“Champions behave like champions before they’re champions.” – Bill Walsh
Reserve grade is a strange thing. It’s important for sure. Most would say it’s indispensable. But it’s equally a pain in the arse and nobody involved actually wants to be there.
It’s valuable for player development, but many a club with rich and storied history has disappeared forever because they can’t field a reserve team.
I can’t imagine playing ‘ressies’, coaching it, or managing it would be anyone’s end goal. If you’re there, it’s because you are either on the way up to or down from the premier team.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing at stake.
It was impressive to witness how much this mid-table clash with third-placed Mount Albert Lions meant to the fifth-place Papakura Sea Eagles in the eight team league that is the Fox Memorial Reserves competition. Every try, every opposition mistake, every penalty that went their way was punctuated by high pitched yelping and raucous celebrations by the visiting players. They wanted this. Bad.
In the aftermath of the Lions’ opening try, one of the Sea Eagles players bellowed “three penalties in the lead-up! That’s shit we can control!” His team scored three unanswered tries after that.
‘Control what you can control’ – it’s a cliche for a reason. Players don’t control selection decisions, but they can control things like diet, fitness, how they train… But discipline? Attitude? Can you control emotion?
The choices the Sea Eagles made after conceding that try certainly paid dividends in that moment. But some choices can have unintended consequences.
Attempting to approach every reserves game you’re in like it’s the NRL Grand Final is a conscious choice you can make – but is it the right one?
“I can’t tell them how to feel” – Neil Young
At various times in our lives we are told to calm down, fire up, hold it in, let it out, let it go, use it as motivation, control yourself, be yourself, shoot from the hip, think before you act, forgive, forget, retaliate, remember… But are feelings like switches you can turn on and off or dials you can turn? I don’t think so. At least, not without paying a price.
Sometimes you’ve just got to feel how you feel. Telling yourself or someone else to feel or not to feel a certain way can be like telling a river to change the direction it flows in.
But assuming you can and should make a rational choice to be calm or fired up – which one is more effective? We tend to remember when underdogs win big sporting occasions with raw passion that defeats the clinical machine-like composure that often goes hand in hand with superior talent – but it’s probably more common for passion to lead to ill discipline and create pressure that leads to choking…
When the Lions hit back just before half time, “stop giving them a sniff” was the call. The problem being, when you tell yourself to stop giving your opposition a sniff, it’s too late – they have sniffed already.
Blows were traded from there, and it was a close exciting finish but in the end, by choice or by necessity, composure proved more durable than passion.
Mount Albert Lions Reserves 32, Papakura Sea Eagles Reserves 28
The Fox and the Crow 