Week #03 - Can you coach effort?
"The strongest steel is forged in the hottest furnace."
Few coaches understand this better than Damien Hardwick. It is his natural state, further embedded through three premierships at Richmond – perhaps the AFL's most intense cauldron of expectation. Now at Gold Coast, he's applying this mindset to a group anchored by players like Matt Rowell, whose very presence defines what effort looks like.
When examining elite performance environments, the question of whether effort can be coached emerges constantly. I firmly believe it can, but not in the shouting, red-faced, vein-popping 'try harder' cliché so often expected. The process is far more nuanced.
Talent does not fluctuate, whereas effort does. An individual and team's capacity to give maximum effort consistently provides access to the full range of individual and collective ability and potential, and it is often the difference maker.
In past years, the Suns have consistently found themselves on the wrong side of the effort ledger, particularly away from home. Their recent back-to-back victories, a record winning margin against the West Coast Eagles in Perth, and a thumping win against Melbourne, a team with plenty to play for, at the MCG, signal something fundamental is shifting.
The Gold Coast's transformation speaks to something often overlooked in performance culture: the relationship between effort and identity. For young teams finding their way, the question isn't simply "Can we win?" but "Who are we?"
Whilst Damien Hardwick is crystal clear on how he wants his teams to play, his genius may be more in psychological redefinition – helping players understand that effort isn't what they do, but who they are. This subtle shift transforms effort from a variable resource into a non-negotiable expression of collective character. Rowell embodies this integration, where maximum effort appears as an authentic expression of self, and it is contagious.
Great leaders have the capacity to 'unlock' performance from both the individual and the team, often by recognising capability and opportunity they are yet to see in themselves, and then by providing a pathway to achieve it.
The role of leaders, in sport and business alike, is to create the conditions for sustained discretionary effort – not through motivational speeches or fear, but by building environments where high standards become part of collective identity and individual purpose aligns with team goals.
This is where the marriage of list management strategy led at the Suns by the experienced and insightful Craig Cameron, who also played a central role in the Tiger's success era, and coaching philosophy, becomes critical. By bringing together naturally competitive and coachable players and Hardwick's proven ability to develop team dynamics, the Suns are building something sustainable for the first time in their young and erratic history.
Elite performance relies on both 'mechanics' and 'dynamics'. The mechanics represent the systematic approach to performance; the dynamics are the means by which we embed personal and team commitment to execution.
Damien Hardwick has changed the game by changing the 'mechanics' of game-style, but it is with 'dynamics' where he thrives. The many personalities and their varying interactions, egos and insecurities, with their experiences shared – it is a veritable hormone soup of human behaviours. But a well-led team, with great mechanics and dynamics, finds a way unique to this group.
For the Gold Coast, these away victories represent more than premiership points. It is hope becoming expectation, where consistent effort becomes not just an individual trait but a collective identity, personified by Rowell but spreading throughout the team.
Play on!
Cameron Schwab
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