“Pleased To Be Sacked”: Coach Pat Lam’s ‘Learnings’ and the Evolution of a Professional Rugby Union Organisation

Abstract

In 2012 Pat Lam was dismissed (‘sacked’) as head coach of the Auckland Blues, a professional rugby union team in New Zealand. Within months of his sacking Lam had become the head coach of Connacht Rugby; an improving, but midlower table, professional provincial team in the west of Ireland. The purpose of this ‘best practice’ article is twofold. First, to illustrate how Lam used his dismissal (‘sacking’) from the Auckland Blues as a pivotal opportunity to learn, and develop, as a coach. Specifically his imperative that there needed to be clarity and communication of his coaching philosophy, and his quest for alignment between coach and organisation and his ‘belief triad’ (culture, leadership, the game). Second, in an effort to be more than a catalogue of ‘best practice’ strategies, we use the theoretical concept of ‘interruption’ to explain how disruption, disintegration and arresting problematic coaching situations, such as being dismissed as a head coach, can be instrumental in the development of, and learning by, the coach. In outlining Lam’s ‘best practice’ we draw on primary and secondary data sources, which document his stories of redemption and supports Gould’s (2016) case for greater integration of quality coaching stories into sport coaching scholarship.