Cakes, cement and rugby

It was with a sense of anticipation that I was travelling to the English town of Rugby. My excuse was a business meeting. That was a front, I was on a mission.

I've always had an interest in where or how things started. Things that we take for granted. Things that are now part our everyday lives. Everything starts somewhere.

I had a mental picture of what I was going to experience. I wanted to take in the atmosphere, the sense of history. I would be inspired to come up with some motivational one liners, to inspire the lads back home. I was going to the birthplace of the great sport of rugby.

Driving along, I imagined William Webb-Ellis playing on the fields of the famous Rugby school. I could hear the lads and the master in charge shouting "What do you think you're doing boy?" Catching the ball and in defiance of the rules, Webb-Ellis ran off down the field with ball in hand. The rest as they say is history.

I didn't get to see the famous school. In fact, all I saw was the Rugby Cement factory and a traffic roundabout advertising the fact that "Mr Kipling" makes his "exceedingly nice cakes" in Rugby. A fact that didn't go unnoticed. Rugby, cement and cherry bakewell tarts. I am pleased to note that Mr Kipling cakes website has a "cookies policy".

The only reference to the great, global, sport of rugby was a roadside sign letting me know when to turn for the Webb Ellis Industrial Estate.

Like most of urban Britain, the town centre was a mixture of familiar retail chains, independent local stores, charity shops and people going about their business. They were totally oblivious of my quest to find the birth-place of a significant sport. I didn't even see a rugby pitch.

Standing in a car park looking at the back of the local bank and a small parade of shops, it was hard to imagine anything originating here - let alone the global phenomenon that is rugby. The remarkable thing is it did. Here in this small town in the middle of England. The truth of the matter is: everything starts somewhere.

The bible notes something about a town very similar to Rugby. It records a conversation between two men. They were talking about a man one of them had just met. The town: Nazareth. The man: Jesus Christ. "Where was he from? Nazareth? Can anything good come from there?" There was a familiarity about it. Jesus? Isn't he the carpenter? Rugby? Isn't that where they make cakes and cement?

The man's man Jesus lived in Nazareth. He had spent 30 years learning his trade and working as a carpenter. But his job, his town, his family circumstances didn't stop him taking his "catch the ball and run down the field" moment. His decision, to face whatever it would take to make us better men for knowing him, was world changing.

What decisions are we facing today? Don't let familiarity or circumstances prevent us from making choices that will change someone's world for the better; including perhaps our own. The ball is in the air. What will we do when we catch it?

It was strange to think that there, in Rugby, an ordinary town with ordinary people, something happened that changed the sporting world. Rugby has brought challenge, excitement, camaraderie and enjoyment to so many. Everything starts somewhere. And it's here, in the ordinary places, places with cement and cake factories, amongst the shops, banks, public car parks and yes the place where the great sport of rugby started, that the man's man Jesus challenges us to catch and run.

The Inevitability of Impact

Rugby is a full contact physical sport. Anyone watching the game for the first time could be excused for wincing at the sheer force of the impacts. With the advances in training and fitness regimes, the modern player is also faster and more mobile than ever before. The harnessing of speed and force make for a dramatic spectacle, but also combine to create the shuddering impacts synonymous with the modern game.

Whilst researching the physical implications for players, particularly in youth sport or in development squads, I came across a fascinating article outlining a study in New Zealand looking at identifying signs of concussive injury. I was drawn to some of the statistics produced in the study. By using sensors attached to players and built into mouth guards, the researchers were able to accurately measure the number of impacts in a game and the G-force exerted in the impact. The results were revealing.

In one game, there were over 3000 impacts. The average impact was 22g. Given a fighter pilot can experience a force of around 9g, admittedly over a more prolonged period of time, the individual impacts in rugby are nonetheless quite remarkable. One recorded hit was over 200g. It almost seems impossible that players are regularly encountering physical forces that would normally be experienced in road traffic accidents. The remarkable thing is the physical resilience of players and for the record, how few concussions there actually were.  Now that's not to minimise the importance of looking for this type of injury and being aware for the sake of player safety. But it set me thinking. One thing is inevitable if you play rugby. You will experience knocks and have to take the impact.

Some of those impacts will take you down. Some will cause you pain. Others will require you to simply put your head down and press on, using all of your strength and stamina. Sound familiar?

There is another arena in which there is an inevitability that we will encounter impacts. Life. But as with the great sport if rugby, how we react to life's knocks will often determine the outcome of the passage of life we're experiencing. Some things take us down. Some things cause us pain. Others call for every reserve of strength or staying power for us to press through. Our response can be critical to how things turn out. When we get knocked down, we have a choice - to stay down or get back up regardless of what took us down. We may be different as a result of the impact, but we can chose to stay down or stand again. We may experience pain, but ours is the choice to let that pain forever define us or to allow it to become something that helps strengthen us for the next challenge. We may feel totally exhausted but ours is the choice to live depleted of our reserves or to shift our thinking to recognise that resilience, resistance work and recovery are essential elements for building strength and endurance.

The bible has an interesting observation, made by the man's man Jesus Christ. He had observed life over an extended period: working in a carpentry business, with all the demands of hitting deadlines, keeping customers satisfied, financing projects. He carried the social stigma of living in a small, rough town, that few people admired. He lived under harsh government regulation, with a though tax regime. He was the oldest in the family he was born into and carried the responsibility. When he set out to make a difference for people, he was looked on with a familiarity that was driven by envy and contempt for his lack of formal religious preparation. No wonder he said to his team "in this world"(the one we have described, the one we live in), "you will have trouble". It's as inevitable as the impacts in rugby. However, he followed that statement up with one that was as astonishing as his previous comment was inevitable: "I have overcome the world." In other words, I have a way of getting through this. A way of getting through these impacts. Whilst there is the undeniable forward look to his destiny at the cross, this man's man was saying there is a way to overcome the world and what it throws at you - by simply not letting it define who you are. You are not defined by your current circumstance, your background, ethnicity, perceived economic value - your definition is not external, it develops internally. Through the relationships that we build. Through the kind of men we become. Through the faith we extend beyond our own limitations. The man's man blew away the final limitation, opening up a way for all men to meet and be comfortable in the presence of their maker.

Whatever, life is throwing at us, has thrown or will ever throw - should never truly define us and  therefore ever truly defeat us. Experiences good, bad and ugly shape us, but true definition is forged through a faith with the friend of all men, who has taken the ultimate hit for us.

The Space Beyond the Ball

Seeing beyond the current space you're in to the possibilities that lie beyond is called vision. Going on to inhabit the beyond and make things happen is called application and that takes graft and determination.

Unrealised vision is simply aspiration. The power that drives change is the conversion of vision into reality on the ground.

When still a club coach in Auckland, Graham Henry the victorious Rugby World Cup 2011 coach of the New Zealand All Blacks was asked for a key coaching tip. His response was direct and to the point - "get over the gain line in the first phase".

In rugby terms that means taking possession beyond the point at which a phase of play started before it breaks down again. For example, if a player is tackled, his team are expected to recycle the ball and progress past the point of the tackle and over the gain line, before another tackle stops the advance.

Aspirational? No, because what marks Henry out as a coach is his ability to think about the game, its rules, the role of players on and off the ball and use each as a component to deliver something tactically different. He is deliberate about it, it doesn't just happen.

After the successful 2011 RWC campaign Henry commented "We want quick ball in New Zealand and so we concentrate on dominating the space beyond the ball carrier. We want our supporting players to get under the opposition and to move them backwards. We flood past the ball to create good possession for our strike runners" (The Guardian, Sunday 29-01-12).

Now that's thought through. Practical. It's every player knowing what they have to do to "get across the gain line in the first phase". It's not just great vision. It's application on the ground. If you drive the opposition back from the breakdown, you have already created the space and opportunity to get past the gain line before you even begin to move the ball again.

So successful are the thought through, tactical elements of the All Black's game that it looks like second nature. In fact, when you watch great teams, what started as a vision and was fleshed out on the training ground until it became second nature, becomes endemic in the team and is seen by onlookers and emerging new players as part and parcel of what a winning team does - new players coming into the squad simply follow suit. The reality is, it started somewhere. It was worked through with an initial group of players, but then became the norm. Delivering quick ball from the breakdown by taking the space beyond the ball is now part of All Black game play.

Now there's a great principle at work here - what becomes second nature becomes the norm, what becomes the norm is transmitted seamlesssly to peers and the next generation of players coming through. But here's the key, "every generational shift starts with a deliberate decision".

The bible has an interesting insight into how successive generations learn and understand the significance of what is important. The illustration talks about the strength and resiliance that comes from knowing God - the principle at work was written about by the warrior king, David. He put it this way: ..."examine closely the way things are structured, look at the strength that is built into them,  look at the detail and show it to the generation that is following you - model it, be it".... It's about being deliberate in thinking about what is important and how to demonstrate it.

We may be looking to introduce a change. We may be looking at our own behaviours in an attempt to improve our relationships in business, in serving people or perhaps even in our closest relationships - but remember, there is a difference between aspiration and real vision that paves the way for the next step - application. The transition from vision to reality is the critical phase, but it's where so many either fear to tread or stumble. But that transition is crucial to change becoming second nature.

