Brace yourself. A little burst of former Australian cricket coach Justin Langer with your Weet-Bix?
“I’m very self-aware,” Langer told the BackChat Sports Show this week while discussing the player revolt which saw him lose his position. “My greatest weakness without question is that I hate losing. I did as a player, I did as a coach ... When we lose I go quiet because I’m actually very introverted. I’m a thinker, I’m curious, I wonder how we can get better, so I go very quiet.”
Justin Langer during his days as Australia coach.Credit:Getty
Exhausted yet? Langer isn’t.
“I don’t rant and rave and get angry, but I go very quiet,” he went on, and on. “And then people, when I go quiet because I’m meant to be the tough guy, even though I’ve got four beautiful kids, I love them, I love my garden, I love meditating, I’m the tough guy.
“That’s perception, he’s the martial artist and all that sort of shit. So, when I go quiet people go ‘oh he’s not approachable’ and I go ‘yeah ok, that’s just after the game, give me 24 hours to absorb it all and work out how we can get better.’”
Bloody hell. I humbly submit that in just that quick burst, you can get a clue of what the Australian cricketers were on about. He says he’s “self-aware.” Does it not look to you like “self-absorbed and earnest enough to kill a brown dog,” might be closer to the mark?
The truth is that Langer, as fine a cricketer as he was, and as good a man as he is, simply wore the team out. They were exhausted by him, by his earnestness, his speeches, his mood swings. Four years of it! On the road for as many as eight months of the year.
Did the press pick up on that? Of course, they did. Does this mean that the likes of Pat Cummins were specifically backgrounding journalists against the coach? It does not. It means Langer lost the dressing-room, huge, and few observers could be unaware of it.
Worn out: Langer’s words provide insight as to disconnect with players
Brace yourself. A little burst of former Australian cricket coach Justin Langer with your Weet-Bix?
“I’m very self-aware,” Langer told the BackChat Sports Show this week while discussing the player revolt which saw him lose his position. “My greatest weakness without question is that I hate losing. I did as a player, I did as a coach ... When we lose I go quiet because I’m actually very introverted. I’m a thinker, I’m curious, I wonder how we can get........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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