A Human Performance article brought you by our Main Partners

By John Portch

“It’s important to recognise that the breast will impact participation,” said Dr Nicola Brown, an Associate Professor in Female Health & Performance at St Mary’s University.

“We know that half of schoolgirls drop out of sport because of their breasts,” she added. “One in three adults see the breasts as a barrier to participation. Then we also have that performance aspect. We know that if we change breast support, because the breasts will move during activity, that it will change how an athlete moves, it will influence their confidence, it can change their breathing, it can change their muscle activity.”

In September 2023, Brown was speaking as part of a panel discussion on the physiology of the female athlete at Leaders Meet: Driving Step Change in Female High Performance at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium. She spoke alongside pelvic health physiotherapist Emma Brockwell and Dr Amal Hassan, who serves as Women’s Team Doctor at rugby club Harlequins.

“We know that the majority of women wear the incorrect size bra, and you can have a great sports bra, but if it doesn’t fit properly then it’s not going to be effective.”

In this article, Brown reflects on the sports bra market and the importance of athlete education when it comes to breast health.

Note: Brown’s responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Sports bras: a confusing marketplace…

The sports bra market has massively increased, which is a fantastic thing, but it does then make it a very confusing marketplace for women. It may be very difficult to find the right sports bra. There’s no such thing as the best sports bra. What might be the best sports bra for me might be very different to someone else and we know that key issues around sports bras are knowledge of the types of sports bra that might be suitable for small breasts versus large breasts; and also the fit of the bra.

Why athletes should not rely on official apparel suppliers alone…

If there’s a very limited choice of products, particularly if you’re working with a team of athletes, it’s unlikely that those products will cater for the entire team. I think we need to be careful about mandating some kind of product that is actually having a negative health implication on an athlete. Anything can market itself as a sports bra. There’s no kind of criteria the bra has to meet. That’s another thing that makes it quite challenging to find the right breast support.

There are three types of sports bra on the market…

Firstly, a compression bra, which is kind of like the crop top that goes over your head with an elastic bottom. They tend to be better for smaller-breasted women. Larger-breasted women will probably be more suited to an encapsulation bra, which encapsulates each breast separately. The third type is a combination or a hybrid bra, which combines elements of the compression and the encapsulation bra. So you have the separate pockets for each breast and then with a compressive layer of material over the top. You might make the assumption that if we combine both types of bra we’ll get the best one but that’s not necessarily the case. It is again about that individual fit or the person.

Why compression bras are so popular…

Depending on the sport they are playing and the activity that they’re doing, an athlete may choose different sports bras for different types of activity, but the key feedback that we get, particularly from athletes working at the very top level, is that they often use a bra that is compressive because they are trying to look as if they don’t have breasts. They want to compress their breast tissue as much as possible because they’re concerned about what they look like and how people will comment on social media or in the crowd, and they want to be able to focus on the game and not be concerned about their appearance, so they will try and make their breasts look as small as possible.

The importance of education and empowerment…

There’s always that fashion aspect that comes into play but I think the most important thing is education about what a good sports bra can do. If we can try to promote the benefits that will come from that then we’ll hopefully have athletes making more informed choices. I think it’s also important not to assume that an athlete will recognise that it’s a problem. It wasn’t until 2015 that it was reported that the breasts are a barrier to activity – and I don’t think something happened in 2015 that meant breasts became a problem – it’s just the first time that anybody asked women. And so a lot of women will just assume that the issues they experience are just part and parcel of what they have to deal with. But if we can raise awareness of the fact that there is a potential solution in the form of well-fitting appropriate breast support then it just opens up their opportunities to try and reduce those negative consequences of the breast function.

Deciding what option is best…

Make sure they try it on before they buy it. The fit is one of the most important things. You can get it professionally fitted in-store, but I think particularly for sports bra fits, there’s no real regulation or training for those fitters, so I’m very much an advocate of empowering the athlete or any individual to know what bra fits them. Then it doesn’t matter what bra they pick, they know what to check and whether it fits them. And when it comes to the sizing, just not assuming that you’re one size and that you’re that size for the rest of your life. I think that’s something that happens. You get fitted with a bra at some stage of your life and then you wear that bra forever more. But different styles of bra, even the different colour of a bra, if you wear a black bra versus a white bra of the same design, just the colour can make that tighter. Your breasts might change size and shape through various stages of life, through stages of a medical cycle, so it’s making sure that you are aware that you need bras that are fitted and that your breasts may change. And more expensive doesn’t always mean better. It’s very much not the case. So it’s finding what works for you. Then, once they put it on, jump around in the changing room, simulate some movements you’d do during that activity, make sure that you feel supported.

The gold standard in breast support services…

At the top level with unlimited resources and expertise to hand, we could do a biomechanical assessment of an athlete’s breast movement doing a sports-specific activity so we can establish the optimal breast support for them and then design a bespoke bra; and then they can exercise in that. We’ve done that with some athletes and they report that they feel more confident in their performance, that they perform better, reduce pain and so on.

Steps that all teams can take…

We should go right down to the lowest level with something as simple as putting a bra fit poster in a changing room or on the back of a toilet door. Some little nudge, that thought about ‘have I checked my bra?’ or ‘have I changed my bra recently?’ ‘Does my bra fit? Something that might spark that conversation to discuss breast health issues more openly. And then in between offering bra fit assessments, if you can get the expertise on hand. Anything from signposting to educational leaflets. There are educational resources and videos and things available to signpost. Obviously we’re not all going to become experts in all of these areas of women’s health overnight and know everything, but we can at least signpost athletes if they do come to us with those issues to the resources they might need.

