Episode 11 | MIKE RUDDOCK | Head Coach, Lansdowne RFC (formerly - Wales)

Welcome to Face Forward, the Inspiring Change podcast on all things internal communications, engagement, leadership, and change. So welcome to Face Forward, the Inspiring Change podcast on all things internal communications, engagement, leadership, and change. It's no surprise that when you look at the parallels between sports and business, that so many sports people write leadership books, that so many sports people and people involved in in sport go on to be very popular after-dinner speakers because the parallels between sport and business, and I think particularly leadership and coaching, are really, really strong. And I'm delighted today to be joined on the podcast by Mike Ruddock. You're very welcome.

Thank you very much, Scott.

Yeah, let me just— I ran through your wiki this morning, and I'm sure you'll have lots of examples to give us on of things that have happened, but let me just pull out a few things that kind of really struck me from your, for your coaching career, which has been a long one, and we'll talk about the reasons for that maybe later. You coached Swansea to beat Australia in 1992 when they were world champions, named Welsh Coach of the Year in '92 and 2005, and that was the same year that you took Wales to a Six Nations Grand Slam. That was the first time since 1978 that Wales had at a Grand Slam. You coach the Barbarians, and I'm particularly interested in that, so we're going to come back to that later, and the Ireland 20s. But today finds you at Lansdowne, where earlier this year, probably one of the most exciting games I've seen on TV, Lansdowne beat Cork Com to win the Ulster Bank All-Ireland League. And as a result of that, you were named All-Ireland Division 1A Coach of the Year. So it's been some year. So far?

Yeah, yeah, I keep hanging around like a bad smell, I suppose. But no, I love coaching. I'm passionate about it. I always have tried to, you know, to do my best, if you like, wherever I've gone. I like winning, and I think that was ingrained into me in my background. I grew up in the Welsh valley towns, coal mining towns, Democratic People's Republic of Blaina, a little small town up in in the Gwent Valleys where everyone really was a steelworker or a coal miner and you were sort of taught really to hate the next valley and the next team and tribalism sort of dominated the landscape really and once you started playing rugby it was a matter of pride, you had to try and beat the teams, surrounding teams, it was really important. I think that competitive edge is something I've probably taken into my coaching as well. I actually hate losing. Last season we only lost 2 matches all season. And you know, I always sort of, the boys always know I'm in not so great form after that. But thankfully we came through and we won the important matches that mattered. But yeah, being competitive, I had to finish my own rugby career quite early. I got injured in an accident at work. I fractured my skull, I broke my back, so really it was a long way back to get back into some sort of sport and when I was advised to stop playing at 27, you know, it was very difficult really to sort of cut yourself away from the dressing room, so I embarked on a Welsh Rugby Union coaching course, did my Level 2, a week's intensive course in Swansea, came back from that and coached my Village team Blaynah and managed to lose the first 4 matches. So I found out pretty quickly how fickle coaching could be, and I was given a yellow card by the committee and warned if we didn't shape up, I'd be out the door. Thankfully, we won the next game and we won the rest and ended up winning the league. But I think the important learning for me there was I came back from the coaching course thinking, right, you know, I've had this week's intensive coaching and I've learned so much. I'm gonna, you know, coach the team to do this, this, and this. It's gonna be a one-man band, and I know exactly where I'm gonna go, and I've got this vision for the team. But, you know, when I sat down after we'd lost 4 games with some of the senior lads and said, look, you know, where am I going wrong? Because, you know, we should be better than this. The guy said, well, we just don't feel we're fit enough. So you're doing some great work in terms of skill development, but, you know, this team has always functioned better when our engine's better, when we got more fuel in the tank, when we're really fit. And again, that was a good learning for me in terms of, you know, as a coach, it's really important that you've got, you know, a vision for the team and you know the sort of game you want the team to play. But it's really important to keep in touch with the key members of the team to see if everyone's aligned and things are working out as you hope they would be.

And actually, I think there's such a strong parallel there between between rugby in this case, or sport and business, that it's so easy to go off and we do it all the time in work that we go on a week or two's course and we come back and we change everything and we're the expert, we know the direction. So in actual fact, we're thinking about the really clever stuff, the leading edge stuff, when actually it's the really important stuff, which in that case was fitness of the team, which made the difference. And I think I was listening to, to Ciarán's podcast earlier on that you spoke on there. And you said that it was as a result of that that you went on to then win the league that year.

