I spent a decade riding the professional rugby rollercoaster. One lesson from one man has stuck with me more than any other.

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Recently, I shared about how Jake White was the architect of my favourite environment in rugby, the 2012-13 Brumbies.

He assembled an amazing group of staff, and I learned something from all of them.

But there's one lesson from Jake that's stuck with me more than any other.

One day we were in a team meeting watching footage from the weekend's game when one of the backs missed a tackle.

Normally a coach would point to the tackler's technique or commitment and say something like: "Your shoulders in the wrong spot" or "You gotta hit harder".

But Jake paused the footage and said: "Boys ... you are not seeing the full picture."

Then he rewound the film.

"The defender missed the tackle because he had to move late to his right. And he had to do that because the defender inside him was late into position."

(For non-rugby fans: the best tackles happen when defenders can move straight off the line. But you can only do that when the players beside you are in the right spot.)

Jake rewound it further.

The inside defender had been late because he had gotten sucked into a ruck he shouldn't have gone to.

Jake rewound it again.

He'd gone to the ruck to help complete a tackle. And he had to do that because the person........

© Canberra Times