Where there is more work still to be done…

There’s been a lot of work done on breast support for different population groups and at different life stages, but very limited work done on pregnancy or breast feeding post-partum. So I think work needs to be done in terms of making sure there is the appropriate breast support for athletes to facilitate breast feeding if needed but also to facilitate the return to sport to ensure the breast support they’re wearing is appropriate and to support their needs. And obviously the anatomy of the breasts is going to change substantially during that period. And again, I would promote education about those changes and how team can best support their athletes. Breast injuries: we don’t really know the long-term consequences of breast impacts. That’s another area where we need to be better at collecting that data. We ask athletes about all sorts of other injuries but don’t necessarily ask about breast injuries and they don’t necessarily report it. In rugby, I know there are steps being made within injury surveillance systems to actually start incorporating breast injury data. I think that will be a really important step forward, to try and understand the prevalence, the severity, the mechanisms of those injuries, whether it’s contact with the player, contact with the ball or contact with the ground, but also the consequences of that.

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By John Portch

Athletes and coaches take note: pelvic floor dysfunction is not restricted to the perinatal or older population.

Symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction in girls and women of all ages can include issues with urinary leakage, urgency and frequency, feelings of incontinence, and vaginal heaviness.

These examples were cited by pelvic health physiotherapist Emma Brockwell onstage at Leaders Meet: Driving Step Change in Female High Performance at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium in September.

“These symptoms often don’t cause a woman pain but they may have a huge impact on their physical and mental health,” said Brockwell, who has worked with athletes at teams including Chelsea Women and Harlequins Women. She also co-hosts the women’s health-focused At Your Cervix podcast with fellow pelvic floor physiotherapist Gráinne Donnelly.

She spoke onstage alongside Harlequins’ Women’s Club Doctor, Amal Hassan, and Dr Nicola Brown, Associate Professor in Women’s Health at St Mary’s University in London, in front of an audience of Leaders Performance Institute members.

“We think pelvic floor issues are likely to be affecting a female athlete’s performance as well,” added Brockwell. “The reality is that female athletes carrying out strenuous activity are probably three times more likely to experience these dysfunctions than someone who is less active of her age.

“So it’s just recognising that these symptoms occur, breaking down the stigma and taboo that exists around this because we’re talking about the pelvis, we’re talking about the vulva, the vagina. These words are still unbelievably taboo, controversial – women don’t like to talk about them, men don’t like to talk about them – but it’s about educating every one of us that we should be using these words and discussing these symptoms and, I guess, normalising the conversation and allowing it to happen.”

In this article, we explore Brockwell’s work with female athletes and the steps all teams can take to support their women and girl athletes.

Note: Brockwell’s responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

On her physiotherapy practice…

A pelvic health physiotherapist is just a sub-specialist of a musculoskeletal physiotherapist. So we still screen a woman as you would through a musculoskeletal screening, we look at the whole body but we would typically offer any female athlete or woman a vaginal examination as well. And through that level of internal and external assessment we determine if there are any pelvic health issues. Pelvic health is kind of a hidden health amongst musculoskeletal physiotherapy. In our training we don’t even have much pelvic health training. It’s a post-grad form of training, but it’s really important to recognise the pelvis, the pelvic floor, integrates into the hip, into the back, into the abdominal wall and therefore perhaps with other musculoskeletal issues that might be lumbar, pelvic pain, hip pain, groin pain. Is it something that’s potentially contributing to some of these musculoskeletal conditions and therefore should we be screening pelvic health just to help eliminate some of the potential differential diagnoses of these musculoskeletal issues? It is about opening our eyes but also using this sort of specialism, a musculoskeletal physio, to hopefully make a difference to female health.

The current ‘gold standard’ in pelvic health physiotherapy…

Pelvic health is still quite misunderstood. People aren’t aware that we exist, that pelvic floor conditions can be treated. Ultimately gold standard has to be education at the moment because a gold standard doesn’t exist at the moment. Education is key, collaboration, talking to other healthcare professionals and coaches within the team [at Harlequins] to let them know what I do; and then screening at the moment is ideal because you don’t know what you don’t know. A lot of the players don’t know what they don’t know; the players are asking these questions. So screening is ultimately key. And then getting a consultant in, like me, to then offer one-to-one treatment, if players want to be treated.

What teams with fewer resources can do to support their athletes’ pelvic floor health…

There are apps and you can absolutely still screen and refer into a GP; and the GP can certainly refer into the pelvic health physio system within the NHS or privately. The resources are there and, if I give you an example, the stats show that 84 percent of women who suffer from stress urinary incontinence, if they see a pelvic health physiotherapist, they will improve. So we are effective, it’s just knowing that we exist. And if you can’t access us for one reason or another then use an app like the Squeezy app, the NHS resources. I quite often signpost people to the AIS [Australian Institute of Sport] resources because they’ve got some great educational tools that you can share with players and you can look at yourself and they offer various videos on how to do pelvic floor exercises, blood screening, bladder diaries. All of these things are really helpful if resources are scarce. But I think the key is collaboration, having discussions; and touching base with me and I can signpost you to pelvic health physios in your areas.

On helping perinatal athletes…

That’s certainly my passion area and that’s where you would recognise a pelvic health physiotherapist coming into their own. But what we should be thinking of is how we prevent pelvic floor issues occurring and we can very much prevent the majority of pelvic floor issues occurring before a woman is pregnant. But even when they do fall pregnant, being able to prepare their system for the inevitable changes that the body is going through in childbirth, and then the post-partum recovery. I don’t want to mythologise [this phase] as an injury because it’s not, but it is important to recognise that it needs as much time, thought, care and preparation as any injury that these female athletes are going to experience. And we’ve seen first-hand, if you prepare a woman during her pregnancy and really educate her about what to expect, it makes their post-partum journey so much more manageable and so much easier. I firmly believe that if we offer women this element of rehabilitation, if you like, I think they can return to their sport really stronger than ever before. I think it’s just about – I keep saying it – collaboration and working with other people and ensuring that you’re bringing in these specialisms to help support their journeys.