Yeah, we won the league that year. I don't think we lost another game. And, you know, but I wouldn't have done it, or we wouldn't have achieved it as a team unless we had that frank and honest conversation where we had to put the team first, you know. And I had to drop my ego pretty quickly. Not that I think I've ever really had one, but, you know, it was a matter of sort of you know, swallowing your pride and saying, hands up guys, I'm a little bit lost here, I'm a rookie coach, can you help me? And I sometimes, as a leader, it's, you know, it's a big step to do, but sometimes as a leader you've got to be prepared to sit down and say, guys, you know, we're not performing in the way that I'd hope we'd perform. You know, I've put in these different strategies, these sort of skill development and team development processes, but for some reason we're not getting the outcomes, you know. You know, what's your view on things? You know, what's your view on things? You know, where do you think we can improve? What's our work-ons? And in, you know, in the coaching I do, I've got, you know, very simple sort of debrief preview type tools where we look at how the team, you know, what skills can we, strategies can we maintain to a high level, high standard, and what can we work on to improve? And simple as that, you know, we either look at what we need to maintain to a high level or what we need to work on, even if if we're functioning fairly well, our work-ons are really what we focus on and what we need to improve on, you know. And keeping an eye on those work-ons are really important.

Yeah, there's a story again from, from Kieran's podcast earlier that kind of predated your, your coaching training, when you were in the car and your dad was bringing you to one of the, um, one of the medical appointments after your accident, and he said to you, you know, you can't play anymore, you've been told that you can't play anymore. What are you going to do now? And you said to him, I'm going to be a coach. And as you said, I think in that story, it wasn't until almost you said it out loud, because for a lot of people that would be a mad idea. 26, 27, I'm going to be a coach. And it wasn't until you said that almost that it became real.

Yeah. Now, I'm no expert on the laws of the universe, but I've said to my children and my daughter in particular, you know, never be afraid to announce your intentions or declare intentions. Nice and loud to the universe because very often the less the universe knows, it ain't going to happen. So in fact, that particular moment you're talking about, I'd played for the Welsh Schoolboys, I'd played for the Welsh B team, which was like the second team. I'd played, I'd sort of been involved with the Welsh squad. I was on the verge of playing for Wales, you know, subject to popular opinion and I got this injury, I got this accident, you know. So my dad said, well, look, you know, you can't play anymore. I said, well, if I can't play for Wales, I'm going to coach Wales. So actually said more than just going to coach, I'm going to coach Wales. And lo and behold, I did, you know, 20-odd years later and thankfully had a bit of success as well. I did amazing things with you. Yeah. So yeah, I think don't be afraid, you know, again, you know, as a leader is to be clear about what you want to achieve and what your goals are. And don't be afraid to tell people that you want to achieve that. And okay, sometimes you might not get to that goal, you might not achieve that goal, but it's all about the process, trying to get there and improving along the way. And I think that's the key thing for me.

And there's two things that strike me from what you've just said there for the past few minutes. One, not having a fear of failure, to actually be okay to fail as long as you learn and move on. And the second thing being around, you know, as a leader, not always having the answers, because I think that certainly in the business world, people tend to kind of turn to the boss when things are going wrong. They turn to their boss for all the answers. They turn to their leader to tell them when things are going wrong. And lots of leaders will look at that and go, yes, well, you're my team. It's like a mother duck. With a line of ducks following them. I have to make sure that you don't get into trouble. It's my job to make sure you know where you're going. And actually, sometimes they need to have the humility to be able to step back and go, actually, you know what, lads, I don't have all the answers. And that's tough for a leader.

It is. But also there's a couple of other things. You know, it's, it's, you know, how will that individual grow under your leadership if you just tell them the answer every time? And sometimes you might not even know the answer, but you could try and bluff it or dress it up a little bit to make it sound like you've got the answer, which is just not the way to go in my opinion. So my first question whenever someone comes up to me and says, "What should I do?" You know, "How should I do in this situation?" You know, my first question is, "Well, what do you think?" You know, and then let's explore that. For example, what's the weather conditions like? Because that could affect your decision-making in terms of the skill you need to use. What does the scoreboard say? Are we chasing the game? Are we winning by 10 points? You know, What are the strengths of the opposition? So there's a number of dynamic variables that we need to put into our decision-making equation. You can't just say, oh, this is the answer. We have to discuss a lot of different aspects of that to sort of come to the right decision. But ultimately, if you just tell the answers all the time, then really, how is that person going to grow? So the big point, I think, is to sort of try and give that person the opportunity to try and go away and think about How you could improve that, come back even a few hours later and say, well, did you make any progress here? Yes or no? And discuss it from there, really. But I'll give you another example, and I know you want to talk about the power of stories at some stage, and I always tell this story in terms of trying to find the right answers as a leader and not be afraid to offer it up to the group. And I think the other point you made as well, which is really important about failure, not being afraid to fail. I failed loads of times. You know, we won 2 championships for Swansea. We beat Australia, as you said, the world champions. So I thought I was the best coach in the world. And then South Africa came.

