The former Sri Lanka cricket captain and batting superhero legend Mahela Jayawardene was brought in by the SLRFU to share his knowledge and experience on international game-play and combat with the country’s national rugby brigade preparing furiously ahead of the Asian Rugby Championship (ARC) in Bulacan, Philippines.
Excerpts of some substance Mahela shared with the team
“If you play for a national team or club as a professional, the most important thing is to just try to enjoy what you do as that brings out the best in you.
And the other thing that I would say is important would be to be honest to yourself about your work ethics, what to contribute to your team, how to contribute to your team and do your best for your team. If everyone can do that, it is the key. It is important to know about your team mates, understanding their roles, each one comes from different backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, everyone is different, and diversity is also a strength. People have attitudes, some are funny some get angry very soon, all these characters go to make a team”
South African Barry Richards was on a two week coaching stint and what he said was “ control your life in cricket, its sounds simple. Certain things you cannot control but you what you focus on you most often can control”
On a question on how to motivate oneself. MJ responded that “relaxation was important and focusing only on the task ahead. You have to control your mind. Not to have doubts before the game – have a clear mind. You spend time analyzing and after that your forget all that and step on to the field. Motivation is to assess your strengths and weaknesses, identify, with accent on the weakness and how to get out of it. Each of the team has a role and everyone should know each others roles. Define your role and build confidence in yourselves. Each one has to have the freedom to play that role. Mistakes happen by every player. If you are afraid of making a mistake you will not succeed. If a mistake is made tap each other and take responsibility as a team. Without pointing fingers at one or the other.
“Mental toughness is different in each person, all cannot be the same. A team mate with low mental toughness must be allowed to build it by at least 10% or 20% before or during the match.
Everyone is leader everyone must feel the importance of what must be achieved it.”
“Don’t stress yourself when playing it brings on a tightness and that causes injuries”
To a question on focus, he stressed “Find a way to find your own focus. Have a point where you also begin your focus, a trigger if you will”
“I do it by tapping the bat into the pad” Unlike cricket, in rugby you have to be alert the entire 80 minutes so you need to pay attention to hold the focus”.
“I have gone through hard times in terms of poor form, getting selected after a failure etc, you have to think of your strengths and overcome with it. I had to replace Aravinda De Silva during 2002/2003 but in that World Cup I played around 9 matches and scored only 20 odd runs. Then I was dropped from the side, then it took three months of hard work to come back in to the side, so understand and be yourself”
To a question on how to handle strong opposition, the maestro replies “ we face fast and tall bowlers, we have to control how to play when Shaoib Akhthar or Brett Lee bowls at 150kmh + you can’t tell them not to bowl fast or bounce, so you guys don’t have to think of big made players in the opposite camp, if you all understand your strength and weaknesses as a team you all can beat any team.”
“Some players come and sledge you when you bat and try to make you lose concentration, so I don’t actually talk to anyone when I bat. So keep calm and do not lose concentration and put yourself and the team down”
“I also think senior players should allow juniors to share their views and thoughts and do not underestimate their thinking. At the end of the day you are all playing as a one unit and every little inputs helps most of the time.”
