Let's be fair, Lilley is young and clearly has not got the skill set (yet!) to be a top quality leader and playmaker for Leeds. My concern is how he goes about "learning" the skills he is missing. No doubt Maguire and Burrow have in the past, and to a certain extent still have some great skills set. Great players though, rarely make great coaches. Mentors maybe, facilitators of learning often less so. Who at the club specialises in how people actually LEARN.
I am a coach myself, admittedly not rugby but it doesn't really matter as it's still skill acquisition at the end of the day. What environments bring out movement changes, how do players learn best, how can they perform skills in context with the actual game of rugby league. These are the questions I hope the coaching staff all have as basic skill sets themselves.
Do Leeds behind all their "whistles and bells" actually have really quality coaches? I don't know the answer to this. I have seen some of the Embedded Pathway coaching and I am not entirely convinced by some of the methods. I appreciate Leeds haven't signed up to this but I would be intrigued to see what methods our coaches employ. Are we merely seeing players come through as a result of a simple numbers game?
Humans are clever (!) and set the appropriate tasks can self organise. This way is proven to facilitate the learning of new skills better than the "do this" "do that" approach that sadly seems a pre disposed trait of ex/current players trying to pass on knowledge. Are the coaches who develop these young "talents" highly educated in skill acquisition or are we seeing a culture of "we have always done it this way" beginning to rear its ugly head??
Just my thoughts but would be interested to hear others.
