Coaches always have a unique way to deliver a message. Then there’s Tim Walsh
Walsh is the ultimate motivator, trying to get the Australian Women’s Sevens side back to the top step of the podium.
The Rio-winning coach spent Tokyo with the men’s program before a swap of coaches delivered the intended results.
A triple crown followed in 2021-22 with the Sevens, Commonwealth and World Cup titles heading to Australia.
Walsh’s success with the program has come hand-in-hand with his special way of delivering a message or emphasising a point.
“He always just looks for a different way, a different outlook on stuff and I think that’s really good,” retiring star Dom Du Toit said.
“If one way isn’t working, he’s then looking at finding a different way and not just drumming it the same way and expecting a different result.
“He’s always looking for something a little bit outside of the box which I think really works for our group.”
“He wanted to prepare everyone for anything possible that could happen and make sure that their performance bubble stays tight knit,” Rio gold medalist Alicia Lucas (née Quirk) believes.
Sporting coaches have always found different ways to deliver their message.
Waratahs coach Michael Cheika famously used golf clubs in the build-up to their 2014 title.
Walsh’s style is more akin to legendary college football coach Mike Leach (nicknamed the Mad Scientist), adopting a series of methods to get the best out of his side.
Dom du Toit was in shock as housemate and superstar Charlotte Caslick riled on the ground clutching her shoulder weeks before the 2016 Rio Olympics.
A routine warm-up drill had left the star in tears on the field before a series of warm-up games before Japan.
“It was at the end of the warm-up and she hadn’t done anything and we were doing some shoulder rolls, like an attack drill, I was her partner and we went into each other and she just screamed immediately as we made contact. She even started crying straight away,” Du Toit recalled.
“I started panicking like ‘oh my goodness’ she was my housemate at the time and is one of my best friends and I thought I’d ruined her Olympic team so I was in tears.
“We went back in and Walshy was like ‘We still have a job to do, if this was the Olympics, you wouldn’t be able to dwell on this’ and I was like ‘Yeah but it’s not the Olympics, I’ve completely ruined her Olympics!’
Du Toit has acting credits in Neighbours but even she fell for the Academy award-winning performance Caslick had given as part of Walsh’s test to see how they’d handle losing their star player.
The plan had been concocted to see how the team would react after losing Emilee Barton (née Cherry) in a Final earlier in the season.
Walsh had also ‘pulled out sick’ from a trial against NZ, leaving their strength and conditional coach to lead the side, but never their game-changing playmaker.
"There’s all different ones like crisis management, injuries to star players so we just try to manufacture a couple of incidents that we could experience and then try and adapt,” Walsh said.
“It was an incredible Academy Award winning performance from Charlotte and the physio, I actually thought I put the mocker on her and she did get legit injured but thankfully she wasn’t.”
Caslick strolled into the rooms shortly after the games had finished 100% but it was a lesson for the side to keep their ‘performance bubble’ tight no matter what happens.
“I felt kind of bad because some of the girls were really upset about it…Dom was one of my really good friends so I felt really bad,” Caslick said and laughed.
“She apologised profusely and she was like ‘I don’t even know how I did that, I just got so in the moment’. She even had the physio take her mouthguard out for her, she just didn’t move,” Du Toit added.
“Charlotte and Walshy apologised profusely. I was unsure about those tactics but I look back now and I laugh at it. It was funny.”
The fake injury play hasn’t been needed in 2024 because as Caslick notes “We’ve had plenty of real ones.”
Throughout the campaign, each destination has had a special meaning linked to Paris.
All roads have led to the Olympics with each of the 12 roads feeding into the Arc de Triomphe linked with a tournament.
There was Perth Parade, Hong Kong Highway, Madrid Lane, and Cape (Town) Cove before they head into the Olympic camp in Montpellier.
It’s part of the Walsh motivation strategy to treat each tournament as special as the last.
“One jersey presentation the theme was fire and ice so he took us into a meat room cooler and gave us our golden coins for the Olympics for the ice and then took us into a sauna for the fire,” Lucas said on the most memorable one she’s been a part of. “He’s some really quirky traits about him but it really helps to identify the key points in a lighter manner and not add extra pressure to the girls.”
“He does some bizarre stuff but I love those little things,” Du Toit said, who watched on for the presentation
“It’s what makes Tim Tim and I love it.”
Walsh feeds the confidence of the girls and is the first to rightfully hype their status as one of the best national sides in Australia.
Caslick’s words around the Matildas made headlines but that’s the approach of the side. There’s a confidence that won’t be dulled no matter the circumstances backed by a complete trophy cabinet.
This was clear in Cape Town in December, with the Australians finding a way to hold off the French in the Final despite a red card right before the break.
“We said at half time or when we got the red card, it was like ‘alright now it’s even’. We’re a good team and we do it at training with six on seven or eight. So we’ve trained for this, now it’s just level, it’s 7 v 6, the game’s evened up a bit,” Walsh said after the event.
“We have a culture of being positive. We want to work and challenge ourselves but enjoy what we’re doing. We don’t ever want to be outworked.
“Everything happens for a reason and I think only positive people say that. Whatever challenge or whatever is happening at that time, we look at finding the positives in it and see how we can win or learn from that situation.”
Walsh makes it clear that whilst his messaging may seem unconventional, there’s a method behind the madness.
Acts like getting players to limbo under a piece of tape across a door were not a test of flexibility, but rather reinforced the need to drop their body height amid a string of red cards.
“Some of it is really beneficial, some probably didn’t make an iota of difference but don’t go too stupid with it. It’s just the occasional curveball and how our culture handles those situations,” Walsh notes.
“It’s about how we handle those situations and ensuring nothing’s a problem and we move on and get on with it.
“We talk about being confident that no matter what’s thrown at us, we can do it or someone’s not playing, someone else will set up.”
The latest innovation was getting each player wearing earbuds in headgear as they trained to prepare for the raucous Stade de France crowd.
The headgears continued specialised audio clips of sledges, crowd noises and chants designed to limit their communication on field.
“I think he just wants us to be prepared for anything that might come our way when we get to the game,” Caslick said.
“He always throws out some random scenarios that might possibly happen…Even the other day, we played some games against Brazil and I don’t think it was on purpose but we started warming up 15 minutes early and then had to sit around as if there’d been a delay.
“He’s been making us wear headgear with headphones in and has the sounds of the crowd booing is to get used to us communicating if we can’t hear each other whether that’s with hand signals or just making sure we’re all on the same page.”
The Australian side has won everything they could possibly achieve in the past four years.
Except for Olympic gold.
It’s a fire that still burns for those that were there as they underperformed in a disappointing fight place finish.
“It’s a huge drive for us knowing what we’re capable of and what we didn’t achieve in Tokyo,” du Toit said.
“The last three years have ignited the fire in my belly in terms of my training and every day it’s what I’m working towards.
“It’s been a fair while since then and we’ve played in high-pressure moments such as the Commonwealth Games and World Cup so I think performing in those moments gives us plenty of confidence heading into a big stage like the Olympics.”
Walsh understands what the team has gone through from the disappointments, the ‘crunning’ (crying and running) and success.
It underpins his search for any extra one percenters that can take them to champions instead of wondering what could’ve been.
“We’re a whole team or program, the game is won and lost on the field but all the work done prior to that is essential and our whole campaign for the Olympics is not regrets, giving it absolutely everything in terms of our preparation and then playing with courage,” he said.
