COUNTRIES from the Eastern Block have been using sports psychology for decades.

American grid iron teams have their own sports psychologists and so too do Australian Rules Football sides and Australian RL outfits too.

In this country, sports psychology is in its infancy but the brain is probably the most powerful weapon in the world and at the Wolves we've got to make sure we utilise it to its full capacity.

The only way to do that is to get inside it and find out what makes it tick and what the triggers are. Everyone is different but everyone has their own hot spot.

If you consider two opposing players. If both have a similar weight, size and skill level the competitive edge will come down to the player who prepares himself better.

To locate a player's hot-spot you do one-on-one work with them and find out what is important to them so that they can set their own goals. If they set their own goals on what they want out of the game and what they want out of life then they'll give it their full commitment.

Goals are so important in life. Life's a journey and you've got to know where you're going. At some stage, we've all done it, you'll go off the track but you want to know where you can get back on and try to continue. You've got to try and stay with the plan as long as you can and we've worked hard on this with the players.

This is something we hadn't really done before at Warrington, looking for specific goals and even looking for specific things to get out of training.

A psychologist by the name of Jack Stewart has done some work with us. It has been done on complete trust because it is a touchy subject with some players. Some don't like to open up and discuss their lives with a psychologist.

I've used psychology for many years and it's a matter of following tried and tested methods and trial and error too. It has worked really well for me sometimes and other times it has backfired.

There's a couple of cases I can tell you about, one of them in connection with a really good mate of mine, Graham Atherton. In fact, we were teammates at a club in Brisbane. As it evolved, we ended up coaching different teams, Redcliffe and Souths, and we clashed in a semi-final.

Leading up to the game we hadn't spoken during the week. On the day of the game, we walked into the ground and ended up nearly tripping over each other. I just completely ignored him and carried on walking to the dressing room. It left him flabbergasted because, as I said, we're really good mates.

After the game I grabbed him and said: "Come on, let's go for a drink." And he said: "Hey, why did you ignore me earlier?" I told him I was just focused on the game and didn't know he was there. But obviously, I had left him more worried about our friendship than just coaching a football team. It's not necessarily smart but it's one example of psychology that worked for me because we won the game.

Then there was the time I went to Wembley as coach of Castleford to play Wigan. In the month leading up to the final it was probably the best build up I had had of a football team in my life. We worked on everything.

The psychology of it was that I wanted everyone relaxed because I was concerned about the nerves of the occasion because as you probably know, Wembley can be a pretty daunting place. I thought the final itself would key them up. But I probably played it down too much because Castleford were 18-0 down at half-time. Cas outplayed Wigan in the second half and we lost 26-18 but the game was shot at the break.

I won't be making a big thing of this weekend's game though. It's an important game for us and I understand that and so do the players. But if I make a big thing of the St. Helens game and do less on other games the players will be thinking there is a gulf between the two and may think other games are not as important. Each game is important. I want to win every game we play. So I try to make the preparation as consistent as possible.

Come 1.45pm at St. Helens on Sunday the players will be mentally prepared for action.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.