Alan Pardew has called in the England rugby union head coach, Eddie Jones, to ensure complacency does not creep into his Crystal Palace squad over what remains of the Premier League season as the club revel in the thought of an FA Cup final to come.
Palace are eight points clear of the relegation zone but not yet mathematically safe. They visit Pardew’s former club, second-bottom Newcastle United, on Saturday seeking to secure the points needed to guarantee their top-flight status.
Pardew and Jones share mutual friends, including the sports psychologist Jeremy Snape, with the Australian invited to Palace’s Beckenham training base on Thursday to speak to the academy coaches and the senior squad as they prepared for the trip to St James’ Park. “He had a few words to the team about complacency and what good teams do,” said Pardew, whose side have won once in the league over the past 18 matches.
“The most important point he made was that great teams can get to finals but great teams only win finals if they’re great all the time. We have to be great this Saturday. That was the key point I took from him. We can’t turn up at Newcastle and let our standards slip from Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final otherwise we’re doing a disservice to our fans and ourselves.
“Eddie came in and spent the morning with us, speaking to the academy coaches and to some of the senior players like Paddy McCarthy, who wants to be a coach in the future. Then he came on to the training pitch and addressed the starting XI. It was very kind of him to do that. He gave a lot of examples of how communication between the team and the coaches is important, and the players just absorbed it.
“It’s nice to hear it from somebody from a different genre, a different field, who carries the weight he does. We’ve been quite close since he came over here [to take up the reins of the national side last December] and a lot of the views he has on trying to get more from individual players and the group run parallel with my own.
“It was good timing getting him in, what with the result we had on Sunday. He’s the coach of England rugby and involved in World Cups with other nations, a multicultural personality and someone who is engaging. If they can’t take on his comments then we are in trouble.”
Pardew has used Snape regularly this season, as he has at previous clubs, and maintained the theme by inviting Teddy Sheringham in to speak with the academy coaches on Thursday afternoon. While Jones has mooted the idea of a reciprocal arrangement with a visit to the England rugby setup, the Palace manager admitted he gained personally from the Australian’s involvement.
“We could share a couple of issues we both have as managers: looking after players and problems; lightning bolts which strike you like injuries... things he does in communication with his players that are interesting for me. There are a couple of things that are crossovers between the sports.”
