How Trent Robinson’s Sydney Roosters build mental toughness

Sydney Roosters coach has embraced a mixture of sport and spirituality to drive his team to greater heights.

Trent Robinson, centre back, and members of the Sydney Roosters squad during their annual physical and mental challenge inNew Zealand’s Southern Alps last November.

Every summer Trent Robinson takes his team into the wilds of New Zealand’s Southern Alps and makes them feel some kind of insane physical pain.

Robinson and his men have carried logs for hours on end and not slept for 30 or more hours while involved in commando-style training. They’ve faced physical challenges that have left the hardest souls in the group getting up in Robinson’s grill and stating: “I am never doing that again.”

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Why Robinson takes them here is not just about making his team hurt — it is really all about the mind. Robinson has taken them to the foot of these mountains for the past four pre-seasons to help himself and his team discover, as he puts it, more about “who they are”.

Robinson has never opened up on the intricacies of these camps or some of the powerful mind tactics he has employed in his highly successful reign as Roosters coach, but today he shares with The Weekend Australian what is clearly a key component to their recent dominance of the NRL competition, including winning three premierships in seven seasons.

“We play a hard-nosed footy style, we pride ourselves on the tough physicality principles we play the game with, but then there’s also that personal development,” Robinson said.

“That is, as a footy club, we offer them experiences so they can understand who they are a bit more. I feel like we’ve really tried to do more and more in the last few years. That is, give these players and staff an understanding of; ‘hang on, who am I as a person?’

“And, if I understand who I am, then I will offer the best of me to the group, build the bonds you need to play footy, then I will in turn be a great teammate, a great husband and father.

“Because if you skip that part, and you go to just ‘who are we as a team’, then you are missing the point. You have got to offer the individual some learnings.

“I think in sport and in general people are getting better at that, and we are too.”

Sydney Roosters players on a training camp in Queenstown last year.

On these trips to the Southern Alps Robinson has regularly employed members from the army to guide his players but he has also invited members of the local wellness retreat Aro Ha, to help his team. While Robinson is private about many experiences, one he is willing to publicly talk about, that had a solid effect on his group, was with Aro Ha co-founder Damian Chaparro.

Chaparro’s work is all about helping people find something that is “missing” — and to “rejuvenate the human spirit” — and this exercise of his is described as “opening and shutting your gate”.

Robinson explains Chaparro took them through an exercise where team members rawly spoke about what makes them shut the gate, that is close down their feelings, and what makes them “open up” to people. They had to speak about when this may have happened to them in footy or life.

“In this exercise we had to build trust with a partner. Damian spoke to us about ‘opening up your gate’ or closing your gate, understanding how to open up your gate to trust people in relationships around you, be it your footy teammate, your partner or whoever that person was, to understand how to open that up and create a real trust between each other,” Robinson said. He felt the exercise built trust that still resonates with most of the team today.

Trent Robinson at Sydney Roosters training on Friday. Picture: John Feder

Of course, not everything Robinson has steered the group into will work for everyone.

“There’s a lot I have suggested that even before it has even come out of my mouth I have thought ‘I don’t think we should do this’,” Robinson said, laughing.

But the bond they now have, and the fact he has been an immensely successful coach at just 42, means he can create an environment where “wild” ideas can be tossed up: “As a young coach you feel like you should just stay in your lane, just coach the attack and defence and do some simple stuff, but the longer you go the more open you get to opening yourself and others up to different experiences.”

Robinson might be cast by some as a “different” character in rugby league but really what he is doing is what more and more clued up elite coaches and players are executing — to great success.

Sport has moved into an age where footy teams such as current AFL premiers Richmond employ a mindfulness coach and are willing to “get deep” rather than run away from feelings.

Tennis world No 1 Ashleigh Barty often talks about “vulnerability” and “authenticity” as reviving her career and also has a performance coach — Ben Crowe.

Then there’s Origin winning coach Brad Fittler encouraging his NSW players to walk barefoot on the grass to “absorb the minerals” and embrace meditation — with great success.

Robinson is all about evolving, “sprinkling” diversity in his work, and he believes the Roosters, after going back-to-back, can go on and get even better.

One of the texts Robinson is currently reading is Matthew Syed’s book Rebel Ideas — The Power of Diverse Thinking, which kind of triggered him to employ former Wallabies coach Michael Cheika on his staff.

He had already employed mind coach “Brad”, also known as Bradley Stubbs, for the same reason — to make him uncomfortable, think differently, get better.

“I do think we can get better over the coming years so I want people around me who are seeing it through different eyes, which is why Cheik comes in and does what he does,” Robinson said.

“Cheik sees it through different eyes. It is the same as Brad — he sees it through a different lens.

“They both have different ideas that challenge you on what you are doing.”

“I feel like we’ve set up a good program here at the Roosters but sometimes you can’t always see how you can get better so you need people outside the program to come in.”

Speaking of outsiders, there was some outside noise generated by one unnamed NRL coach that Robinson’s three premierships were actually “Nick’s” — as in wealthy Roosters chairman Nick Politis. When this criticism is raised, Robinson doesn’t buy in.

“Why would someone want to comment in that way? That would say they are uncomfortable,” Robinson said.

“Who cares. I don’t have an issue with that. Put it on whoever you like. Call it Sonny Bill’s premiership, call it Nick’s, call it Cooper Cronk’s. Whoever, as long as we keep doing well, it’s my belief that’s where it comes from.”

It’s no surprise that Robinson meditates daily. Diarises his goals and intentions. Goes trekking for days at a time — by himself. He prompts his players and staff to do some offbeat activities and read texts they normally wouldn’t.

But at the heart of it Robinson says it’s not just kickstarting the self-discovery that has driven the Roosters to become the benchmark of the competition.

The Roosters coach said, at the heart, it was about withstanding the pain. He said leaders such as Boyd Cordner, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Jake Friend, Mitch Aubusson and Cooper Cronk have upheld a culture that thrives on pain and resilience. A culture where players don’t look for an “out” when the going gets insanely tough on the field but are “looking for more pain” as a collective.

“You have to hurt together,” Robinson said.

“Sure we do things people would see as a little bit on the edge and different and that is just working its way into sport more, the spiritual side, but in the end you’ve got to work hard,” he said.

“If you are not going to work hard, be uncomfortable together and do it often, then that trust won’t build”.