A Spur for change: A lesson for Sam Mitchell from Postecoglou trip

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Sam Mitchell’s post-season sojourn to Tottenham Hotspur’s extraordinary facility at Enfield, north of London, has already influenced the Hawthorn coach’s handling of training.

Mitchell, who met up to 25 Tottenham officials – including Australia’s most celebrated coaching export, Ange Postecoglou – has changed his training reviews in a small shift that was spurred, so to speak, by watching the sessions that Postecoglou oversees, without actually “taking training”.

Sam Mitchell came away with some valuable insights after spending a week with Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham. Credit: Eddie Jim

“We’re quite different personalities, so I’m not going to try and coach like Ange Postecoglou,” said Mitchell, who spent just over a week with Spurs at the end of the 2023 AFL season, whilst Tottenham were vying for supremacy in the English Premier League.

“But there are some things that he does that I certainly try and introduce to my coaching book.″⁣

Mitchell, who was accompanied by Hawks assistant coach Adrian Hickmott, nominated just one basic method of the famed Australian coach that had influenced Hawthorn. “Basically, just how he reviews training.

“[Postecoglou] Has a quick meeting at the end of training to get everyone’s thoughts on how the session went, who stood out, who perhaps didn’t perform as well, which drill was set up well.”

Mitchell was struck by how Postecoglou, whose assistants take training, organised the review. “The structure of the meeting was really strong – something I’ve tried to implement straight away.”

Mitchell did not spend much time with “Ange”, who was busy coaching Spurs in the middle of an EPL season, but came away from numerous meetings – plus attending two Tottenham games – with several observations and a keen sense of how the AFL differs from the elite teams of European soccer.

Sam Mitchell also spent some time with the Football Association’s technical director John McDermott.Credit: AFL Photos

“It was one of those trips you come back from saying ’80 per cent of what we’re doing at Hawthorn is pretty good, you know, we’re on track’. Ten per cent is just not viable because of the size of their organisation. They’ve got 50 full-time groundsmen at their ground, at their training ground, that’s serious … you can’t really compare.

“And then 10 per cent you’re like, ‘that’s actually a really good insight, there’s really some stuff you can do there’.”

Mitchell’s conclusion is that AFL teams, such as Hawthorn, cannot gain much from the EPL teams in recruiting systems. Nor did Mitchell focus much on Postecoglou’s game plan.

“It’s not recruiting. I mean, it’s such a different model. They’re buying players. Their focus on development of players is much less than us because it’s a much bigger talent pool. They can just buy them and bring them in. So they don’t have the talent/development focus that we do.

“And even game plan – to be honest, I don’t look at soccer in the way they play it and look for huge insights via coaching. You watch the games and might ask questions about ‘why you do that, why you were playing inverted wingers’ … some strategic insights.

“For the most part, it’s about people management – how do they manage the staff? How do you have role clarity for different positions?”

Mitchell, who also spent a couple of days with the Football Association’s technical director John McDermott, an ex-Spurs academy boss the Hawthorn coach knew, said he had been focused “more the how he coaches it, than what he coaches”. Method, not content.

Mitchell, who was visiting Spurs as an organisation rather than just meeting the coach/manager, suggested that Postecoglou’s success derived from clarity and consistency in approach.

“I think the number one thing is he knows exactly what he wants, and he knows the standard at which it should be done, and he’s got a philosophy and he sticks to it.

“If you listen to his press conferences, the one consistent theme in everything that he does is ‘we know what we’re working towards, and we’re going to keep working at it. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing Manchester [City] at the Etihad, or we’re at a game we should win comfortably’.

“They are so consistent in how they go about it and that’s what makes them so strong.”

Ange Postecoglou salutes Tottenham Hotspur fans after the clash with Manchester City earlier this month.Credit: Getty Images

Mitchell was asked whether there were facets of the AFL clubs that were ahead of the much larger EPL outfits, which turn over hundreds of millions and are privately owned by oil oligarchies and the super rich.

“I came back really confident in a few areas … I think sports science, GPS and I think player development.”

Mitchell said the EPL teams had a vastly different model for recruiting and developing players because they had only a “semi-controlled free market” compared to the more regulated AFL draft system.

“What we can’t afford to do is let players with high talent slip through the cracks because they’re so hard to replace,” he said.

“When we get players, we do every single thing we can to get the best out of them. Whereas in soccer, if a player doesn’t fit a system, they’re much more likely to try and find a replacement than change an individual player.”

Mitchell had visited Spurs in 2019 and seen Tottenham in Australia a few years ago. “The best day we had, they put us in an office and they just sent people to us for most of the day.”

Mitchell and Hickmott saw Australians Scott Munn, chief football officer for Spurs, and Mile Jedinak – the former having helped set up the Gold Coast Suns and Melbourne Heart (before it was bought by Manchester City), while Jedinak, an ex-Socceroo, is one of Postecoglou’s assistants.

They also met Tottenham academy director Simon Davies, assistant coach Nigel Gibbs and head of football strategy Andy Seldig. “Lots of different people within the organisation.

“Yeah, spent a bit of time with Ange, but he’s obviously a busy man running a juggernaut organisation.

“You know, when we were out at training he stood with us for a while and spent a bit of time there. You’re just sort of eating with the team and all those sort of things. You’re just in and around them.

“I’ve done a few things with Spurs over the years because, they’ve come out to Australia, I’ve helped them with advertising and that sort of thing a few years ago.″⁣

Mitchell was taken with how Postecoglou’s Tottenham stuck to their largely attacking system even when they lost players. Playing Chelsea, Spurs were “down to nine men and they continued to play high line and continued to try and attack.” Mitchell observed: “He’s certainly strong in his beliefs, and he sticks to it regardless.

“Ange is quite unique in that way, how he coaches. He’s obviously had the same system wherever he’s gone, he’s done a great job at inventing that game style … he’s so consistently been able to get any team of any quality into playing the way he wants.”

Mitchell said Tottenham, skippered by Korean Son Heung-min, had welded together players from different cultures. “But I think it’s really how he’s been able to build his group together has been fascinating.

“He’s obviously been phenomenal in that area of consistently having a strong culture that people want to play for him. Within a month of getting there, Harry Kane – perhaps the greatest Premier League scorer of all time – left, but he still managed to put together a really strong outfit who played together.

“Certainly, when you look at their team, one plus one, plus one equals much more than three. I think that’s what every coach is trying to do.”

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