Transforming a whole sport system over a curry - a conversation with Scott McNeill

Scott McNeill is a Performance Coach Developer for GB Hockey, a Performance Director for the Canoe Association of Northern Ireland as well as a mentor for the Premier League.

He has been part of a group of people that have led a transformation within GB Field Hockey to redevelop the player development system in line with the principles of Ecological Dynamics.

In this fascinating conversation, Scott describes the journey of bringing about this change within the sport and some of the key pillars of embedding these concepts and ideas into the psyche of the playing and coaching community.

While this discussion explores how this is done on a whole sport scale, the ideas and approaches that are shared by Scott apply to anybody looking to foster a player centred environment which allows players to thrive and develop.

Even though I have been on this journey with Scott and his colleagues as a coach and coach developer, I still found the conversation fascinating and insightful. I know you will too!!

Enjoy!!

This Podcast is brought to you by a great new book called 'Conversations for the Journey - 40 ways to build sporting character' by Richard Shorter from www.non-perfectdad.co.uk. It is a great book packed full of useful ideas and questions to engage the young sports athlete. It is great to parents but also great for coaches (a proper stocking filler!)

Subscribers to The Talent Equation can get a special 10% discount if they click on this link

In search of creativity - A conversation with James Vaughan

James Vaughan is a coach at the AIK Academy in Sweden. He is a colleague of Mark O'Sullivan and Dennis Hortin (both previous podcast guests) and is a regular contributor to the fantastic website 'Player Development Project'. James has a rich background as a coach and as a researcher and has been fortunate to study under the guidance of some of the leading academics in the field of skill acquisition, constraints led coaching and games based coaching.

In this episode we delve into creativity and explore the way that social and cultural constraints influence the way we think, feel and act when trying to lead the development of young people in sport. It is an illuminating and in depth conversation.

In the episode we discuss...

• Why Brazilian culture emphasises skill

• How Barcelona differs from Stockholm in the way they view human development

• Myths about talent and creativity

• How James applies constraints to influence positive, creative action rather than minimising error

Get your notebook ready!!

If you would like to support the podcast then please take time to share it with friends or colleagues, leave a review or go full hero and become a Patron by clicking on the 'become a Patron' button at the top of the home page. or click here.

5000+ miles in the search for new coaching knowledge - a conversation with Nick Hill

Nick Hill is probably one of the most committed coaches to his personal development that I have ever met. His quest for continuous improvement has taken him to all corners of the globe from Australia, to New Zealand to Chile and the US.

If coaching expertise was measured in air miles then this guy has to be in the premier league!

Nick's career has seen him working in talent environments for most of his career and his dedication to his craft really shines through in this episode.

In this conversation we discuss...

• How being coached by Brian Ashton while representing England U19s was a turning point in his career. Driving him to become a coach and do it better than he had done before.

• His journey from being a drill based, instructional coach to a player centred, facilitation style coach and why this has made him choose a more game based approach.

• How he overcame the language barrier while working in Chile by tapping into the 'language of rugby'

• His methods for getting buy in and developing goals with groups of players

• How he allows techniques to develop by being patient and using clever practice design.

• The challenges of introducing a new set of players to his approach and how he overcomes negative responses.

As always, listen in the player below or subscribe in itunes here

Happy listening

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you like the podcast and would like to support it I would be super grateful if you would consider leaving a review on itunes and or sharing the podcast on your social feeds.

If you would like to get my blogs, vlogs and podcasts beamed straight to your inbox then sign up here (it takes 1 minute) I promise to only ever use your email to send you valuable content.