A little bit of outsider knowledge

There is a new phenomenon in coaching that we should all be aware of.

It is the increasing trend of experts from other sports offering insight or actually taking over coaching in sports other than their own.

Now we don't mean Clive Woodward and his ill fated spell with Southampton. His role as "Special Technical Advisor" consisted of Southampton playing even worse than before he arrived.

Sir Clive now seems the exception rather than the rule though, as inter discipline coaching is proving fruitful for a vast range of sports.

Rugby Union has long been indebted to its long lost son Rugby League. The defensive strategy of all teams is now controlled by ex-Rugby League players and Shaun Edwards, ex Rugby League legend and advisor to this years Grand Slam winning Welsh team is the most sought after coach in Rugby Union right now.

Rugby League in Australia has recently come under fire for hiring wrestling coaches to advise how best to tackle opposition players. A move called the chicken wing, where the arm is twisted behind the back, is the hot topic down under at the moment. The move comes from wrestling and a "grapple tackle", a choke hold style move, has been causing controversy for over a year now. Both are designed to cause maximum discomfort, in the hope of the opponent dropping the ball. The Melbourne Storm are the masters of the grapple tackle, check out this link to see the move in all its grisly glory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSu-uOiUz7E

Kerry manager Pat O'Shea spoke last week about his use of basketball techniques with his Kerry team and now football is about to be influenced by baseball.

Moneyball, the sports book beloved of people who want to the next Bill Gates, is about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its coach Billy Beane.

The book is about how Beane used limited resources and clever use of playing statistics to drag his team into the top level of the game.

Beane is now part of a group that has purchased the San Jose Earthquakes, one of the Major League Soccer franchises. He plans to use a similar set of processes to identify players for soccer teams. While Prozone and Opta are widely used Beane has devised a system called Sabermetrics, to measure such things as touches of the ball in situations where there is a shot on goal, the number of interceptions and something called "defensive effectiveness".

We will watch the progress of the Earthquakes with interest (OK some interest) but I wonder what other sports stars are secretly employing coaches from other sports.

I suspect Dimitar Berbatov has had some gymnastics coaching, Henry Shefflin has surely taken a ballet class or two and if Ciaran Whelan is not in training for a crack at Joe Calzaghe then he should be.