Main image courtesy of World Rugby

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By Joe Lemire

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Emily Hall enjoys building relationships with athletes as it enables her to better support them and, from time to time, when necessary, call them out.

“You have to be able to read your athletes and know your athletes,” says the Strength & Conditioning Coach, who works with various women’s teams at Queensland Rugby League, including the U19s.

“[You need to] have those relationships with your athletes so you can say the right thing or make the right call in those situations,” she tells this Keiser Series Podcast.

In episode two of this series, we speak to Hall, a proud Wiradjuri woman, about topics including:

• Helping young athletes to juggle sport and other commitments [7:40];
• Enabling athletes to develop a sense of responsibility and autonomy [10:00];
• Why it is important for an S&C to show up at 100% even when athletes are flagging [16:00];
• Supporting athletes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds [21:00].

Previous episode:

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A Human Performance article brought you by our Main Partners

By John Portch

How well are you serving your female athletes and what more could you be doing?

That was the question at the heart of Leaders Meet: Driving Step-Change in Female High Performance, our two-day event at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester.

On day one, speakers from organisations including Hockey Canada, British Cycling, High Performance Sport New Zealand, Harlequins and the UK Sports Institute all answered that question in their own way.

This is a snapshot of their responses, four factors pulled from the discourse to illustrate that while female sport has come on leaps and bounds in a relatively short period of time, there is still a long way to go before female athletes, coaches and practitioners achieve parity with their male counterparts.

1. Coaches: are you doing enough of the right things?

Male and female athletes are more similar than they are different, but there are differences, such as in bonding dynamics or the need to ask ‘why?’ on the training pitch (this is a trait more widely noted in female athletes than male). The most astute coaches recognise this and adapt accordingly. Danny Kerry, the Head Coach of the Canada women’s field hockey team, has worked with male and female coaches and has, following considerable self-reflection, learned to tweak his approach to male and female cohorts. Emma Trott, an Academy Coach at British Cycling, has called upon her own experience as a rider to inform her work with Britain’s young prospects to develop her coaching style. Kerry and Trott arrived at the same conclusion: when trying to optimise athletes, it is the environment that gets the performance out and that comes down to the coach.

What they said

Danny Kerry on managing team vs individual dynamics:

“All facets of coaching [consist of] trying to find an optimum for that particular team and then helping people adapt to the bell curve, finding their value in that, finding what works for them in that is the real craft of coaching – and in my experience that doesn’t get discussed in coach development.”

Emma Trott on listening to athletes:

“People don’t listen all the time. We hear what we want to hear and we want to hear it because we’ve already made a decision in our head about how we’re going to impact something rather than listening to what is actually being said. It’s that question: ‘How are you?’ ‘Yeah, I’m fine’ – what does that really mean?”

Next steps

• Coaches need to be empathetic to the needs of female athletes and that often requires the coach to be mindful of their own conduct and adapt accordingly.
• The issues that arise from female biology are numerous and there can be limiting factors on performance. However, it is important to understand that gains can still be made when the athlete is not at 100%.
• The coach needs to understand what is required of them at any given point in time. Sometimes it will be heavy instruction, at other times they need only offer words of encouragement or a serene demeanour.

2. Is everyone on your team speaking up?

In 2017, Helene Wilson took the reins of a talented but under-achieving Northern Mystics side in the ANZ Premiership, the national netball league of New Zealand. Two years later, they finished bottom of the table but, in 2021, were crowned champions. Wilson, who worked concurrently as a mentor at High Performance Sport New Zealand [HPSNZ, where she works full-time today], realised that her playing group were skilled but their diverse backgrounds, rather than representing a strength, created division and hindered alignment in the pursuit of high performance. That needed to change.

What she said

Helene Wilson on the HPSNZ Te Hāpaitanga pilot programme [launched in 2019, it initially paired 12 emerging women coaches with experienced mentors, giving them guidance through workshops] and how it influenced her coaching at the Mystics:

“During this time the penny dropped for me. We were busy teaching the coaches about tikanga, the customary system of values and practices. I realised that space for ambiguity where we translate our different approaches and lenses to what really drives high performance was missing in my environment.”

Next steps

• Understand that everyone is a leader and leadership is defined by your actions and behaviours. Some have more responsibility in their role, but everyone has a role to play.
• Ensure that everyone feels included while also not fearing rejection, because they are the first to comply, first to be passive, and not speak up when you really need them to.
• Deploy yourself against a problem last. Lead from behind rather than from in front.

3. Removing the physiological barriers to participation

In the afternoon, Dr Nikki Brown, the Associate Professor in Female Health at St Mary’s University in London; Emma Brockwell, a specialist women’s health physiotherapist at PHYSIOMUM, a female pelvic health specialist clinic; and Dr Amal Hassan, the Women’s Team Doctor at Harlequins, took to the stage to explore issues in female physiology, from skill acquisition during the menstrual cycle, being able to show up as best you can, and the risks presented by fashion over function in the use of sports bras.

What they said

Nikki Brown on breast health:

“It’s important to recognise that breasts will impact participation. Half of school girls drop out of participation because of their breasts, with one in three adults seeing the breasts as a barrier to participation. Then there’s that performance aspect, with breast support, because [an athlete’s] breasts will move during activity, and it changes how they move, it changes their confidence, changes their breathing, changes their muscle activity and movement patterns.”

Amal Hassan on the impact of the menstrual cycle:

“Periods can be a barrier to participation, a perceived barrier to skill and technical development through a season, can have health implications that really impact their performance, and it can stop certain players from developing at crucial points.”

