Wycliff Palu has revealed some of the different methods Michael Cheika has used to motivate the Waratahs.
Mastercoach Michael Cheika’s multitude of secret motivational techniques to turn the Waratahs from paupers to premiers can now be revealed.
While the story of the golf clubs given to players before the grand final win over the Crusaders last weekend has been well told, it was only one element of Cheika’s unique strategy to build a squad of players used to failure into a champion team.
Long-serving Waratahs backrower Wycliff Palu is one of the best examples of how Cheika’s ideas transformed players. The burly No.8 was forced to walk from Central Station to the Waratahs’ office at Moore Park every day as part of a daily ritual to ensure he didn’t become complacent after a decade at the club.
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“I don’t think I learned too much more as a footy player, it was more about growing as a person,” Palu said.
“There was so much off-field stuff in trying to be better people. We did a lot of work on that.”
“If you look at the results, it must have worked.”
And it all started with “the couch of truth”, where two players would sit in front of their teammates in their office while Cheika set a topic and grilled them on it.
Players were expected to reveal things about themselves that they had never shared before.
Palu was stunned at what he suddenly learned about mates who he had known for years.
“Everyone had to open up and be honest, that’s why it brought everyone a lot tighter, because some of them went pretty deep, everyone really opened up,” Palu said.
“That’s where it all starts, after each couch session he’d give us a little assignment or a project to do.”
“We’d go away, do it and come back and stick it on the wall, so everyone could see.”
“Everyone had different things, mine was to catch the train to the stadium and walk up the hill.”
Palu has been catching the train from Rooty Hill to Central since the start of 2012, but the walk up the hill to Moore Park wasn’t usually a necessity when he could hop in a taxi or jump into the car of a passing teammate.
“I couldn’t catch a cab or get a lift, I’d have to walk up the hill every day,” Palu said.
“I used to do that, but not all the time. So sometimes if I felt a bit sore, I wouldn’t walk up, I’d get a taxi.”
“So I made sure in pre-season that I’d walk up the hill every morning.”
“My outcome was that I never wanted to be comfortable, because I’d been there a long time. I didn’t want to feel like I could just cruise through the year.”
“That was one of the things that kept me working harder.”
“Even most days during the season I was walking up the hill. It was just in the last couple of weeks that I’d catch the train and some of the boys would be driving past and I’d catch a lift.”
“It just kept me honest. I knew that if I wasn’t going to walk up this hill, I was starting to find excuses, I’d start thinking, ‘I’m too old for this, I don’t need this’. And that’s when you start getting too comfortable, complacency starts creeping in, like you’ve already made it.”
There were various assignments handed out by Cheika throughout the year.
“Some guys had to finish off building a deck at home, something they’d planned for ages but never did it,” Palu said.
“So they had to have a daily ritual just to get that done.”
“For other guys the rituals were around studies at university.”
Then there were the mini trophies Cheika pulled out in the change-rooms before certain key matches.
“We saw the Chiefs as the hardest working team in the comp, and that was one trophy we wanted to get,” Palu said. “We went into that game wanting to outwork them.”
“We had a little cowbell, because their fans always ring the cowbell. They were the hardest working team off the ball.”
“We ended up winning, so Cheik let us ring the cowbell in the dressing room afterwards.”
“Physicality was a big hammer. For the Brumbies game at ANZ Stadium, he brought that in.”
“We won the game, but he felt we didn’t work hard enough, he didn’t think we won that trophy, so he didn’t give it to us.”
“In the last game, he brought in all of them, the cowbell, the hammer, the golf clubs. They were all sitting up there.”
It sounds like the antics of the shrewd coach in a Hollywood production, who turns a hapless group of footballers into fairytale winners, and the same thoughts went through Palu’s head when he lifted the trophy.
“I had small thoughts in my head, like this is too good to be true,” Palu said.
“It’s like you’re watching a movie, Remember The Titans kind of stuff.”
“For me, just the look on everyone’s face was the most special thing. I thought it just affected our team, winning, but to see the crowd, all the people who work behind the scenes at the Tahs, they were just so happy for us.”
“It touched everyone, affected everyone in a big way.”