Mental training is an essential part of my work as a coach. It tells me how I should work together with my players. Over the years I have come to believe that mental training issues are essential to improve the performance of my players.  I found also that I can coach and train players in mental skills just as well as I do with rugby skills.

Mental training is not spoken highly of within the rugby world (the macho image perhaps) but I have seen it work in all the cases I have picked it up.

My guide to mental training has been:

• The Mental Game Plan, a program for all sports", by Albinson and Bull.
• A presentation of Joan Duda on motivation, she is involved in the American Gymnastics team.

The presentation helped me to understand how to create an environment in which my players feel confident to develop their skills.

Based on the book I started working with one of my players, just kicked out of the National Team. Just the fact that after doing the assesment we had a plan to get back in already improved his confidence! The book took us through the following steps:

1. Assessment of strengths and weaknesses of the player
2. Determining the priorities (relaxing, concentration, building self confidence, parking of errors)
3. Practising relaxation techniques using a self made tape + walkman
4. Working on concentration, clearing the mind and focus

Each step starts with a very specific goal setting program. The work improved his game and his self confidence grew. We never needed to tackle the building self confidence, parking of errors topics as described in the book! The most fascinating thing for me as the coach was that you can learn your players mental skills as well and used the book successfully with other players too.