Emma Brockwell on issues related to female pelvic floor dysfunction:

“It’s understanding that pelvic floor dysfunction is not just in the perinatal population or the older population. In fact, it occurs in younger girls and female athletes.”

Next steps

• There is more work to be done in normalising the conversation around periods, breast health or other concerns. These terms cannot remain taboo.
• What is your ethical code? If you’re encouraging a practice you need to put in place a structure, decide who is leading the programme, who is driving the educational aspects, and who are your go-to people for answers.
• Teams with bigger budgets can fit out a sophisticated programme or offer bra-fitting assessments, but action could be as simple as putting up a bra-fitting poster in a changing room or on the back of the toilet door. Even little nudges can make a difference or spark a conversation about breast health issues.

4. Bridging the gap between innovation and research in women’s sport with practical application

The UK Sports Institute [UKSI] has a major aim: to develop a nationwide programme to advance the science, medicine and application of female athlete health and performance support. However, as Richard Burden, the Co-Lead of Female Athlete Health & Performance at the UKSI, explains, there is a gap between innovation and research and delivery in female high performance environments.

What he said

“When delivering education sessions you can’t assume that because you’re talking to female athletes they know about the menstrual cycle, they know about bra fit – they don’t all know about these things. Even when it comes to female coaches, you can’t assume they know how to prioritise for female athletes.”

Next steps

• It is important to find ways to increase the translation and applicability of research.
• You have to bring athletes and coaches on a journey through knowledge generation, education and the delivery of a programme.
• Ask yourselves: are we giving them a reason to engage? How can we be resourceful? How can we create more time? How can we improve practicality?

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“When a club as big as Racing come to you and say ‘we want you, there is no plan B, you’re our No 1 man’ then it helps persuade you”.

Stuart Lancaster, the new Director of Rugby at Racing 92, agreed to join the Parisian club last September while enjoying his seventh season as Senior Coach at Leinster. It meant a fresh challenge for the man who also coached England at the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Says Lancaster: “For the first time, really, my head was turned a little bit by the opportunity to try something new in a different country, in a different competition, the Top 14, and to try and build something as successful as Leinster but in a completely different context”.

He discusses his move at length in today’s episode, which is brought to you by our Main Partners Keiser. During the conversation with Henry and John, he also touches upon:

• His efforts to sell change to the existing players and staff at Racing [9:40];
• Why he will need to be more hands-on in year one than he has been at Leinster [19:30];
• His belief in the enduring value of coaching [25:20];
• His relationship with Dallas Cowboys Defensive Coordinator Dan Quinn [36:30].

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By John Portch

• Why is change required at your organisation? There must be a solid rationale.

• Have you given your people have sufficient motivation to make the required change?

• As a leader, you must be prepared to role-model the desired change too.

What is ‘change’ in your context?

It’s a simple but important question: “What is ‘change’ in and of itself?” asked Dan McFarland, the Head Coach of Ulster Rugby, when talking to the Leaders Performance Institute in 2022. “Firstly, ‘change’ is someone who says ‘this isn’t working, things are terrible, and we need to change’. But change is also growth. If you’re an organisation that wants to grow, develop and learn – by definition that is ‘change’.

“How you conceptualise change and how you use it is interesting, because if you include the idea that ‘growth is change’ then there’s always a need for change, isn’t there? At least in anything that’s competitive. It is important not to box change as merely something that happens to a failing organisation or somebody who’s in trouble. Then it’s just a degree in change and, I suppose, recognising the degree of change is interesting.”

Tim Davie, the Director-General of the BBC, referred to change as a “narrative around jeopardy” when speaking at the 2021 Leaders Sport Business Summit in London. He said: “That’s a pretentious way of phrasing it but people are naturally resistant in well-established organisations. Sometimes, you really need to really believe there is an issue of jeopardy [but] many people in the organisation say ‘we were OK for 99 years, we’ve done alright.’”

What’s timeless in your organisation? And what’s not?

The BBC was on the cusp of its centenary year when Davie spoke onstage. “My personal view is that, first thing, a successful reform comes from a real understanding of history, strength, respect of tradition, really understanding where an organisation comes from, what its core purposes are. What things are valid that are not attached to technology that are timeless?” he told the audience. Davie makes the distinction between what is “important and timeless” and what is not. “I think some people defend their territory or in their silo saying ‘that is something that’s absolutely sacred’. ‘It isn’t. What’s sacred is this’,” he added.

Is the motivation there?

In 2011, behavioural scientists at University College London developed the COM-B framework for behavioural change. It is a diagnostic tool to assess whether the organisation or individual possess the capability (C), opportunity (O) and motivation (M) to perform the desired behaviour. When you have each, it is often the perfect recipe for change but, as Gareth Bloomfield, a psychologist at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, told the Leaders Performance Podcast in 2022, there can be a multitude of things that affect an individual’s motivation. “Do you believe you can do it? Do you believe it’s going to be useful? Most people when they’re given new direction about what they need to do, most people just say ‘that sounds easy, I can do that’ but do they fundamentally believe that it’s going to be useful to the team?” said Bloomfield. “If they don’t understand what the Leader’s vision is, what the leadership team are trying to get to, then maybe there’s a gap there in terms of my motivation because I don’t really understand why it’s going to be useful. Do I fully appreciate the consequences of doing it and not doing it? This becomes an important part of motivation, which is, most of the time, if I’m going about a behaviour that is counter-productive, I’m not necessarily that aware of it because the counter-productive elements of it are long-term.”

The leader must role model change and chart development

McFarland viewed himself as a role model of change at Ulster. “Let’s say you want to create a learning environment,” he said. “You’ve got to model that. If that’s me, I’ve got to be seen to be willing to be wrong and adapt, I’ve also got to be seen to be doing things that are helping my own individual growth, I’ve got to be seen to be celebrating things where people are developing. Then once you’ve modelled those you’ve got to be able to mechanise those. There’s got to be room in the actual programme for doing that kind of stuff. It could be individual development programmes that are up and running and actually have things that you do, there’s got to be time in the schedule for development of certain things or skills, but there’s also got to be time in the programme for sports staff to be able to have personal development. Then, finally, you’ve got to be able to measure that; you’ve got to be able to look at your programme and say ‘have we actually created development? Have we developed as a staff, as a group? Have we developed as players? Have we developed as individuals?’ Modelling, mechanising and measurement are pretty key to that.”

By John Portch

In April, the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Premiership Rugby, Premier 15s and Rugby Players’ Association published an Inclusion and Diversity Action Plan for the elite game.

Jatin Patel, the Inclusion and Diversity Director at the RFU, English rugby union’s governing body, since 2021, was one of a series of individuals who played an instrumental role in devising the Inclusion and Diversity Plan, which is a result of elite game research into racism and classism in the English game.

The project was given added impetus last year when the Newcastle Falcons’ centre Luther Burrell spoke publicly about his experiences of racism and class prejudice.

Patel published a LinkedIn post announcing the plan’s launch. “April went by in a flash. But what a month it was,” he wrote, going on to explain the notable achievements of his “small but mighty team (with a lot of help from our friends!)” managed during the month. In addition to the I&D Plan, they delivered ‘active bystander’ training to RFU Council members, contributed to panel discussions on pride, hate speech and racial equality, and hosted non-governmental bodies and equality, diversity & inclusion leads at Twickenham Stadium during an England women’s international match.

“There is always more to do. But at the heart of everything above is #collaboration. With other colleagues, with passionate leads within the game and with leaders beyond our own sport”.

Patel demonstrated his passion when he came downstairs to speak at the 2022 Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the RFU headquarters in Twickenham Stadium.

He also found time to speak to the Leaders Performance Institute backstage.

What does your role look like on a day-to-day basis?

JP: My role as Inclusion and Diversity Director at the RFU involves looking at all elements of the game. Our strategy has four fundamental pillars and there is no hierarchy. The first I’ll speak about is employees and the board; so what is our organisation? How is it made up? How can we improve, attract, retain and progress diverse talent? The second pillar is around gameplay; community to professional rugby. How do we make the game more inclusive? How do we increase the diversity of players, coaches, officials and people working within the club environment? The third pillar is around our fans, followers and partners. Who are they? What is the content they’re consuming? How are we engaging them in rugby across England? And how are we working better with our partners to understand the efforts they’re making to diversify their own environments but also working with them to scale the impact we want to have and reach more communities? The final piece of that strategy is around our governance. Our volunteer leaders who are elected into positions such as our Council as constituency body reps. Who are they? How do we help them to be more inclusive leaders? And ultimately how do we diversify the talent pool coming into those positions for the future as well?

How does that look on a good day at the office?

JP: On a good day, that means people openly talking about issues around inclusion and diversity. And it might sound simplistic, but sometimes people avoiding talking about diversity because it’s too difficult or the fear of the unknown, certainly the fear of saying the wrong thing, which I can understand to some extent. But on a good day, what you’ll see is people having this conversation in a really open way, showing a bit of vulnerability, being open to the fact that they may not know something and ultimately asking for the guidance, advice and opinions and insights of people who may come from more diverse groups to help them to be better leaders, to make better decisions, to be more inclusive in the way they operate, to make sure that we’re sticking to our ambitions of being more inclusive and diverse.

What are the signs and clues you look for that show that diversity and inclusion is becoming embedded in the fabric of the organisation?

JP: The signs you look for are when leaders at the top of your organisation are building diversity and inclusion into their objectives and their agendas, which is very much the case at the RFU. I think you see it when you start to have clubs within the professional game talking about this on a more regular basis and that’s absolutely happening in rugby right now. Some of those discussions are difficult, but at the same time, talking about them openly and the challenges you are facing. Ultimately, the key indicator everyone’s looking for is: what is the diversity of people participating in the game of rugby? It’s hard to measure that because we haven’t always got the data we want but, ultimately, the day we can do that effectively and we can start to see progress, I guess that’s a really good sign that not only is the game changing to become more diverse, but people are staying in the game. Hopefully that leads to becoming more inclusive as well.

How do you deal with inevitable bumps in the road?

JP: Bumps are always going to occur in this space. It’s a steep learning curve for some. Others are a bit more advanced. There’s probably a big chunk of people in the middle that are still quite new to the inclusion and diversity space but get why it’s important. Bumps; you’ve got to kind of ride them. The more you build inclusion and diversity into your strategic objectives, your strategic thinking, into the commercial plans, the marketing plans you have, the communications plans you have, the performance strategies that you have, the more it becomes normalised and so the bumps become like any other bumps rather than a specific inclusion and diversity bump, one you become more used to riding rather than, at the moment because the fear of the unknown is more heightened. I tend to use bumps also as an opportunity to continue engaging on this topic with many of my colleagues as I possibly can. I think it’s sad to hear stories of discrimination in the game, but if you don’t learn something from them and how to be better as a result of them, it’s not only a missed opportunity, you’re failing the person that experienced that and you might be failing people in the future.

How do you balance long-term and short-term planning in your role?

JP: Balancing the long-term and short-term is probably the biggest challenge in the diversity and inclusion space. I think, depending on public pressure, people, particularly in different positions of influence and leadership, want to see their results overnight. For me, it’s about making sure that all the initiatives we do around the I&D agenda are regular, are digestible, that it can be tangible, not just about raising awareness but what can people do about it. All those short-term activities are designed to increase long-term change and hopefully improve not only the representation of diverse groups in rugby but also the number of inclusive leaders that exist within it as well. Ensuring you make that distinction is really important. Inclusivity, getting it right, and getting inclusive cultures, behaviour and decision-making in place will help diverse groups that are either in the sport today or you’re trying to get into the sport for the future, not only for the sense of belonging but also to flourish and be the best they can in an environment that is being considerate of them. Short-term versus long-term, one automatically leads to the other and it’s just making sure people have the patience and the confidence that they’re going on a journey that will ultimately introduce change.

How important is data in your role?

JP: Data is critical to my role. It’s not always the easiest thing to obtain around the diversity space, primarily because of regulatory issues and also explaining to people why asking for their diversity data is important to their own experience, but also helping the RFU understand the diversity of the game more effectively. It underpins all of the baselines that we have; we have a lot of KPIs and metrics we want to hit over time. Most of them are quite challenging but that’s a good thing. It helps us focus on the issue and we can regularly report on movements in programmes that we’ve got in place or just generally in terms of participation. In that sense, data underpins every good inclusion and diversity strategy and certainly underpins ours here at England Rugby.

Does data help you to identify gaps?

JP: I think it’s more about making sure I use data to demonstrate the impact that we’re having but also to give a picture of the lay of the land, particularly from a diversity perspective. I think it can be used effectively to persuade others as well of the importance of it. For example, participation in rugby is a really key challenge at all levels of the game and making sure that we present data were gaps exist that not only demonstrate the opportunity but also demonstrate the need to act on that. If we’re struggling to get more people engaging and participating in the game and the data says so, we then need to be using that to increase the number particularly from diverse groups going forward and seeing it as an opportunity rather than as an additional project.

By John Portch

Wales have made a positive start to their 2023 Women’s Six Nations campaign, with wins at home to Ireland and away to Scotland in their first two matches under Head Coach Ioan Cunningham.

A stern test awaits them this weekend in round three, with England travelling to Cardiff Arms Park on Saturday (15 April), with Wales’ schedule wrapped up back to back away matches. They will face France at Grenoble’s Stade des Alpes on 23 April before ending their Six Nations campaign against Italy at the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi in Parma on 29 April.

Cunningham explains to the Leaders Performance Institute that, instead of coming home after the France match, the team will then make the six-hour coach journey to Parma and spend the week in Emilia-Romagna preparing for Italy.

“You don’t lose two travel days [returning to the UK and setting out again] and it gives you the best chance to prepare,” says Cunningham, who recently contributed to a Leaders Performance Special Report on how teams can manage their preparations for major competitions.

“We can set up camp in Parma ready for the week,” he continues. “Already family and friends are looking to come out and spend time with the players.” He indicated that the players would have some free time in Parma on the Wednesday. “They get to see their friends or family and spend some time outside the camp. The weather will be decent in Italy in April and they can feel good; ‘the sun is good, I feel I am in a good place, and I’m getting ready to play Italy at the end of the week’.”

Cunningham also emphasises the importance of fun. “We created mini teams within our squad with different responsibilities or creating games. We asked the girls to name their teams. They chose famous Welsh people and had t-shirts made and, suddenly, you have an identity and you’re part of a team.”

What were some of the names chosen? “Duffy, the singer, was one,” he says. “The Nessa character from [British sitcom] Gavin & Stacey. So you’ve got a t-shirt with the picture on front and it’s quite funny when you get those up and running. What was really good, you had an opportunity then where I might say there’s a trade opportunity here, ‘do you want to trade anyone out of your team because they’re not pulling their weight?’ And those are quite funny when they’re trading players and there’s an opportunity to draft. It was quite fun.”

Connection and downtime are essential too, which is why friends and family were invited to Parma, just as they were for Wales’ 2022 Rugby World Cup campaign. “If you’re away from home and family and friends have travelled to watch you, making sure the players have contact time with their family and friends and also inviting the family and friends into our environment is massive. On those downtime periods, parents are always welcome to come into our hotel and team room to spend time with the players, as well as the players going out.”

Cunningham also spoke to the Leaders Performance Institute about the development of his newly professional squad. Here, we turn attention to Cunningham as a leader.

How important are your instincts? How do you prevent yourself losing touch with your intuition?

IC: Instincts are huge. Your gut feel. Your coach’s eye as well as your gut. ‘I’m not feeling this today, it’s a bit off, I need to have a chat with this person’. Another part of instinct, as well as data, if you have a short turnaround and you haven’t had much in the tank in that week, we might do a 20-minute run through on a captain’s run day [usually a Friday, although Cunningham’s team do not undertake this traditional rugby practice in a typical fashion; see below] but the majority of the time we won’t. But it’s having that feel, even at the start of the week, if you’ve come off a good win, for example, they think they’re in a good place, they have just beaten one team but there’s another team coming after us, so maybe it’s bringing their feet back to the ground and why. Instinct is huge, not only on players but on management; feeling if they’re a bit fatigued. We did something last year when we felt people were tired and we’d been in a long time; ‘right, let’s cut tomorrow. We won’t come in tomorrow’, just having a mental recharge away from the environment or we know someone who’s very friendly with us in the group and he’s got a coffee van so we put a coffee van up inside the training field, so we’ll finish the session and then go have a coffee at his van; just spending time together, having a chat, we put some music on, and then just having those connections then. It just recharges us and makes us feel like we’re ready to go again.

Must data back your intuition?

IC: 100%. It’s got to be aligned to everything we want to do. Regarding rugby stats, our main page is stats that are important to us in the game and which change behaviour. So if we want to get off the floor quicker, we’ll stat that up. Say with that, ‘60% speed of feet, we need to get to 70%, then. How do we get off the floor quicker?’ That’ll change behaviour. But then there’s other data regarding volume and load from a GPS point of view, which we know now the type of load we want to put into the players in a test week; ‘if we want to cover 22k, we need to get this amount of high speed metres into the players’. That’s all important and relevant to the game we want to play.

