I was watching a pod cast the other day and the guest was ex England rugby player Joe Marler. Joe mentioned something that resonated with myself on why certain teams are more successful than others.
When his club side won the Championship they did not have a recognised coach and the senor players were basically running the show. The core group of the team had been together since junior days and this is what gave them such a strong bond. It is this special bond that cannot be replicated and why so many sports teams may be full of star players, but they do not gel and never will. A special team has the bond and it is not down to the coaching, but how the players express themselves as a unit. Coaches obviously do help, but at the end of the day it is the players who have to perform.
When I played rugby in the army we had a champion wining team that went unbeaten. This team was special for so many reasons besides the obvious of being super fit, but it had the bond I have never experienced whilst playing for other teams. You cannot create this type of environment and you ether have it or you don't.
The team did have some star quality with many players being selected to play professionally and internationally. I have always believed if this team had remained together then we could have been a championship winning side in any league.
We never grew up playing together and only knew each other as team mates from our twice weekly practice sessions and our match day games. I do think that we all saw playing sport as a way of escaping army life which sucked for the majority of us. This was our time of enjoyment and it reflected in what this team achieved.
The coaches were not anything special and yes we planned our own moves and trained like any other team would be expected to. The big difference which I only realized afterwards when playing for other teams is we had time ad it was like we were playing in slow motion.
This does sound kind of weird describing this feeling, but there was never any type of rush or urgency. I have been in teams when matches move at such a pace you can hardly think and definitely not controlled.
I think this can be compared to school teams when one age group stands out for some reason ad it is not necessarily on talent, but more about playing as a team. You cannot coach this aspect even tough this is a team sport and each player has to buy into this type of thinking on his own.
Over the years I have bumped into a few of my old army team mates and they kind of regret not keeping the team together or at least the core of that particular team. Impossible to have done back then as the sport was an amateur sport with many players being pulled from the entire country. I would guess if that team had been playing today professional scouts would have been signing up every player and the chances of sticking together would have been unrealistic.
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