Why Martin Johnson will still be England Coach – he has a plan

Much has been said that the England Rugby Coach should be sacked following the World Cup in New Zealand by eminent writers http://bit.ly/vjjEz9 and ex-players http://tgr.ph/qxrjaE– however I think he should stay as he has a plan to win the next World Cup. http://bit.ly/sv3IPO

If you look back over the previous world cup winners the average age of the winning team is around 28/29. When Johnson took over he inherited an aging squad with a group of players in their mid to late 20’s lacking in quality, joint vision and commitment. Yet still a group of players
who won the world cup in 2003 committed and a group of talented 20-23 year olds.

So he clearly made a decision to exclude those not totally committed to the cause aged between 25 -30. Only four players in that age group were in the squad of 30. With far more over the age of thirty including Smith at 37. http://bit.ly/taS6vf

He has appeared to have taken the view in a similar vein to Alex Ferguson of Manchester United of always having experienced “old heads”, currently Giggs, Ferdinand etc, players in their prime, Rooney, Nani and young emerging players with speed of thought and action as well as the “right attitude” Young, Smalling etc http://bit.ly/oSfFc8

This mix is one that Sir Alex has adopted throughout his tenure – fairly successfully I think. However he has notably excluded players who cause difficulties – for example one word – Tevez! How right he was about resisting the pressure to re-sign him.

Ironically for Johnson he was let down by one of those senior players who should have provided the guidance and mentoring to the young group who will be 28/29 at the next world cup and how the New Zealanders loved it! http://bit.ly/rYmMkd

One saving grace for me was “Our Jonny” – who has apparently just found himself – but his guiding of the backs and in particular Toby Flood is how I see a “senior pro” passing on expertise, experience and what its like to have been there and done it! http://tgr.ph/uSHx0e

So back to Johnson – his short term plan clearly didn’t work and semi-finals is a must for England at all Rugby World Cups but I think he must be given the time to try to put in place his full plan although some players still don’t appear to have “got it” http://bit.ly/uMdgB1 as to what it means to be a role model at International level. I could start about John Terry but not enough cyber space for that one!

Johnson’s plan has already seen a significant improvement in age group performance and a clearer link between senior team style and approach to that of the age group teams. In addition how can you learn from experience if you remove someone who has now had the experience of winning and losing the World Cup! So like all plans they and Johnson who clearly demonstrates the enbodyment of committment, though and stature must be given time to mature and see it through to 2015.

Delivering an increase in sports participation

Two recent emails dropped in my inbox over the last week or so which provided a contrasting view on sport development. Firstly a link to Richard Caborn’s key note on the investment in Governing Bodies that is the cornerstone to the current Sport England Strategy, was failing after only two years http://bbc.in/nNTC12 and in contrast an email from the England Under 16’s Basketball coach, Simon Fisher.

They were contrasting because Simon’s email to Graham Jones (now with Sport England) http://linkd.in/oivUMw and Steve Nelson (Director – Wesport) http://linkd.in/nle5rd concerned Active Sports an investment programme. To give some background - when I was CEO of England Basketball (1998-2002) Graham and Steve led the implementation of Basketball’s element of the Sport England Active Sports Programme http://bit.ly/pgWUKd which has influenced a significant membership rise on the back of these actions. Simon thanked Graham and Steve for putting in place a sound system that developed better players that resulted in England’s best age group performance in European completion ever http://bit.ly/pFjWWc . To put this in perspective basketball is a true worldwide sport with over 50 countries taking part in age group competition in Europe in contrast to some British Commonwealth sports like Netball, Rugby (both codes) and Cricket who have less than 20 playing countries worldwide.

My reading of his email confirms what Steve and I said at the time – The Sport England Active Sports programme will take between five and ten years to mature and so it has. Here is the dilemma according to England Basketball they have seen a near doubling of membership, an increase in the number of national league teams and an increase in the results of age group teams as recorded in the latest annual report http://bit.ly/nRcRmF . However in contract Basketball’s Active People http://bit.ly/bg0d67 results have been dropping http://bit.ly/p9PIf6 ?

Is the question raised by the former Minister of Sport - have sports like Basketball built on this sound foundation from the Active Sports Programme through this funding round or are they unable to keep them in the sport. Clearly other factors influenced this downturn?

The key question for me is - Has the current investment, barely two years old, had time to mature? It is the largest ever in sport (five-fold larger than when I was CEO of Basketball) and was based on the Sport England strategy http://bit.ly/vgXue which was secured on the basis of the fundamental change to the sporting landscape and funding routes and have other influences come into play...

The investment routes are different - Local Authorities are no longer directly funded by Sport England for activity and NGBs have been given a clear role, responsibility and accountability to play in developing their sport not leaving it to others to decide how their sport should be structured and/or delivered. Local Authority sport development teams appear to be concentrating on physical activity and not sport for sport sake.

Many governing bodies are being measured on factors which are out of their control i.e. they have to buy facility time from local authorities and schools which are under financial pressure themselves and have either raised prices or closed facilities http://bit.ly/hkGmqU . Swimming, whom I am chair of the West Midlands, have been further affected by the withdrawal of Free Swimming http://bbc.in/b5Hfg and surprisingly participation figure are down!

Governing bodies both large and small have taken a year or so to appoint staff and start to implement their interventions and a number have re-structured since. So with all change in delivery methods it is maybe inevitable that a drop in outputs may happen in the short term but by keeping faith with the strategies and interventions is imperative.

Many of the interventions were based on making sure the sports infrastructure could respond to the potential increase in the short period after the Olympics and Paralympics. This has been the real challenge for the smaller sports such as Handball who we provide coach education services http://bit.ly/puLhqd as they need an infrastructure of coaches. We have through effective marketing doubled the number of level one courses in the last year giving the sport an opportunity to respond the expected upsurge in interest. However this could not be applied to the larger team sports who have control of facilities and actions.

So were the interventions right? The sports that are doing well are those that have implemented simple short term action and had the infrastructure to respond quickly and made sure newly appointed development staff were focused, with a small remit and clear about their roles. Netball have kept it simple working on the “Baked Beans theory” of saying what it is on the tin with “Back to Netball” http://bit.ly/pavoqB and Athletics who have been unequivocal with the support of club networks alongside associating with anyone who runs! http://bit.ly/dV8R76

In conclusion - easy to say but I do think Government, Sport England and Governing bodies need to keep the faith with the plans however if they are not working be brave to change to something simple that will engage people who have an interest but the current structure of sport does not allow them to take part.

I look forward to other views – please comment...