What is the key to getting the big decisions right and managing them effectively?

IC: Regular communication with the right people, constant drip effect of the same message; ‘why we’re doing it, this is the game we want to play, because it’ll give us this’. Those conversations in a week are huge for me. We’ll always wrap up the day with ‘how did it go? ‘it went well’ ‘do we need to change anything tomorrow?’ We’ll run through tomorrow’s sheet and we’re constantly working a day ahead, then we’ll look to the week ahead. It’s really important.

Do you reflect on your own decision making and communication skills?

IC: Some of that could be better, if I’m honest. When you’re in it, you’re entrenched in the work and when someone asks you a question you’re into something else, but I do deliberately try to give myself time to reflect on ‘did I give that message correctly? What tool did I use? Did I react well to that? How do I want to come in tomorrow? I need to speak to this person and how do I do it?’ I do try to deliberately reflect on my day and what I’ve done. It’s a huge part of performance. I like to have good relationships with some key members of staff as well that will give me feedback on how I’ve done; or ‘how was our meeting? Were we happy with it?’ Those things are important for me as well.

How do you protecting your own time and resources?

IC: You can turn around and, before you know it, the day’s gone and there’s so much happened in that day that sometimes the car journey or just driving the car is good, reflect, and put something on, music or a podcast, just putting something on to reflect is good.

What do you do in lieu of the captain’s run?

IC: We do a walkthrough and we do this exercise called ‘walk the map’. So the map is our pitch. We’ve got this five-metre pitch that we roll out and we walk through everything that we’re taking into the game both with and without the ball. We’ll do ‘what-if’ conversations. ‘What if we concede in the first two minutes? What do we do? What does it look like? What if we get a yellow card to a nine? Who steps in?’ We cover those sorts of things as a team as we walk the map. On the captain’s run day, we’ll actually walk the ground from try line to try line with our leaders just walking and talking through what we’re going to do and the kickers will kick and that’s it.

Ioan Cunningham is a contributor to our latest Special Report, titled Navigating Your Way Through Major Competitions: a snapshot from Olympic, Paralympic and elite team sports. In addition to Welsh Rugby Union, it features insights from Swimming Australia, the Lawn Tennis Association, Athletics Australia and Hockey Ireland. Each has teams competing in major tournaments this year, and all are bound to give you something to think about in your future projects.

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By John Portch

In January 2022 Welsh Rugby Union issued the first professional contracts to 12 members of its senior women’s team.

The number has further increased since then and Head Coach Ioan Cunningham reflects on this development with pride, particularly in light of Wales’ creditable performances at the delayed Rugby World Cup in 2022. The team reached the quarter-finals in New Zealand before bowing out against the hosts.

“I think creating history meant something special to the group,” he tells the Leaders Performance Institute. The changes have been noticeable too, as Wales seek to bridge the gap between themselves and the World Cup semi-finalists, namely England, Canada, France and the world champions New Zealand.

“The physical changes – we were able to put the players on full-time programmes, maximising their rest and recovery – allowed them to get better,” Cunningham continues. “We were able to put a daytime training programme together, which was fantastic for our group, zoning in on our skillset work as well as physical conditioning, building athletes that could play the style of rugby we wanted to play.”

Cunningham, a notable contributor to our latest Special Report, is set to lead his Wales side into the 2023 Women’s Six Nations this weekend. Wales host Ireland in Cardiff on Saturday afternoon (25 March).

The preparations were in full swing when the Leaders Performance Institute sat down for a Teams call with Cunningham, who delved into his team’s hopes for the competition while reflecting on his style as a leader.

Ioan, how has the team’s transition to professionalism influenced you as a leader?

IC: I began by being coaching-focused on the grass, really getting close to the players, building relationships, growing trust, building self-belief in the players. But then as time went on, it’s sort of stepping back a little bit to that satellite view looking down on the whole programme. So what do we need to make us better? Trying to take a more holistic approach around the players, trying to get the psychologist involved, the nutritionist involved and how that fits into the team; another S&C coach and growing that department and those groups and allowing the players to flourish in the environment. My style has changed. I’m still coaching the players quite hard but also making sure that the team around me is delivering and I am checking in with them regularly to make sure that we maintain our standards.

What is the link between your standards and the culture you are seeking to create?

IC: First and foremost, we want our players to come into our environment and enjoy what they’re doing. That’s the most important thing. Within that, we will be up front and honest with each other. We did a piece early on about performance conversations and how that’s different to maybe just having a normal conversation with anyone. So when we have those performance conversations they might be difficult or hard to hear, but the feedback is coming from a good place because we want you to get better. Also, how players give feedback to each other is an important part of enabling ourselves to get better, maintaining those training standards, allowing no sloppy behaviours with regards to a meeting. We say when everyone’s in we’re ‘on’ and we don’t want to waste a rep. Those things are huge in our environment and we stay on top of those. Over the last six months, the group have grown immensely to self-police that to a point so that we can just chip in and stay on top of players and then they drive it, especially the senior group.

What do you need to be aware of in terms of the general energy of the group?

IC: We don’t want any negative people, sappers or oxygen thieves. It’s easy enough to look at something they can’t control, whether it’s the weather or timings or equipment, but what they can control is how they react to a situation and that’s still something we work hard on. Selection is a big thing. They can’t control selection. What they can do is control everything in their control to make sure they give themselves the best chance to be selected. It’s moving that energy and that focus onto them first. We had this thing last year in the Six Nations and in the World Cup. It was ‘we before me’. We put the team first before ‘me’. So if I’m thinking of the team first I’m going to do everything I can, first and foremost, to make the team succeed because it’s easy enough to point fingers and say ‘well, she didn’t do that’ or ‘this wasn’t good enough’ or ‘I didn’t have this’. But did you do everything you could?

