The most enlightened coaches use their own unique style to encourage their team to go above and beyond on the pitch
Rugby is primarily a game of deeds, not words, but there are some stirring exceptions. Fifty years ago this month, for example, a group of players sat in the Park Lane hotel in London, waiting for the wine waiter to refill their glasses and for their perceptive, thought-provoking coach to give his keynote address. “I want each one of you to be your own man,” said Carwyn James, issuing what amounted to a pre-tour sermon to his soon-to-be-immortalised 1971 British & Irish Lions squad. “Express yourself not as you would at the office for the next three months but as you would at home.
“I don’t want you Irishmen to pretend to be English, or you English to think you are Celts, or for Scotsmen to be anything less than Scottish to the core.”
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