It’s a difficult thing to know when a player should move on: McLeod

“Talent wins games but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

It’s a phrase Shane McLeod doesn’t just say; it’s the motto he lives by and is a big reason for Belgian hockey head coach prioritising his team over an individual talent, regardless of how brilliant it may be.

In an era of quick results, fickle patience levels and sky-high expectations, McLeod is a throwback to the old times when a coach was more than just the man with the whiteboard and a plan. The 57-year old New Zealander, who has been at the helm of Belgian men’s hockey for more than a decade now, is as much a soft-spoken father figure to the players as the firm taskmaster entrusted with the team’s fortunes.

And he has delivered the goods, creating the golden generation of Belgian hockey with results burnishing his reputation — Olympic, World Cup and European Championship titles along with multiple medals at the aforementioned events.

But McLeod’s association with hockey goes a lot further back than 2015, when he took charge of the side. Having played at the highest level for New Zealand and coached them through two Olympic cycles, he was also in charge of the Belgian women’s team for four years before moving to Waterloo Ducks club.

With the country co-hosting the 2026 World Cup for the first time with the Netherlands, McLeod is keen on ensuring the legacy continues with a new generation coming through in an interaction with The Hindu:

You’ve been with them for a long time now, how has Belgian hockey developed over years?

There’s a couple of things that work very well in Belgium. One, they have a very strong domestic competition. The clubs are strong and each week they play a very high standard of hockey. Alongside, there is the Be Gold programme. It is a project to prepare players for integration with the senior national teams.

The programme captures a lot of talented kids from each of the clubs at the Under-14, Under-16, Under-18 levels and tries to get them into as high a high-performance programme as is suitable for that age group while also taking care of their education. What we see is players coming through with good skills but more importantly a desire to play for the Red Lions, and then we pick them up and try to grow them a bit further.

Shane McLeod.
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FILE PHOTO: BISWARANJAN ROUT

How different is it from New Zealand and what makes it unique among the rest of European nations?

The location of Belgium, it’s kind of the perfect storm. So in a weekend, you can play Germany and Holland and England and Spain, your access to top hockey is great. New Zealand is a paradise but it’s an island and it takes a long time to get that type of competition. It’s also expensive; if you want to play those types of teams, you have to fly over to Europe and base yourself there for a period of time. Also Belgium is a small country, we can run a centralised programme with the benefits of players still living at home and that means a lot, because high performance is not necessarily a balanced life. If we can make it as balanced as possible, we try to do that.

How do you see the team changing over the years? It’s practically the third generation since you took over, all playing together, how do you see the players changing?

We’ve been lucky to have that kind of three generational type of team for quite some time and the reason we’re lucky is you kind of grow through the team. So you start off as a newbie and you’re learning the trade, you’re learning how to be disciplined, you’re learning the lifestyle that’s needed to be lived to be a high performing athlete and that is role-modelled by the oldest guys. They become the statesmen and they mentor, they guide the youngsters as they come in and they set the standards, and so it kind of becomes a conveyor belt of producing good players but also good players that have the right values and strive to be the best that they can.

So how important are the seniors, not just as role models on field, but in terms of having a lifestyle that suits a professional athlete at an elite level?

Very important. They kind of illustrate that it can work and that if you put in the effort, you can get there and if you don’t have that type of role-modelling, then it’s always a bit of a mystery. One of the questions a young athlete comes in with is, is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifices that you have to make as a high performing athlete? And when they see the life that the older players live, how mature they are, what they’ve gained from hockey and being in our culture and our environment, it gives them confidence that they are on the right path.

Belgium coach Shane McLeod talks to his team during a Pro League match in 2019.
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Does it also put pressure on the seniors? Because the youngsters get to learn a lot but at the same time, the senior players know that the more they give, the easier it will be for the youngsters to push them out.

There’s a super nice Greek saying, ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees that they will never sit under’. It’s a bit like that. I think they are the ones that have gone through this and stepped aside, they’re really proud of what they’ve left behind, and they hope the next generation will take their turn to do the same thing. It’s a very giving and very supportive culture that we try to create. And, you know, that’s kind of where we are and why we are who we are.

And are you proud of being a part of creating this giving culture in the side?

Yeah, but I’m only a little part of it. Some of your questions reveal how easy my role becomes sometimes, because a lot of the coaching and support gets done from within the group and by the group itself and I’m the guardian of it in a way. I just keep the vision clear and make sure that we don’t derail along the way, when we’re in pressure situations, that’s when you see the character of the group come through.

And how do you see your own role, given that a lot of younger coaches are coming into the sport now? Do you see yourself also under pressure as a coach?

Well, I look old and I’ve been around hockey for a long, long time but I’m not that old! But yeah, is it a young man’s role? I think there’s an energy that comes from youth and you need to have energy to drive programmes. If there’s an area where I feel I need support, I’m more than willing to reach out. I’ve got a young staff who are incredibly talented and maybe they drive a bit of that energy. But I’d hope that because of my experiences and things like that, I bring a wisdom and a kind of comfort that we’re heading in the right direction.

A lot of people don’t realise that hockey is a technology-heavy sport. How important or easy or difficult is it for a coach to also stay updated?

Oh, you kind of get swept along with it. Like, how we communicate with our young athletes has changed since I first started, the groups and they take a lot of media. To give a simple example, it’s quite easy for us to send a game plan or some reminders to their phones and they can plan when they do that. We certainly still keep team meetings but just for some logistic things, it becomes very easy. And I’d like to think that I’m not leading the way in tech-savviness but I hope I’m keeping up!.

A lot of talk at the elite level, at some point or the other starts revolving around finding replacements for a senior player. Age, fitness, skills, instincts, what do you think matters most?

It’s a whole thing and not simple because what people often have a window into how a team is doing is the 60 minutes they watch. But there is a whole hidden world behind and it’s very difficult to see what a senior player brings to a group of younger players. if you only watch that 60 minutes Everyone wants to see how things are going and in our sport, like every sport, everyone’s a coach, a selector, everyone has an opinion but the only thing they don’t have is that day-to-day connection with what’s actually going on. And they shouldn’t have, There’s a bit that needs to happen behind the scenes and that’s why it’s such a difficult thing to know when a player should move on or not, it’s really a balancing act.