Working on relationships is not perhaps the most natural thing that men lean towards. All too often we let even our core relationships drift or allow things happen by default - despite the fact that we so easily plan events, schedule tasks, review and change processes. Given people are at the centre of events, task or processes, we cannot afford to alllow relationships to develop by default.

Understanding the dynamics of change and being deliberate in our thinking can be the key to making the right adjustments, at the right time and in the right way. Relationships and the people we interact with are after all at the heart of winning teams on the pitch, in business, in areas of service and in families.  Are we allowing things to happen to us by default or are we being deliberate about change?

Men Need the Fight

Back in my playing days we were a mixed bunch of lads. Electricians, farmers, office workers, builders. But as soon as we pulled on the team shirt something happened. We became a team. The shirt is a great leveller. The cause is a great uniting force. There's something powerful when men unite for a common purpose. The physicality of the contact and the hits, the exertion in the scrum and driving mauls. The elation of making the tackle and turning over possession. The ecstasy or the agony at the final whistle - no matter the result we stood together. I have a feeling that whatever we did away for the game, we were better men for being part of something that required us to commit ourselves to others, to excel as individuals but acknowledge that it would take all 15 of us to prevail. We were better men having given something of ourselves to the fight. Men need the fight. But the fight needed men. Today I have to adjust to watching from fhe sidelines or coaching, but there is still enjoyment in the camaraderie and the banter on the touchline. But I still miss the hits, the physical tussles, making the tackles. Today it's a different fight. It's showing the way to the lads coming through, showing this generation the importance of the fight, how to engage as team,  how to excel firstly as men, then as players.  Men need the fight. The man's man Jesus Christ understands the importance and the longing of men to engage in the fight - he pulled together 12 guys from different backgrounds and set them on a course to change the world. He knew they would face tough opposition, criticism and open conflict. But there was a fight. The prize - the liberation of people contained by dead religion or the limitations of sad or inflicted circumstances or the cruelty of tyranny.  That early team were as different a bunch of lads as any rugby, soccer, baseball or football team, but they  were unified by the cause of "the" man.  Make no mistake, when they were asked to take up a cross and follow - they knew exactly what he was asking. But there is no gain without the fight. The great writer and follower of Christ, Paul, understood when he said to his young friend Timothy, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of the life that really counts and will last beyond just our physical lifespan. He knew that men need the fight.  Men need the fight and perhaps as after the game, we may just be better men for engaging with the cause - better husbands, better fathers, sons, brothers, better friends. Better men. Men need the fight and....the fight needs men.

Calling for a "mark!"

Have you ever been under extreme pressure? Perhaps that's how you might feel right now? There's a strange rule in the sport of rugby that is a brilliant illustration of handling pressure situations. Any player in the 22m area of their own half attempting to catch a ball and considers themselves to be under pressure from the advancing players of the other team may call a "mark" - when the rule was introduced the player had to make a mark with their boot too - now, shouting "mark" is enough for the referee to halt play, relieving pressure by restarting with a free kick to the catching player. It all sounds a bit gentlemanly in a full contact sport, but the intention of the rule is to provide protection for an under pressure player and stop them being totally flattened when they are focussing on a catch. Calling for a mark is a legitimate defence and requires skill to focus on catching the ball and being aware of an imminent danger at the same time. It takes presence of mind and courage to reach for a high ball under pressure. It certainly isn't a weakness to make the call, as the alternative is a bruising! Sometimes, as a man, I feel I have to take all the hits that come my way and I try to internalize or absorb everything. But even the strongest person has a limit. Bottling things up inside until we explode can be dangerous and too often those who are the closest to us suffer as a result of our lack of communication, withdrawal or release of pent up feelings. John Kirwan, the great New Zealand rugby player has written a very helpful book about his personal journey in dealing with depression called "All Blacks don't cry". It's an honest account from someone at the very top of their game who suffered from depression. It illustrates the need to be courageous in recognising signs and the importance of having a strong support network. Alongside the practical release of pressure from open and honest communication, as a man with a faith, I have discovered that in pressure situations, I can call for a "mark", appealing to a real man's man as a source of help - Jesus Christ. The bible has a very practical description of God (psalm 46) pointing out that he is a "refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble". I know from personal experience, pressure comes and I know that there are times when I have been flattened too. We can try and absorb everything, but ultimately something gives. I have found that making the call isn't weakness: it's a sound, technical and courageous defence. Who are you calling?