Have you ever noticed what is missing after a team has won a match? We will notice the wild scenes of celebration and success, the back-slapping, the high-fiving, the jumping up-and-down, the chanting of war cries and school songs, the gathering with arms on each others’ shoulders, maybe even a quick prayer of thanks. So what is missing? The post-match analysis in the middle of the field, where the coach and his assistant get their team to sit on the ground and listen to them spell out exactly for anything between ten and twenty soul-destroying minutes what had happened. Why is it that at our schools we have a post-mortem on the field of play immediately following a defeat but not after a victory? Why one and not the other? More importantly, why have one at all?
As we have seen in another article, winning is only half the curriculum and every school has the responsibility to ensure that the full curriculum is completed, not just half. So, if a coach is going to undertake a post-mortem after a defeat, then surely he should conduct one after a victory as well?
It needs to be recognised by coaches that the post-mortem on the field after a match, whether it is a victory or a defeat, is not actually helpful or hopeful in any way. After a victory, players certainly do not want to analyse their performance! They want to celebrate it, with their friends and their parents! They do not want the coach to get all serious with them – they have won! However, most coaches do conduct a post-mortem after a defeat. They need to understand and respect that a post mortem on the field of play immediately after a defeat is a hopeless cause for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the coach needs to calm down, especially if the team has lost. The coach needs to have time to reflect on the whole performance, away from the scene and the emotion of the event. The coach is no doubt upset that the team lost so his thinking is probably not clear or rational; he needs time out! If the coach wants to pass on his words of wisdom immediately after a match in case he should forget them by the time of the next practice, then the words are not worth passing on (anyway, he can write them down for another time). Reflection will help the coach to put things in perspective.
Secondly, the children are tired, and therefore are not going to be in the right frame of mind to take in what is said. They want to go away from the scene of defeat. They will be upset at the defeat as well but they will become even more upset if they are humiliated by having to stay in the public eye receiving a lecture for their loss. The children are embarrassed, being stuck out in the middle of the field, when their parents, friends, teachers and opponents are all watching, knowing very well why they are there – and the longer the lecture goes on, the more embarrassing and humiliating it becomes, because it must have been such a dreadful performance that so much has to be said.
Thirdly, the players know full well that they have done badly (without having to be told). They did not set out to lose; they did not lose deliberately; they did not look for a situation where they would be embarrassed. They do not need or want to be told that they have done poorly.
Fourthly, the players, while disappointed that they did not win, are probably far less worried than the coach that they have lost, rightly so – it was a match, a game, a defeat, not a catastrophe, disaster or nightmare. It happens, to everyone, at some stage, and coaches more than players need to learn to accept and deal with it. Immediately after a game is not the time to do that!
Fifthly, the players are more than likely to forget what was said by the time the next practice comes along, so all the words of wisdom are wasted and will only have to be repeated, in which case there was no point in sharing them before! The time to deal with the loss can be at the next practice, when the coach has had time to consider what went wrong and, in doing so, construct appropriate drills which can address the problem.
There is nothing wrong for a coach to analyse the performance of his team – indeed it should be a wonderful learning opportunity for all concerned (including the coach) to consider why they lost or why they won, why they conceded and why they scored, helping the children to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. The huddles after the match though are, in a word, hopeless.
