Eddie Jones Coaching Podcast: Joe Schmidt on teaching, relationships and communication
Last Updated: 01/09/20 6:47am
Joe Schmidt gives The Eddie Jones Coaching Podcast an insight into how his teaching experience helped him carve a rugby career.
The 54-year-old's extensive coaching CV is a young coach's dream. His experience includes stints with New Zealand Schools, the Blues, Clermont Auvergne, Leinster and more recently the Ireland national team.
Similarly to Jones, he has experience mentoring players at every level of the game and it all started with a career in school teaching.
Schmidt said: "I'd done the pre-season with a national league basketball set up and when I was told [by the principle] I had to be involved with the co-curricular life of the school. I said 'look, I'd love to coach basketball' and he said 'that's perfect, basketball is on Friday nights which won't affect your rugby coaching on Saturday mornings' and so I was seconded to play rugby straight away.
"I was a little bit scared to say 'hang on, I didn't offer to do the rugby' as it meant my weeks were very busy but I think there's a bit of cross over no matter what you're coaching and I enjoyed doing both.
Eddie Jones joked: "Joe was a bit more educated than me; he was an English teacher - I was a PE teacher.
"I think a lot of teachers became coaches because it was a product of the time.
"The game went professional and because you [teachers] had some kind of methodology about the way you taught a game you had a head start with coaching.
"In Australia we didn't have great coaches, we were lucky at my club to have Bob Dwyer but generally the standard of coaching in Australia wasn't great. I remember Australia got beaten by Tonga in 1974 and it started a whole thing about coaching, so I think being a teacher was definitely an advantage back then."
The former Blues assistant coach suggested coaches were a product of the people and experiences they had been exposed to and after working with some 'really good' coaches, including former Blues coach Frank Oliver and former All Blacks assistant coach Wayne Smith, he took every collaboration as an opportunity for growth and to help formulate his coaching methods.
When asked how he coped coaching in France, he admitted the language barrier was initially a 'nightmare'.
Schmidt said: "I was hesitant about going but we felt it would be a good experience for the family - a different culture, a different language.
"I didn't use an interpreter, I was getting four lessons a week and I loved it - it was an opportunity to develop myself and I had to become more aware of how I was communicating, I had to be more concise about what I delivered so it was brilliant for me."
Respect is a core value within the rugby community both on and off the field as host Conor O'Shea questioned Schmidt on the importance of embracing different cultures and the benefits that can have within a team.
"In Clermont we had 11 or 12 nationalities and some players would come in and after three years they could say 'comment ca va?' which is 'how's it going?' but that was about it, and that would frustrate me because integrating into the team is being able to transfer information and not expect everyone to meet you in an English speaking way.
"It also demonstrates to the other players that you're making an effort, you're making a commitment."
There is no doubt coaching is fundamental to a team's overall success, however, when the whistle blows it's the players with the power so how important is it to trust them to make their own decisions on the field?
Schmidt explained: "Even with some of the young teams… they don't learn if they don't have the freedom to express themselves a bit and make some decisions on the pitch.
"Sometimes their decisions aren't great and that's a good learning opportunity and sometimes they're spot on."
Listen to The Eddie Jones Coaching Podcast here
