No couch and no hocus pocus

Gilbert Enoka is by turns upbeat, enthusiastic and soothing, but he knows how to turn an awkward question aside. Picture / Simon Baker

Good news, everyone. The Black Caps are going to be OK. No, really. I heard it from the guy who's been inside their heads and he says it's all going to be fine.

Sure, they've got a few problems at the moment, what with being constantly trounced, attacked and injured and all. But it's not the end of us as a cricketing nation.

In telling me this at his Christchurch home, Gilbert Enoka, psychologist to the (sports) stars, is upbeat, enthusiastic and soothing. I am soon relaxed and reassured.

It's not until a bit later when I think about exactly what he told me - or didn't tell me - that I realise I have been played by a master of the dead bat.

Yes, he is talking to various cricketers about their performances of late but no, it's not a knee-jerk reaction from New Zealand Cricket to try to do something, anything, to stop the torture.

My questions about the reactive side, how the Black Caps are really feeling right now and Enoka's plan to make them all better, are pushed out to left field or gently blocked with psychological-speak.

"It's interesting with New Zealand cricket, the perception of people outside the goldfish bowl. We're working through a periodised programme which has been long planned in particular stages.

"I'm assessing the environment and looking at how individuals are performing. There's no hocus pocus about it at all."

OK then ...

In simple terms, Enoka says the biggest obstacles athletes face are those inside their own heads.

He won't talk about individuals but nods when I mention Darryl Tuffey's poor series performance, capped off by the humiliating 14-ball over at Eden Park last weekend and subsequent axing from the team. Surely there's a chap in need of a couch?

"Well, you know, like always we're working through some issues with various members of the team in all different aspects relating to parts of their performance."

It is clear the former New Zealand volleyballer is used to ducking shots at his profession, from those who hold that "you didn't need that mumbo jumbo in my day". He doesn't think that it is, well, cricket.

"I look at sports psychology as being a spoke on the wheel on the performance enhancement wheel. That sits alongside physiology, things like massage, nutrition, biomechanics and all these are strings that coaches have as sports services to enable the athlete to perform."

"For some reason psychology's the ugly duckling of all those sports sciences because people feel that if you need assistance from a psychological perspective or mental perspective then there's something wrong with you. Why is that? They never question people who are trying to build their muscles on a weekly basis but there's a lot of stigma attached to this whole area. It's a bit annoying at times, yes."

If New Zealand were winning, he adds, he would still be working with the team "but you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me". He has been working with the Black Caps for a long time, not just in preparation for this series against the Australians.

He also works with the All Blacks and various Super 12 teams.

It's a career that developed out of teaching physical education before helping the Silver Ferns with their game, mainly because former coach Leigh Gibbs was also on the staff at his high school.

Then Gibbs recommended him to Wayne Smith, who was with the Canterbury B rugby team, and he also started working with the Canterbury Rams basketball team. "So it all took off from there."

Enoka is a sports star in his own right too, having represented New Zealand in volleyball for 10 years "a long time ago".

With two-thirds of a PhD under his belt he now defines sports psychology as "assisting the coach and the athlete to use their minds to assist their performance".

Developing programmes and methods to help the athlete to work out how to get the best out of him or herself, and how to best deal with personal success and failure before it happens, is the proactive part of his sports psychology business.

It's not for everyone, this psychology lark, and Enoka accepts that. But times change - "We don't hand out oranges at half time any more either" - and surely anything is worth a try.

Having failed to catch him out on cricket, I ask about more pressing matters. Where is your couch?

"I don't have a couch. Another assumption about psychology which is perpetuated by the media. I don't have a lead pendulum either. No pendulum, no couch. My clients sit in that chair right where you are."

And that's rather excellent because my netball team is having a little confidence crisis right now and I want to know how to fix it. We have one round left before the playoffs and look in danger of being at the bottom of the table.

"It all depends on the outcome you want," Enoka tells me.

"Well, I want to win," I respond earnestly, to which he roars with laughter. I am confused.

He tells me winning the game is not always the best result.

"What about the performance? Are you punching above your weight as much as possible? Because if you are, if the whole team is, then you should walk away from the game with a sense of achievement. A great sense of achievement."

I firmly insist that I just want to win and he relents and gives what sounds like solid advice - make sure each player chooses one task for the game and does it better than ever before. If we all do that, we will play well and the outcome will take care of itself.

When I leave, happy with my free advice, I mull it over on the way home until I wonder if he's just told me to play really hard and hope for the best, which has actually been our game plan so far anyway.

Enoka lives in a nice Christchurch suburb with his wife, Michelle, who is happy he has cut back his workload so he can spend more time with his family. She is not interested in sport "not at all, not one little tiny bit", which Enoka says is very refreshing and very grounding.

"You come back from a tour overseas where things might have gone wrong and everyone's unhappy about it and the media's been giving everyone a hard time, and Michelle will say, 'Hello dear, was the tour good?"'

That is not to say she keeps right out of it. Despite cutting out his other clients to be able to concentrate fully on the Black Caps, the All Blacks and the Super 12 squads, every now and then Enoka will look in his diary and find he is scheduled to some new individual athlete.

"People have me sussed. They ring Michelle and tell her their story and she goes ahead and books them in."

The doorbell goes and "one of Michelle's" has arrived for a session.

Enoka shoos me away but not before reiterating his advice for my netball team. He offers to "bring the couch down to the game" and threatens to yell things like "you need a shrink" if we play badly.

I have promised to call him with the result but I'm a quick study and I think two can play at his game. Win or lose, I'll be telling him that sport was definitely the winner on the day.