NEWS AND RESEARCH UNIKEN August 2003 • 9

Swan song for opponents, thanks to judo training
by Christine Kearney
For that critical advantage in tackling, rucks and sideline throw-ins, the Sydney Swans have turned to an unusual quarter – judo.
    For the past three years, UNSW judo coach and former Olympian Warren Rosser has been coaching the Swans.
    Rosser was initially brought in to work with the team on their tackles. “We did a lot of entries into tackles because a lot of their tackling training wasn’t specific to how they actually tackle. I think it has paid off because they are the best tackling team in the competition. They really know how to use their bodies to take someone down,” he said.
    The Swans were so pleased with Rosser’s approach that they asked him to come back last season and this season.
    UNSW arts student and Swans key forward, Scott Stevens, said judo has made him more aware of balance and distribution of weight in body contact “especially with the big guys [who] try to take marks and wrestle with you”.
    Star Swans full-forward Barry Hall said the training has also helped their backline. “A lot of our backline players are lighter than their opponents, so it’s pretty important, just knowing how to use their weight properly,” he said.
    “You can be in a situation which is pretty hard to get out of sometimes, and this is		 teaching you a different way to get out of it, to make an advantage out of something that’s not,” said Hall.
    Rosser said the judo principles he teaches the players are adding to a more traditional football skill base.
    “In judo, we’re looking at the technique of getting the transfer of power into another person’s body so that they go down on their back. All I do is relate this to how it works in football.
    “Last year we were able to analyse with ruckman Ricky Mott his opposing players, body type and how they move. Some stood too wide and were easily knocked off balance and others were more mobile and so we had to look at a strategy to stop their mobility,” he said.
    While it’s natural for players to stiffen up in some body contact with opponents, Rosser said he’s trying to teach them to work with the flow of power rather than resist it.
    “The other thing is the timing, to know when to push and when to shove, feeling the movement of the person’s body.
    “Blind people in judo, when they make contact with a person’s body, they can feel their opponent's balance. On the field the players are almost blind because their perspective is looking at the ball and field placement,” he said.
Scott Stevens (left) and Swans full-back
Andrew Schauble at a judo training session.
Professors and partners don Cambridge robes again
School of English professors Christine and Peter Alexander have returned to Cambridge University to take up two prestigious fellowships.
    The pair are no strangers to Cambridge – they met and married as PhD students at the University and will be based at their original colleges of Clare Hall and Christ’s College.
    Peter Alexander has been appointed Christ’s College’s sole distinguished visiting scholar for 2003-04. He will be writing a book on biographical theory while in Cambridge,		 and will deliver lectures for the College, drawing on his experience of five literary biographies, including his controversial and popular biography of Les Murray. He will also deliver one of the Lady Margaret Beaufort Lectures offered by Christ’s College.
    Christine has been appointed visiting fellow for Clare Hall, where she completed her PhD on the juvenile writing of Charlotte Brontë.
    She will also be in the UK when her new Oxford Companion to the Brontës is		 launched, probably at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Yorkshire.
    Speaking just before they left to take up their fellowships, Christine said the pair met at an English literature seminar in their first week at Cambridge. “He was from South Africa and I was from NZ. It was a great place to meet and work, and we eventually married there in Christ’s College Chapel.”