From Brazil in the World Cup to Mayo in a Gaelic football qualifier against Longford, complacency is commonplace in sport. So how do you guard against it?
By Kevin Clancy & Enda McNulty
Very few people would have thought that come the end of the first World Cup quarter-final between Brazil and Holland it would be the men in orange celebrating a famous victory. The Brazilians were many people’s tip to win the competition outright. It was said that they possessed the perfect blend of grit and flair to carry them to glory. The presence of hard, uncompromising defensive players like Lucio and Gilberto Silva, alongside the flair and invention of the likes of Robinho and Kaka, suggested that the South Americans had found the right combination to take them all the way. They even led at the midway point in the game but this may have been a curse rather than a blessing.
Imagine being a Brazilian player at half-time in that match. You’ve played well in the first half. Any time you’ve gone in front throughout qualifying and in the the tournament itself, you’ve gone on to win the game. You may start to believe that it is going to be the same here. Subconsciously, you begin to switch off a little. Your focus goes down by one or two per cent. All of a sudden the Dutch are level and then they go ahead. You try to get that vital edge back but it’s too late.
That is the problem with complacency. Once it creeps into your mindset it is nearly impossible to eradicate. Consider the Mayo footballers’ situation ahead of their recent qualifier encounter with Longford. “Great draw,” many of their supporters would have said when they heard the pairing. “It could have been a whole lot worse.”
This attitude begins to seep around the whole county. In pubs and shops it is repeated between people in the weeks leading into the game. The media install Mayo as favourites. If you are a Mayo player working and living in the county this is the kind of idle talk you are going to hear. The more often you hear it the more you will start to believe it. That is where the complacency will start to seep in.
So how do you guard against it? Many performers use triggers to help them focus on the right things and ward off complacency at source. Any time somebody approaches them on the street, for example, and asks them about an upcoming event they will use that as an opportunity to train their minds. They will tell the person that the event is going to be incredibly difficult but that this is what they have been training for. By doing so, the athlete is turning what could potentially be a hassle to them (having to talk about the event again!) into a positive. They are telling themselves over and over again that the event is going to be really difficult but that they are prepared for it. Subconsciously, they are training themselves to be ready on the day itself.
That is why Brian Cody is constantly talking to the press about how every game is incredibly difficult for Kilkenny. He is no doubt saying the same thing to his players. This approach seems to have worked quite well for him over the past number of years as there has been no complacency evident in any of the Cats’ performances.
Kevin Clancy & Enda McNulty are Performance Consultants working with Motiv8 (www.motiv8.ie)
