Legendary rugby union and performance coach Dave Alred was a guest speaker at Ashton Gate this week, holding a lengthy session with Nigel Pearson and the rest of the Bristol City coaching staff.
Alred, who this month extended his contract as Bristol Bears kicking coach, formed part of a staff day, where he imparted his knowledge and methods on coaches from academy level through to Pearson and first-team assistants Curtis Fleming and Jason Euell.
Alred has been an elite performance coach for more than 30 years, famously helping Jonny Wilkinson become the world’s best goalkicker in rugby union, as well as working with former world golf No1 Luke Donald, the England rugby and cricket teams, GAA sides in Ireland, AFL teams in Australia and Manchester City.
Having been with the Bears since July, director of rugby Pat Lam has hailed not just the Bristolian's impact in the improved technical skills of his players as a “world class operator” but the influence he’s had on the development of his backroom team.
“What he’s been able to do in a short period of time for our backs has been phenomenal. But also in the coaching group - his wisdom, his knowledge has been tremendous,” Lam said last week. “We have a relatively young coaching group and even for myself, bouncing off him has been awesome. He’s certainly built great relationships with everybody.
“He’s got huge experience with some world golfers and other sports. It’s the way he communicates, the way he coaches, he is like a psychologist as well. He builds great relationships and it’s impressive for other coaches to watch.
“I get him to give us feedback on all of us as well; the way we communicate, the way we coach. Although he’s effectively kicking coach, as the job title is, it’s also a mentoring role he has right across the staff.”
Bringing in outside speakers was a tenet of Lee Johnson’s management at City with Marcus Trescothick, Ian Wright and representatives from the SAS and Red Arrows among those to have held sessions for the first-team squad.
This was slightly different as it involved only coaching staff, but is a small window into Pearson’s attention to detail and his desire to improve not just the first-team environment at City but down to academy level. A rugby fan, Pearson has also visited the Bears High Performance Centre in nearby Abbots Leigh to speak with Lam.
Author of 'The Pressure Principle', Alred's teachings focus on the use of language as a means for improvement, removing negativity from situations but also not falling into using what he calls "superficial positivity".
He told the Irish Times earlier this year, in discussing a rugby union player's goalkicking technique: “People who want to be positive have a lot of positive language: ‘that’s great’, ‘wow’ and all the rest of it. Even if the player knows it wasn’t.
“I want to change positive language to productive language - and productive language goes, that’s good, and why. So if for example you are taking a shot and you hit it with a thin foot and it goes out to the left . . . what I need to do is find out what was right about that first, before I ask you if you could roll your quad around it and get more of your laces on the ball.
“Then we would have been able to collect more of the ball and that wouldn’t have escaped out wide. But your posture was really good, the way your left shoulder was leading was absolutely outstanding.
“So the guy feels good about something and is prepared to have another go. And that’s how you invite somebody into the ugly zone.”
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