You were for that moment. You were the best coach in the world for that moment.

Take them when they happen. Yeah. And all the supporters, all the supporters of the team thought so. But then a week later, when we lost to South Africa by 70 points, I was the worst coach in the world. And we were devastated and, you know, I suddenly had to pick the team up, you know, there we were fancying to beat South Africa who then went on to win the World Cup a year later. But they just walked us out the door, you know, they were on a different level. So we had to try and get ourselves back from that and we drew a team called Neath 6 weeks later in the Welsh Cup and in the interim period we pretty much lost 5 games, 6 games and everyone was writing us off. My sort of position as coach was now under pressure and the massive— yeah, very tenuous. And, but what I said after this defeat was, okay, well, we need to be fit and strong. We probably lulled a bit in terms of the work rate that we've done. So Neath, their trademarks as a team are they're the fittest team in Welsh rugby and the most aggressive team in Welsh rugby. We've always been this more skillful team in Welsh rugby. We've always been really fit and we've always been really aggressive. Probably lost a couple of those elements along the way. So we're going to work on our fitness, work on our aggression, our physicality over the next couple of weeks. We did that, we arrived at the week before the Neath game, no one was going to bet on us to win the game, everyone was writing us off. I said to the guys, look, we've definitely made massive improvements, training's gone fantastically well, I know we've lost a couple of these games in the interim, but our focus and our goal now is to beat Neath away. In Neath, and our physical side of things are really good, our technical side, the game plan's good, our tactical side I'm really comfortable with, the stuff we've been working on, the target areas we've been working towards. Let's talk about the mental side, is there anything we've missed out on the mental side? And one of the boys put his hand up, who was our hooker, and he was the last coal miner to work for, to play for Wales, he was playing for us, and he put his hand up and he said, look, the way I see it, it's like the the good cowboy in a white hat riding into the saloon and walking through the saloon doors and every other cowboy, there's 35 cowboys there, all in black hats. Very intimidating. I said, "Gary, what are we talking about here? Let's talk about rugby. Why are we talking about cowboys?" He said, "Because it's the same situation." He said, "Neeth playing black, it's very intimidating. He got a very passionate crowd behind him." We are the good guys, we play in white, we go over there, it's exactly like that cowboy walking into the saloon, you know, you're a bit too nice, you know, in white and they're gunning for you. I said, well, what do you suggest there? He said, well, our away kit is navy, we never wear it, so let's wear our away kit, which is a navy jersey, and the onus is on the home team then to change their jersey. So we kept it a secret till the last minute. And then the referee came in, he said, oh, there's a clash of jerseys here, because we'd warmed up in t-shirts. He said, I'll have to get the home team to change. Well, you know, I couldn't repeat some of the things their team manager said. They were trying to knock the door down into our change rooms with 30 seconds to go, called us everything under the sun. Next thing, their change kit was turquoise and they suddenly weren't as frightening.

No, they weren't.

They weren't the bad guys in black anymore. And we proceeded to beat them. And the press loved it, they loved this story. But it all came from one of the group, from one of the players. It wasn't from me as the leader. But the pride I've got in that particular story is I asked the question. We could have just gone on charging in thinking, okay, we've done the work we needed to do. But we looked at our backstop position and said, is there anything we haven't covered off? And this guy, the guy who we least thought of would come up with the answers, came up with the answers. You know, we won that game, then we went to Cardiff, who had won the league. We played those in the semi-final, beat them in the semi-final after extra time because of the extra fitness work we'd done the weeks earlier. And then we won the final against a very good Pontypridd team as well in Cardiff Arms Park. So from suddenly having been failed, if you like, against Staffordshire badly, we then won the Welsh Cup in front of 70,000 people for only the second time in the club's history. So it's how you come back from failure I think is important, but also if you can get engagement with a group and get people coming up with some ideas as well, it can help. I think that's, that's when you've got that as a leader, then you think you're in a good place.

