George Ford: The dangers of hindsight analysis in modern sport

Sale and England fly-half George Ford has highlighted the dangers of hindsight analysis in modern sport.

Speaking on the For the Love of Rugby Podcast, Ford said: “The brilliant thing for coaches is they can see what we can’t on the field. So they are up in the stands, they can see the whole game, they’ve got their laptops, they can watch it back. Brilliant, that is so helpful.

“But we can feel what they can’t, in terms of the feel of the game, where the state of our own team is, what the state of the opposition team is. It’s always a combination of both that comes into it.

“The only bugbear of mine - and this has happened throughout my career - is that you might be struggling in a game, really struggling, and you might end up losing, and you don’t get much help in terms of messages or what we need to do there and then in the moment.

“But we’ll come in on a Monday morning and everyone will have the answer as to what we should have done - everybody.

“And I’m thinking, ‘Well, what use is that? I needed it 48 hours ago at about half three.’ Anyone can do that on a Sunday - go and read the newspaper and the report and then go on social media and all of a sudden you accumulate the story of what happened and the solutions.

“You come in on a Monday morning to the meeting and get bombarded, ‘Why didn’t we do this, we should have done this, this wasn’t good enough.’

“And it’s like, ‘Thanks, we’ll learn the lesson, but we could have done with that in the middle of the game.’

“From the elite coaches to the rest, that is probably the biggest difference I noticed.”

Sports Psychologist Michael Caulflield, who shared the clip on LinkedIn, wrote: “As ever, draw your own conclusions, but for all the reviews, meetings, and using hindsight, which remains the foresight of a gobshite, please remember that feel and intuition still have a vital role, and if you get in the way of that, you might just be getting in the way.”

“They very often pick up on cues and emotions in the middle of a game that you just don’t feel. It’s really important to engage and listen to what they’ve got to say.”

It also reminded me of a team analysis session I had seen with a Professional Development Phase group at a Premier League club. They were shown aerial footage of a session and one player said, ‘That’s all good, but it’s not what we see when we’re on the pitch.’

This is something the most enlightened analysts are aware of. Mark Leyland, the Head of Coaching Methodology at City Football Group and former Coach-Analyst at Newcastle United, told the TGG Podcast: “The battle we had originally - and there’s still a battle at times - was moving away from the difficult process of having negative conversations.

“At the time, whenever there was a negative conversation, it felt as though we were hammering someone. We had to try and educate people that it wasn’t, that this was a development environment.

“This wasn’t a tool to beat them with, it was a carrot. 'This is what we can do better and how you can become a better footballer and a better team.' It was a challenge but they were all open to it.

“Your relationships with players and the way you communicate is really important - particularly with young players in a senior environment.

“It’s important for them to know you’re on the journey with them, it’s a process you are trying to develop alongside them.

“If you’re working with elite athletes, they just want to get better, and anything you can do to help them in that they will use and absorb. As I’ve progressed through my career that has only become more intense. “Players in the Premier League absorb more and more and more, whether it's video or data or in-depth analytics.”