How carefully do you choose your words? What can you say and what do you prefer to not say?

IC: It depends on the individual, the person, or the type of group that you’re dealing with, but most of the time it’s an approach of an arm around the shoulder but you’re also jabbing them in the rib. I’m coming to players with a care mindset because I want them to get better but I’m also saying it directly sometimes because ‘this is what you need to hear’. I need to check-in to make sure they have heard the message is clear because some people have listened but they don’t hear. Also, within our coaching group, I think we’re at the stage where we’ve worked together for quite a good period where we can actually ask the right questions of each other. For example, I might say to my forwards coach ‘are you looking at everything you can to make sure that we’re operating in our lineout? Can we be more creative? Do we need to go back to our skillset work?’ I might show them examples that I’m seeing and he’ll come back to me and show me examples of what he’s seeing and then we meet at a common place and say ‘this is clearly what we need to work on going forward and let’s be clear on that with the players’. And I’ll be open to him. I’ll say ‘I’ll come to you in the session. I won’t come to the players unless I need to speak to them’. I’ll say ‘keep driving something, you can do that differently, you can check there if they actually learned that’. I’ll just stay on top of that mostly day to day or in the session.

How do you work to provide opportunities for player feedback?

IC: There is a small group setup for meetings, both unit meetings as well as team. I’ve created a group which I call a ‘guidance group’ – I didn’t want to call them a ‘leaders group’, I wanted  to call them a ‘guidance group’ because I want them to guide and support, lead and feed back. Within that, there are four players who are experienced and been around the group and there’s one young player attached. She can learn off everyone else and see the type of conversations we’ll have. And they are the sounding board on the grass for me plus they deliver some of the information I want to be delivered to the team. I believe the environment is a safe one for players to speak out, ask a question. All of our team are very approachable from a management point of view and I think that creates an environment where players come in and are comfortable expressing themselves and that’s what we want.

What can you do to remove as much stress as possible from your playing group?

IC: As a leader, when you step into the building every day I think you’ve got to come in with positive high energy but also a calmness that says everything’s under control. I think that’s really important.  And to show that the messages you are giving are clear, you’re not stressed as a head coach. It’s like the old swan. You’re calm on top of the water and your legs are kicking underneath. That’s the picture and the aura you try to give off, that everything is good, calm and controlled, planned and organised. We’re focusing on the process rather than the outcome. ‘Did we do everything right this week? Yes we did.’ Back it up with confidence; ‘we’ve trained superbly well this week, we’ve done everything we can do’. So giving them that confidence. Even in the middle of games. I remember when we played the Black Ferns [New Zealand] in the quarter-final of the World Cup. We knew we were playing one of the best teams in the world and the girls gave everything in that first half and, at half-time, they were coming in thinking ‘we’re down by 20 points. What’s he going to say?’. And it was all calm and positive. ‘We’ve done superbly well, executed what we wanted to do, just keep doing it. It’s real good work.’ I remember some of the faces were like ‘oh, great’ and when you review that and speak to the players later on when the emotion’s gone a couple of days after. They said ‘we were expecting you to come in and give us a rocket but you didn’t. You backed us and supported us and said the right things’. You get a good response off that. One phrase I’ll say to the players is ‘make it hard not to pick you’. It’s making sure they realise that it’s not just what they do on the training field, it’s not just what they do with the ball in hand; have they done their injury prevention work? Have they checked-in? Have they monitored? Have they ticked everything off to make sure they are ready to go? And that is part of performance. If they have done those things there will still be a conversation in a one-to-one selection feedback meeting, for example, because it’s about habit-forming. If they don’t do these things then something’s going to break later on down the line.

You view the matches as a vehicle for your improvement?

IC: 100%. The next World Cup is in 2025, so it’s about two and a half years away; it’s not that far from the last one. So you’ve one eye on that so you’re like ‘we’ve got to start bringing fresh faces into the group, we’ve got to start exposing more players to Test match rugby to prepare them for 2025. We’ve still got to win the Test matches that are in front of our face, so how do we do that? Looking at the evolution of players as well, as in changing positions or the combination of players playing together. Those are really important. There’s a lot of stuff going into one game or this tournament. And with the Six Nations, it’s so important to start well because it’s only five games and if you don’t start well the momentum can go against you quite quickly. There’s a lot going on and it’s exciting with regards to the different bits of that jigsaw coming together and, before we know it, we’ll be in a World Cup year trying to do better than we did last time.

What would it take for your Six Nations campaign to be considered a success?

IC: Score more points, it’s as simple as that. On average, we’re scoring about 12 points a game, 15. That’s not good enough to win Test matches and to beat the better teams in the world. So our conversion rate in the opposition 22. Once we get in there can we convert more often than we have been? If we can nail those two things then we’ll certainly become a better force. If we nail what we’ve spoken about in our game from an attacking point of view, we’ll create those opportunities and you have to convert them then. I’ll give you an example, we played Canada in August before the World Cup and we had eight entries into the 22 and came away with three points. They had five entries into our 22 and came away with 22 points. It’s just those entries and those conversion rates. If you look at the ‘why’ behind that, why didn’t we convert more from those eight entries? Those are the work-ons we’ve got to nail from an accuracy point of view, players understanding, everyone on the same page, the detail within our structures, and hopefully those entries turn into more points for us.

Ioan Cunningham is a contributor to our latest Special Report, titled Navigating Your Way Through Major Competitions: a snapshot from Olympic, Paralympic and elite team sports. In addition to Welsh Rugby Union, it features insights from Swimming Australia, the Lawn Tennis Association, Athletics Australia and Hockey Ireland. Each has teams competing in major tournaments this year, and all are bound to give you something to think about in your future projects.

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