And often I think we can look over those people who maybe are just quiet by nature. We tend to turn to the gobby, shouty ones thinking they've got all the answers when actually it's the person that's quietly in the background thinking and mulling over things are going to come out with a gem.

Yeah, and I think sometimes you just got to draw it out and give them the opportunity. And as you said, and there's two types of leaders, as you know, when you look at the academic sort of literature on it, is, is the formalized leaders, you know, your captains, your vice captains, and then is your informal leaders, guys who just just do the right things, say the right things, their behaviours, their values are fantastic. Their trademarks as a person, as a player would mark them out as the people that you look up to and people want to follow. Now they might not be shouting and bowling or offering up great leadership advice, but everyone respects them. As you said, you might just want to draw something out of those people from time to time that could be a massive element.

And that's almost, but for me, that's almost the kind of the cultural underbelly of a team or an organization is the stuff that goes on behind the kind of the hierarchy, behind the coach, the captain, the, you know, sub-captain. But, you know, it's about what happens within the team, and that's cultural.

It is. And also, I think that's part of the skill of the leader is to identify that there are guys there that perhaps could be underestimated, or ladies there could be underestimated. Or people within the organization that perhaps could be listened to and could have a valid point, you know, and perhaps need to be engaged.

It's interesting. There was something that Kieran mentioned again on his podcast about, you know, being the one that still goes and cleans the toilets in the gym that he runs around the corner. And yet people say to him, well, why would you do that when you can get someone else to do that? And his response was, well, when I ask someone else to do it, there's a particular quality, and I've done it, so I can ask them to do it, and that's okay. And it's interesting that James Kerr— I don't know if you've ever read his book Legacy about the All Blacks. Yeah, a leadership book about, about the All Blacks. It's worth a look.

Yeah, it really is a fantastic book. There's so much in that.

Yeah, and he talks about sweeping the sheds, that whole idea of a couple of the players staying back at the end. It's not, um, it's not because they've done something wrong. It's not because they are the the least strong players or the newest in the door, 2 players just literally sweep the sheds. And that whole idea that all the jobs need to get done and none of us is too big to do that job.

Yeah, but I think again, and I've worked with Steve Hansen, who's done a marvelous job there with the All Blacks and sort of been part of that coaching team that's helped to engender those sort of values. You know, for me, what I took from that and what I've seen from how it operates as well is it's not just about, you know, the fact that two guys are sweeping a shed and sort of remembering, if you like, the basic values of rugby that, you know, you arrive and you respect the opposition, you respect the, you know, the change rooms, you want to beat them, but you don't want to leave a mess and you make sure your reputation is good that way. It's a much deeper thing for me. I think it's about, okay, so most teams have a baggage master, a kitman who puts out the jerseys, who provides the studs if you need them, if you need a change of shorts, if you need laces for your boots, whatever you need, these guys have got them. They're remarkable human beings, you know, they just sort of, they seem to have everything. Yeah, yeah, they seem to have everything. Yeah, you know, we've got a battery for my speaker, for my headphones. Yeah, yeah. So they seem to have everything. And of course, on a match day, and particularly when you clear up after a match, these guys are hugging water bottles, they're hugging kit bags, they're hugging rugby balls around the place, cones, tracksuits, bibs for warm-ups. There's all sorts of equipment they've got to move in and out of the changing rooms. And to me, the biggest thing there is that these guys recognize that. So he's not the bottom of the food chain, if you know what I mean, in terms of the organisation, because they respect that guy and what he brings to it and what he does, they want to help him out. So a lot of guys help by carrying out the kit and moving the kit on, and then 2 guys then will clean the changing room. So the kit guy is not left, because very often it can be an elderly guy as well, he's not left trying to tidy everything up and move all the kit around and sweep the changing rooms. And again, so if you've got that level of teamwork and that level of cohesion and unity sort of off the field in those smaller areas, unseen areas, you know, then it's gonna be like that on the field. You know, when the pressure comes on, these guys are gonna help each other, work for each other, and go that extra mile for each other. I think it's a— and that's, that's why the All Blacks— those sorts of things permeate the whole organization and the whole team and the whole philosophy of what they're about, really. And that's why they're so difficult to beat.

