saying you can't coach penalties.

 

To me that just smacks of a bad coach. If you can't coach someone to replicate hitting a dead ball on target from 12 yards you are a pretty poor coach.

 

Yes, it's nigh on impossible to replicate the pressure, but doesn't that apply to every part of the game? Is coaching a training exercise impossible as it is not the same on the training pitch as it is in front of 30k people on a Saturday or the millions watching a final/World Cup game etc.

 

You aren't attempting to replicate the conditions, you are trying to teach/coach the player to do things (right) without thinking, making the right decisions instinctively through practice. That's what training is, and that's where coaches earn their crust. If a player knows what to do instinctively, it means they think less about what they are doing. Watch any pro or pundit, they'll say you want to be acting on instinct.

 

If you are thinking too much in high pressure situations you are more likely to make mistakes. As the article says, a penalty shoot out at a World Cup is not the time to be taking a pen for the first time. You want players stepping up who have done it so many times they could practically hit the side netting in their sleep.

 

It is obvious, and it's not an idea thought up by Clive Woodward. Matt Le Tissier, the king of penalties, used to repeatedly practice taking them into an empty in front of the Milton End before matches. He also used to try and replicate the pressure by offering young goalkeepers money for saving them in training.

 

England are not very good at penalty shootouts because we are not very good at football.

Edited by aintforever
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It is obvious, and it's not an idea thought up by Clive Woodward. Matt Le Tissier, the king of penalties, used to repeatedly practice taking them into an empty in front of the Milton End before matches. He also used to try and replicate the pressure by offering young goalkeepers money for saving them in training.

 

England are not very good at penalty shootouts because we are not very good at football.

 

I disagree we are bad at football, I think at most levels our coaching and development is archaic. That is where the problem lies, IMO.

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You are right and I have to offer up my apologies. I would have put my mortgage on SCW being here when we went down but clearly that wasn’t the case. I do strongly recall that Redknapp would not let him near the 1st team though and was clearly put out by his arrival, despite the statements to the media otherwise. Nowadays it is a given that a lot of sport is in the head but back then it seemed like witchcraft to many in football. To say that you can’t coach penalty taking is a nonsense. Ashley Cole is a prime example. At the top of his trade for many years - rubbish penalty taker. When asked about taking a pen for England he actually said he would probably miss. That tells you all you need to know. Do you think Ricky Lambert or MLT had any such doubts? They don’t need coaching but many players do. David Beckham, like Johnny Wilkinson used to spend hour after hour perfecting their technique and applying "muscle memory." I am sure Woodward would not claim to have invented this approach - what he was was one of the first people to say it out loud in relation to football and he has a lot more in his locker than just identifying the need to deal with penalties differently.

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