Building mental resilience to perform on the world stage
As part of their preparation for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, Phil Davies Head Coach of Namibia Rugby engaged Gazing Performance Systems to support his team to develop their mental strength to perform at the highest level.
Phil knows all too well the importance to have the right mentality when playing at elite level as he enjoyed a distinguished 46 caps career for Wales. Phil is also no stranger to Gazing as he contacted Gazing when he was Head Coach at the then Leeds Tykes. The work we did contributed to Leeds comfortably staying in the Premiership and also successfully winning the Pilkington Cup in the same season.
The Namibia team are facing a tough group in the World Cup. Alongside Italy and Canada, Namibia will be facing South Africa and New Zealand – who themselves enlisted Gazing’s help ahead of the 2011 World Cup and still use the Red2Blue concept. Namibia must prepare to face some of the best rugby players on the planet in this qualifying group - a real David Vs Goliath story. No matter the results though, every aspect of the team’s physical, technical and tactical skills will be tested to the maximum in the coming weeks, but nothing will be tested more that the whole squads mentality and their individual mental skills. As the opening match fast approaches, so does the pressure of anticipation, expectations, but also preparing for the scrutiny from the sheer number of spectators watching from all over the world. Namibia had already laid down the foundations to help develop the mental strength and mindset of the team. Phil wanted to build upon this further and contacted Martin Fairn.
Ahead of the World Cup, Namibia’s focus was on competing in the 2019 Nation’s Cup and Phil engaged Gazing ahead of this tournament. Gazing introduced the Red2Blue concept to both the management team as well as the full squad. This meant everyone had one common language and framework to work from which could be fully integrated into practice, coaching and specific World Cup preparation routines, and the team are CIA focused, Phil comments “with the support of Gazing Performance the whole group are working to ensure we are CLEAR about our jobs at every moment, INTENSE in our approach and ACCURATE in our execution - at every moment of RWC 2019 - CIA”. The team also created wrist bands to help them to with their application of Red2Blue #Namibia Rugby
The Red2Blue programme positions mentality as a critical element of the overall sports performance equation. Mentality is not a skill that can be learnt over night, but just like technical skills, the mental skills associated with high performance under pressure can be learnt, understood and practiced.
And a final word from Phil “We are now in Japan for RWC 2019 - an incredible opportunity in an amazing place with a fantastic group of players, coaches and staff from Namibia Rugby - what a challenge! Keeping our mindset on task as we prepare for our journey” #red2blue
