It’s good to talk to your team-mates

A couple of years ago, Ronan O’Gara wrote in these pages that: “The more I am learning, the less I take for granted what I savoured in the Munster dressing room every day as a player. A club’s culture is an unspoken language. The trademark. You can’t see it or hear it. You feel it.”

Obviously, he was speaking about a professional environment, but every coach in every sport is searching for ways to enhance the context in which their team operates.

I was at a club game over the weekend, where a lot of the players from the winning team were out and getting into their cars at the same time as I was leaving the ground. They were still togged out, with everything except their jersey and boots on, and were gone within five minutes of the final whistle.