As Scotland prepare to take on the All Blacks, the mindset of the players is crucial, finds Iain Morrison
PLAYING AGAINST New Zealand is a daunting task at the best of times, but Scotland must first negotiate a psychological hurdle before they even contemplate the physical challenge posed next Saturday.
It is probably the best-known statistic in Scott
ish rugby and one of the most damning. In a series of matches that stretches back to 1905, Scotland have never bested the All Blacks. The two teams have met on 25 occasions and on 23 of them New Zealand have emerged triumphant; the teams drew twice, in 1964 and again in 1983.
Faced with such a tsunami of one-sided statistics, most Scots teams have lost before they have set foot on the field of play, but as things stand there is no psychologist/psychiatrist within the Scotland management team to help prepare the squad mentally for the challenge of beating the best team in the world.
When quizzed about the psychological hurdle his team faces next Saturday afternoon, Frank Hadden was dismissive. "I'd be surprised if that had a huge impact on the players because they're just young men and, you know, some of them have had no experience of playing against the All Blacks. They're not like us who remember all that sort of stuff." This may be true, but it doesn't seem very likely.
While happy to make demands on preparation time with his players, Hadden has not looked for assistance on the mental aspect of tackling the All Blacks, and the man who helped Chris Hoy to win his record breaking haul of three gold medals in Beijing argues that the coach might even be right.
"Look," says Steve Peters, "commonsense would suggest that, after 100 years or whatever it is of losing, then the team probably thinks that they are up against it, but it depends upon the people involved. Frank Hadden could be right, if everyone in the squad is focused with the right mindset it may be that he already has them in the right place. It would be unfair of me to make a judgment call before I have all the facts. I never give advice without having all the facts."
Peters is a psychiatrist who has worked with some of Britain's worst criminals. He shifted his emphasis to sport and the doctor has since been hailed by the boss of UK cycling Mike Brailsford as "a genius". The cyclists themselves have raved about his input to the team that achieved total hegemony of the Beijing Olympic velodrome; Jamie Staff called him "the glue" that held the squad together and Victoria Pendleton claimed: "I wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for Steve Peters."
This is the same man who, just before hostilities commenced in Beijing, sat his cyclists in front of a video with a soundtrack of Jim Telfer bellowing belief into the Lions team ahead of the opening test against South Africa. This is the same head doctor who helped England bounce back from a 36-0 drubbing at the hands of the Springboks to come within a stud's width of winning the World Cup.
"Another week and we'd have done it," says the undemonstrative Peters with a faint Yorkshire accent. "I don't want to take any credit for that, I may only have contributed a half of one per cent improvement. I'd be pretty angry if I was the England coach and I read about someone else taking the credit for what my team had achieved."
The doctor has a good bedside manner. Peters is as friendly and unassuming as you like, which is a little surprising for someone whose phone has been as busy as Russell Brand's of late. Following UK cycling's success in Beijing, his standing could not be any higher if he scaled Nelson's Column. On top of his cycling (and taekwondo) responsibilities, Peters reckons he has worked with ten other Olympic sports, and he recently enjoyed a sit down with Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson. Watch this space.
Peters describes himself as a "mind mechanic". "I sort out people's minds. If there is something wrong I lift up the bonnet and have a tinker," he says. "I explain how the mind works and I help people get their mind to work properly for them but, to continue the car analogy, I don't tell people where to drive to."
Peters first spoke to the England rugby squad three months before the 2007 World Cup and, as an outsider, it was important he offer his services only to those that wanted them; a little over half of the World Cup squad responded.
Asked specifically what he would have done with Scotland ahead of the huge challenge they face next Saturday, Peters is adamant that there are no quick fixes. "There are some issues that take you three months to sort out and there are others that might take three years to fix. People want me to tap them on the head with a magic wand but it's not like that.
"Firstly I'd have to assess all the players on an individual level. If one player is giving 50% but his mental state is excellent then you might only get an improvement to 55% with him. A second player might be giving you 50% with a poor mind set so you might improve him to 95% which would make a huge difference to the team.
"The second thing I would do is analyse the team dynamic. There are rules for individuals and there are rules for society and that's what a team is, it's a society. I'd have to understand the rules and the values that govern that society, who are the social architects (group leaders], whether overtly or covertly, and optimise the team dynamic."
When asked about the value of such mental MOTs, Peters quotes some figures which lend some weight to his work. He asks athletes across all the sports he is involved in just how important they rate the mental side of preparation and the answers vary from 50% to 95%. Then he asks the same athletes how much mental preparation they have done the answer is invariably the same: nil, zero, zip, nada, none. Modern athletes know the importance of the mental side but they rarely know who to turn to for help.
"They don't know what they want," says Peters. "I don't blame your man (Hadden] for not looking for help because I don't know what his experience of sports psychologists and psychiatrists is. It may be that he used a poor one in the past and got put off. We are just like doctors and dentists, there are good ones and bad ones out there.
"He may not know what is being offered. He may think that someone is going to come in and judge him and make demands of the coaches when that is simply not the case. I probably spent half my time with the coaches rather than with the athletes because they are the ones with the expertise and the knowledge."
When pressed exactly what he does during his time with the athletes, Peters explains that the question is an impossible one to answer. "I could ask you to explain rugby to me in one sentence but it's just not possible. In a similar way people want a simple explanation of what I do, but I can't offer you one. I do 1,000 things, it comes as a package."
Whatever it is that Peters does, it seems to work and Scotland's rugby stars may find themselves on the receiving end of his work next year. Amongst the many admirers beating a path to his door in recent months has been England rugby boss Martin Johnson. Does the mind mechanic intend taking his wrench to the red rose engine again?
"It's on the cards," Peters replies. "We've had discussions but to be honest it's up to Martin Johnson. He may not want me." Of course that is possible, but it doesn't seem very likely.
The full article contains 1367 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
