Hussain can help tough get going (19 July 1999)

19 July 1999

Hussain can help tough get going

David Lloyd

What makes a team, I mean really makes a team? Well, the players themselves, coupled with a strong, forceful leader.

In the case of the England team it has been widely reported that Nasser Hussain, as captain, will have a greater say in the running of the team and the day-to-day procedures. As far as I am aware the role of the captain has ever been thus but it is he who needs to give the best possible lead at all times. That lead is transmitted through to the players and they respond, or should respond, by their own individual performance for the good of the team.

During my time as coach to the team, I always felt that there was something not quite right. I refer to the critical times, the moments when a game can go either way, the times when someone in the team needs to stand up and be counted.

We had our moments. Australia at the Oval in 1997 springs to mind, Australia chasing a small total in the fourth innings and Phil Tufnell and Andrew Caddick in irresistible form. They did wonderfully well - but that was their job and it was down to them. There were also the times when we needed to hang in, backs to the wall, and just scrape in. Too often we were found wanting.

There is no more fierce a fighter in the game than Hussain and he and Duncan Fletcher, the new coach, will be well aware of this fallibility and the need to be tough and strong in pressure situations. How will they go about it?

The England teams at all levels have Dr Steven Bull, a sports psychologist, at their disposal. There will be key words that make up the team ethic - energy, culture, commitment, communication and the most important one of all, belief. Team meetings are important and have their place in the build up, but it is on the field that matters and it is on the field that judgments are made.

We can all talk a good game and the sting to it all is that if you say you believe you can win, in the comfort of the team meeting, you have to believe you can win on the field.

Hussain, to me, has three other qualities that the England team will definitely need - pride, passion and purpose. Fletcher must then be the buffer between the captain and the numerous levels of management at the board. Hussain can blow a gasket in a passionate way, and to stifle that in any way would affect his style and ultimately the response he received from his players.

All the suggestions and suspicions about Hussain being selfish and difficult come from people on the outside. On the inside he is seen as a winner. He can lash out but he does that in private and he will be battling against some very tough cookies, Hansie Cronje and Steve Waugh to name but two. Cronje and Waugh have some real hard nuts in their teams, players who are confident that when push comes to shove they will get the fullest support from their team management.

I read that Fletcher has overall responsibility and I sincerely hope that that is the case, that he is allowed to manage and his players are allowed to play without a 'come into the office' call from somewhere upstairs.

The England team, let me tell you, are striving for success. Dr Bull has been around some while now and will acknowledge that it takes time to develop a strength and a team culture. Other Test teams are more talented than we are, but there is no reason why we should not match them in nous.

Frank Dick, the athletics coach, spoke to the England team a couple of years ago. He was absolutely brilliant in getting across what is required by sportsmen at the highest level and likened them to mountains and valleys. The mountains were the doers who accepted the challenge and scaled the heights. The valleys were the what-ifs and 'maybe tomorrows'. Mountains were winners, chancers, who look beyond and make the impossible possible.

Responsibility was talked about because, out there in the field, nobody can do it for you and the ethic of any team is trust. I remember his presentation vividly, about the need to be creative and adaptable and that attitude is everything.

John Monie, the respected rugby league coach, has a philosophy that says, "the greatest professional quality is not money but attitude". Vince Lombardo, one of the best American football coaches of all time, says: "Everyone has the will to win but very few have the will to prepare."

Frank Dick and Steve Bull emphasise that teamwork is a lifestyle, teamwork is everybody and that it is not if but when and how bad do you want it. Teamwork is also developing your own skill and that of others around you.

Not long ago the team identified six priority issues to work to. 1) Expect to succeed. 2) Contest every inch of ground at all times. 3) Quality and intensity in practice. 4) Individuals do your job. 5) Win the crucial battles and critical sessions. 6) Make personal sacrifices in order to win.

I hope they are still high on their agenda. There will always be doom and gloom merchants but the players have to realise that the vast majority of the public are fully supportive of them and desperate for a winning team. On the pitch is business and that is down to them. The other thing that goes without saying is enjoy it and show us all how much.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph