Martin came on to huge applause as he entered after a video of him doing his thing on the rugby pitch.
He spoke about when he started out as Captain of the British Lions with the two people who inspired him as a Captain, Dean Richards and Will Carling and their different styles.
He knew he had to do his own thing and be himself as Captain - being honest as himself.
He remembers the time Clive Woodward became manager and announced, "We are here to be the best in the world". That was the ambition, the vision:
How do we get there? We needed to spend attention to detail on everything. Hotels, changing rooms, etc. - critical non-essentials. All those little things to create an elite environment.
With a background in business, Clive transformed things to become more efficient. Changing behaviours, creating trust between the team as a whole. Generating pride as a player.
The rule book that was created, was lived. We bought into it as a set of guidelines. It became second nature. What it created was reliability - never let the team down!
Before the 2003 World Cup we were ranked number one in the world. When we arrived at World Cup Camp, I thought we were in great shape. Great teams have leaders that DO. To keep that edge was for us to work harder. We had a team of great players and players that had worked themselves hard to be great. The work ethic was shared between all players. We were all willing to learn more and more.
I used everyone to learn from. The oldest or youngest member of the squad, no matter what their experience. At the rugby world Cup training camp we all inspired each other to work harder. As Captain, I had to work harder to prove my place.
"If you have not given everything, you have given nothing." Clive Woodward - October 2003
People think the Captain shouts and gives great speeches before games. Communication for us was big talk and little talk:
Big talk is the strategy, the 'big stuff'. Little talk was about the smaller communication, the feedback, one-on-one or in smaller teams. Encouragement and acknowledgement. Sometimes, during a game, the little talk was a nod, a look, a pat on the back, that made the difference.
In the lead up to the final, in the semis, we had to drop Mike Tindall to allow Mike Catt to play for tactical reasons. Although disappointed, he worked so hard to help Mike Catt prepare and worked as hard as everyone else. In the final, we had to do the reverse but the result was the same. They knew the importance of the team - we all did.
When we got to the final, we had to stay grounded. 'Just do what you do normally'.
We went into so much detail. We had a referee on our squad advising us what the referee would be thinking on the day - it's his World Cup Final too. He wants to have a great day, we needed to understand his motivation on the big day.
Matt Dawson stayed calm under pressure to help me remain focussed and remember the big picture when times through the game were getting tense.
With a minute to go, we lost a penalty and scores were level. We went back to the huddle having been so close to winning. The Aussie crowd were ecstatic and the flow had changed. As we got back to the huddle I saw the look in the eyes of our players, I knew we were going to win, we needed some little-talk right then and we were getting it. The team didn't need geeing up we just need to focus on the specifics.
In extra time we went ahead with a drop goal and then the Australians scored to bring the scores level.
At the kick-off, we got together and organised the kick-off, the line out we knew we'd get and how we would play it. Getting together we all knew exactly what we needed to do. We all had our roles and we did exactly what we had planned.
Matt Dawson made a spontaneous play from a ruck that gave the room for us to push further forward which led to the Johnny Wilkinson drop goal and for us to win the World Cup.
Johnny scored that goal then because we were a great TEAM.
many article is just post without any consultation, unlike your post, there are means why it post, the Advocacy.
Posted by: online writing jobs | December 02, 2011 at 07:52 PM