Mark Holland and Charlotte Woodcock are at the coal-face of a revolutionary new programme to train the minds of potential future Scottish rugby internationals. 

The pair of sports psychologists from the University of Birmingham are leading a new programme giving mental skills training (MST) to elite regional under-16 rugby players in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

In partnership with the SRU and Winning Scotland Foundation, the objective of the programme is to determine whether or not young players with a solid grounding in the mental side of competitive sport will benefit more as seniors than those players who haven’t been exposed to sports psychology.

In The Winning Zone sat down with Mark and Charlotte to ask a few questions about the programme...

WZ: What are the specifics of the MST programme?

MH: There is an awful lot of knowledge out there with regards to mental skills training, but what we had to do was tailor that knowledge to what these particular athletes need; and when I say these athletes I mean male, under-16 rugby players in an interactive, contact, team-sport. 

The general life pressures of a 15 or 16-year-old are going to be very different to other populations, for example someone who is 24 or 25….and rugby is different from another team sport, such as football, or individual sport such as tennis or golf.

The players have school and social commitments; so the programme needs to take this into consideration.  You need to look at the sport setup they are in, how their training regime works, how often they meet, the structure and environment in which they operate. 

WZ: So what are the key factors in MST for these young  guys?

MH: A lot of it is to do with promoting players’ self-awareness and personal reliance for their own development.  This is especially important when the players are in these regional programmes.  They aren’t training with the same coach on a regular basis so they need the skills to regulate their own thoughts and emotions.  They also need to have the skills to be flexible, to handle change.

It’s important that when they are away from the training field they know what to do and how to be responsible for themselves and adapt to different coaches and environments.  They need to be able to make sense of a situation where two different coaches are telling them to do different things.

The MST programme also helps players deal with pressure and have more mental toughness, in order to maintain their performance.  The rugby programme is a step up from what they are used to.  They are always under pressure.   But rather than just coping, MST is about having the tools to be able to excel, and get better and enjoy rugby more when they are in demanding environments.

WZ: What do you say to the players to encourage such behaviours?

CW: Well in terms of what we want to do we are still in the very early stages; we try and encourage responsibility. It’s all about understanding the self and taking responsibility for one’s own rugby performance and associated behaviours. We are not only tailoring the programme to the age-group, we are almost narrowing it down to working on an individual basis within the group.

There are of course general themes specific to that certain age-group, but there are many individual differences between the players.  What one player gets nervous about, and how he shows this stress, might be totally different to the player next to him.

So the next steps are about developing that self awareness.  We are trying to identify what they are really good at as a rugby player to build on their strengths and lay a foundation of confidence, and then build on that foundation.  But at the same time you must look at areas to improve as well. 

Developing a player to be able to look at themselves and ask ‘where can I make gains?’ and’ ‘how can I perform better?’ are the real key areas of our intervention.  They must be responsible for their own development, we can’t spoon-feed them.

MH: Another part is just explaining to the players what MST actually is.  A lot of them are not sure.  If you ask ‘is the mental side of your game important?’ Then they will say ‘Yes, it’s really important.’ But if you then ask them to tell you about it, they often struggle.  Rarely has anyone ever actually talked to them about it.  They work on physical skills and strength and fitness in training, but they have often never looked at how they can improve concentration or confidence.

WZ: Would you say most aspects of player performance relate back to confidence? 

CW: Confidence is one of the foundation skills to develop with MST.  It is important to look at the motivational root of one’s confidence.  If your confidence is primarily based on being better than a team-mate for example, it is a very vulnerable place for your confidence to be. 

If your team-mate goes away and trains really hard and suddenly becomes a lot better, you are in trouble.  Always comparing yourself to others is a very risky way to maintain high confidence.  If your confidence is based on your own efforts and improvement, and developing yourself, that is a much healthier position for you to be in. 

MH: I think motivation comes into it as well.  People aren’t just highly motivated or low in motivation.  It’s not just about quantity, it is about quality as well, and what you are motivated towards.  And what you are motivated towards can determine the quality of your engagement , performance, and persistence in the sport.

WZ: How receptive are the players to the MST concept?

CW: They were all quite receptive, but just weren’t too sure what MST was all about.  They wanted to learn about it, but just didn’t understand what it was.  Our first session was really just explaining what it was and getting them hooked to the idea of why it is important to their rugby and themselves as people. 

MH: They were keen to have a go, which is the main thing.  They realise sport psychology is important, and we can make it accessible to them, so it becomes just another part of their practice. 

WZ: What do the coaches think of your work with MST?

MH: The coaches we work with are really keen.  They really like the idea of supplementing the physical training with other aspects of performance the players may not be so familiar with to create a more rounded player.

There are some things that coaches really can’t dictate, like when the players are back at their clubs and away from their training.  They hope the mental training will help the players when they are off the pitch, and also, because of learning mental skills, they will be ready to play when they do turn up to training and competitions.

CW:  The coaches understand that there is a large psychological side to rugby.  They may have had some introduction to sport psychology through their coach training, but they are all really keen to develop those aspects of their role.

WZ: Is the programme set in stone?

MH: Well we have an idea of what the sessions will involve, but what the players do in physical training also dictates what we do with them. We have to join our work up with their physical training so it is one programme, rather than physical on one side and mental on the other.

Also, from what we learn this year in terms of implementing the programme, we will be pulling from the bits that worked well and trying improve the aspects which could be better for next season’s mental skills training.

CW: We want to keep the coaches involved as much as possible and integrate the two aspects of the pathway programme.  There should also be an overlap.  The coach should be able to apply aspects of our work to his own work with the players and his approach to his own coaching performance.  We will be continually talking to the coaches.

WZ: So how were you introduced to the current MST project?

CW: I knew from my Master’s degree work that I wanted to focus on the application of sport psychology.  When I saw the PhD advertised as an applied programme led by the University of Birmingham in conjunction with the Winning Scotland Foundation, I saw it as a great opportunity to develop as a sport psychologist and build up my own skill base conducting and delivering an evidence based research project.

MH: I completed my Master’s degree at Loughborough in sport psychology.  You are completely immersed in sport there, and I was really keen to carry on by doing a PhD which was quite applied. This would allow me to develop my knowledge of sport psychology and apply this knowledge at the same time. It was really about applying the theories and evidence-based knowledge in practice.

I went and had a look on the website and saw that the two supervisors on board (Professor Joan Duda and Dr Jennifer Cumming) were fantastic.  Given the opportunity to work with professionals like this plus being involved in a programme of work with the backing of an organisation like Winning Scotland Foundation, you are really in a win-win situation.

WZ: What are Joan and Jennifer’s roles?

MH: They are the programme leaders (Joan is the Principal Investigator and Jenn the Co-Investigator on the funded project) as well as being our PhD supervisors.  Together we form the project team, along with a research fellow Lee-Ann Sharp. Jenn and Joan head this team.  They have a tremendous amount of applied experience and a strong research background too. 

We pull from their knowledge and together we design and implement the programme for the players. The experience and background in our team makes sure that what we are doing is practically and academically sound, and that everything we do is rigorously researched and evidenced.

RO
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