A bad idea
“A bad idea committed to is better than a good idea not committed to.”
Champion coach Robbie Deans has a habit of throwing new players in the deep end, to make sure they know what’s expected of them. But he doesn’t just do it on the rugby field: he does it on a river, in a jet boat.
“As a coach, what I tended to do when players first arrived on the scene, we'd have a conversation around expectations, what we wanted from them, because it's intimidating for anyone to come into, particularly once the Crusaders had a bit of performance history. It’s tough for a young bloke to arrive, he's in the room, he's surrounded by internationals, and it can take a while for them to just, become themselves in that setting.
“Occasionally I would invite some of these new recruits jet boating. Jet boating here, you go up the braided rivers in New Zealand, so the Waimakariri is just there and there's stones all the way up, but there's maybe two paths you can go.
“One path will end in a dead end, and you'll end up going aground onto the stones, and the other path will keep going, and you'll keep going up the river.
“Just to reinforce what we wanted from them, I'd get them to drive. And get them to, you know, to take control of our direction.”
It was a nerve-wracking experience for the newbies, for sure — as Crusaders and All Blacks legend Kieran Read recounts.
“Deansy took me out jet boating one time as this young guy. I'd never driven a boat in my life before. I'm like, ‘Here I go. Okay, what am I doing here? What do I do?’ And I'm looking ahead and there's this fork in the river.
“And I was like, ‘Deansy, which way?’
“And he didn't answer me, he just kept quiet. I said, Deansy, which way? As we're getting a bit closer now. And he's like, didn't answer me. I was like, I was panicking a bit, because I didn't want to run his boat aground, you know, if I took the wrong way.
“And he said, ‘Make a decision.’
“‘You want me to decide?’ ‘Absolutely. You decide.’
“I made the decision. I made the right decision. Thankfully.”
Robbie drives home the key point: “A bad idea committed to is better than a good idea not committed to.”
“Do what you need to do. You're good enough. You've banked these experiences and I'll back you.
“And hey, if it doesn't go right and it is the wrong decision, it doesn't matter. We'll push it back on and we'll start again.
Bonus: Robbie told us a further story. “I did it once with Jonah Lomu, and it was a great insight into his game. He opted to go straight ahead. So I had to grab the steering wheel and adapt.”