Isn't it interesting, they are such seemingly tiny tiny things, yet so fundamentally important.

Yeah, and they're all aligned, of course, to team unity and team cohesion and making sure as well that nobody's too big, if you like, for the group, that everyone respects everyone else and what their role is in the team and the group. And that's why you've got to respect someone like Johnny Sexton so much. You know, he's always you know, there on TV, he's man of the match, he's kicking the winning penalties, kicking the winning goals, but he'll be the first to come off and say, well, do you know what, I couldn't have kicked that penalty if the front row hadn't dominated that last scrum. And worked it, worked it, yeah, 40 meters up the pitch. Exactly. Or those guys, as exactly as you said, and done the hard yards, picked and went, give me an armchair ride to kick that drop goal against France, which gave them momentum to go on for them. For the Grand Slam. So, you know, Johnny Sexton is a fantastic guy, great role model, very humble, but he buys into team, you know, and I think that's so, so important. And when you got one of your standout players making sure that everyone else's— the message is clear that everyone's respected for their hard work, then that's a fantastic, you know, that's a fantastic sort of feeling and vibe for the whole group. Yeah, absolutely.

And what do you think from a communications perspective, what do you think is the role of a leader, whether it be a coach in your position or somebody in business leading a team? What's their role as a communicator? How does that work?

Well, I think it can be very situational, you know, and, you know, very often when I've gone into different teams and I've worked with a lot of teams now, you sort of have a gut feeling, you know, and you've got to trust that as a coach and you sort of you sort of rely on that. But having said that, if you've got time and if you've got the opportunity, you can do a bit more homework and perhaps look through tapes or examine the books of the business or look at how they performed and talk to people about the internal workings of the company. So that can help to tweak that gut feeling of how you want to shape things, if you like. So the more information you get, the better. But ultimately then, once you've arrived at the point where you think, okay, well, I've got an idea of of what the plan should be, then really I think you're looking at creating some sort of vision for the team and sharing that vision so everyone's clear about it and trying to align all your practices and your methods and your processes to that vision. So for example, when I went into Wales to coach Wales, I just felt that, you know, the team was scoring lots of points, but they were getting beaten by lots of points as well, you know, and they score 35 and lose by because they conceded 40. So you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that we need to improve the defense. And, you know, the set piece at the time wasn't particularly good, particularly in the scrum. So I wanted to put a selection together that I thought could improve that area. And then I aligned the vision, if you like, to sort of encompass that and maintain the things that we're doing well. So I looked at the word Wales and I said, okay, the W will stand for winning. So we developed that winning mindset, you know, so we really put pressure on ourselves to want to win every game. And I know everyone sort of wants to do that at the international level anyway, but there's like an expectation that we're going to do it. The W also stood for width, you know, we want to play with some good width and we want to get that ball wide early as well. The A stood for aggressive defense. So we want to put a focus on our defence and get off the line quicker than we'd seen before. I brought in a new defence coach, a guy I'd worked with before in the Newport Gwent Dragons, who was an ex-Rugby League guy, he was a fantastic defence coach, a guy called Clive Griffiths, and he really turned our defence around and made us very mean. The L in the word Wales was for Alexis de Thrill, so we weren't really looking to come down hard on guys if they made a mistake, dropped the ball. Like, if we're going to say to you, go and play with width, go and play you know, I have a license to play, and then suddenly say, oh, you drop that, we're dropping you out the team, then, you know, that team will tighten up. So we needed to, you know, I just felt we hadn't won anything. Well, as you said, for 27 years we hadn't won the championship or Grand Slam for 27 years, so there wasn't a great expectation. I was quite lucky there. I think the Welsh people, and again, knowing the culture and knowing the mindset of the Welsh people, helped me because I knew that people would accept mistakes as long as we were trying to play and progress and go forward as a better team. And so we give them a license to play. I give guys certain roles like a counter-attack captain, a fullback, and a tap-and-go captain, and 9, things that we wouldn't have done with other teams perhaps if we'd had stronger forwards. But we weren't going to overcome the might of France and England with our pack. So we had to keep the ball mobile. So we gave guys slightly different roles that way. We looked at the letter E, sorry, and again just promoted that sort of exciting style. Again, it was to the forefront. And the S was for having a smile on our face and keeping our standards high and our skills high. So there was a triple on the S, but all those things, whenever we went into the team talk or whenever we went into halftime or whenever we went into a debrief, we could say, okay, did we play with width? Did we have an aggressive defense? Why are we not trying to play? Why are we, you know, why is there no energy? You've got a license to thrill, you know, let's be excited in what we do and let's look at our skills. And, you know, so it's easy then, everything can be referred back to that, back to that vision, which is great and really easy for someone to remember.

I remember I was chatting to a guy who used to play played for the Cork hurlers and he was the captain for a while and they had a flag, a Cork flag, and of course a little like the Welsh, you know, people in Cork are fiercely proud of that, of being Corkonians, and they had a flag and they decided there were 4 or 5 things that they were going to sign up to do every match and they all signed the flag and that flag came with them and got hung up in the dressing room every single match. Yeah, every single match. Which was something that they could be there, be proud of, and make sure that, you know, it was something that they followed, a little bit like using an acronym like, like WAVE.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that would tie in with something I talk about, which would be our trademarks. So, you know, 4 or 5 things, behaviors that we, we look at, and we'd look to bring every week, whether it's in the gym, we've got, you know, 4 or 5 behaviors, like the boys must put their weights away after them, for example. Must arrive on time and make sure they fill in their sheets for their program when they diet. So it's 4 or 5 behaviors, same with when we step over the white line and we go on the field, there's 4 or 5 behaviors we want, you know, for example, bring in energy, bring in physicality. Now we can't always say that we're gonna catch and pass every ball perfectly, we can't always say that we're gonna kick every We can't always say we can win every game that we want to, but we can bring the attitude to do it. We can try our hardest. Yes, exactly. So those trademarks would be big. So it's the same in the workplace. People are going to make mistakes. That's when you identify as a leader, you need to help them, coach them, mentor them. But at least they're trying because they're making the mistake. It's the people who are not doing anything. Are not adding to your energy, your productivity, and not pushing themselves to try and be better, obviously that you've got to question whether they're going to take you forward in the organization.

You know, I love that saying, perfection is the enemy of progress. If we wait until we're absolutely perfect at something before trying to do it, nothing ever happens.

Absolutely.

It's better to try something at 70% or 80% and maybe fail than not try at all because you haven't got to 100%.

Absolutely, and you've got to realise that we're all on a learning curve, we never stop learning, and we can't control everything. You can control what goes on perhaps within the team or within the building, but you can't control the environment outside, what the opposition are doing, what the competitors are doing. So it can be very dynamic, if you wait till you think, okay, we've nailed this system now, we'll introduce it, things have progressed and somebody's already put systems in elsewhere or tactics in elsewhere, but for another teams that are far in front of the one you're still trying to perfect.

I'm conscious of time. I'm going to ask you one last question, but I have absolutely no doubt at all that we'll be meeting again and you're going to be back on this podcast because I've literally got 100 ideas in my head of stuff we haven't even talked about.

All right, cool.

What leadership advice would you give to your 20-year-old self, knowing what you know now?

Yeah, well, I probably doubted myself quite a bit as a leader, you know, particularly in the early days. And I think that when I finally studied some leadership, I did a diploma in Northumbria University in leadership management. And when I finally looked into the academic side, the big thing I took out of the study was the self-awareness side of things and the realization that we're all unique and we're all different. Individual. And probably I compared myself to other coaches a bit. I thought, oh, perhaps I want to be a bit more like him or a bit more like him, instead of just saying, hey man, you know, you are who you are. You're from the background you're from. You've got these experiences. You've got these life learnings. Just be you and be comfortable and be happy with that. And so if I was giving that advice to my 20-year-old self, I'd just say, look, you know, love yourself, Don't doubt yourself, just go out and try your best. And if you stick to your principles and your values and the behaviors that have got you this far in life, you'll be absolutely fine, you know. And just don't be afraid to keep learning and don't be afraid to fail as well, because, you know, some of my greatest moments have been out of failing. And, you know, the big thing I sort of try to talk to young coaches about is bounce-back ability, because when you're young, you don't think you'll ever fail, but we all do in sport, and it comes back to bite you now and again. But it's how you come back from that is the huge thing. So look, love yourself, believe in yourself, and don't doubt yourself. There will be ups and downs, but you'll get there. Excellent.

As I say, I have no doubt, and I'd love you to come back on because I think there are 100 things that we haven't even touched on from my notes that I have here. But for now, Mike, it's been a real pleasure meeting you and having you on. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Scott. Top man.

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