They say little white lies never hurt anyone.
And Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan has revealed how a bald-faced fib fired his side to a 20-6 NRL victory over Parramatta on Saturday.
After starting the year at 1-2, Flanagan realised he needed to shake his side out of their post-premiership slump and in two team meetings following their loss to St George Illawarra he delivered a series of stinging assessments.
However, he revealed that the series of home truths he delivered were in fact untruths and his honesty sessions were anything but honest.
"I made that up," Flanagan said.
"I made some stuff up about their forward pack was going to challenge ours, I heard whispers in the hallways. It was just a bit of a white lie there."
On another occasion he presented the players with a series of unflattering stats out of their first three games - mostly to do with metres made and tackle breaks.
"I didn't research it, I just made it up at the time," Flanagan said.
The series of eyebrow-raising statistics led skipper Paul Gallen to call a meeting with his coach.
"It worked," Gallen said of his coach's unusual motivational techniques.
"He did it at the start of the week as well. He got stuck into us about something and it just didn't register with me real well.
"And I actually went and had a meeting with him about it during the week.
"I said 'mate what are you talking about this thing?' And he said 'mate I made it up'."
His rewards were plain to see as the Sharks bounced back from a painful loss to St George Illawarra the week prior with Flanagan praising their resolve and toughness - two traits which characterised their premiership season.
"We know the game we've got to play and the sort of team we've got," Flanagan said
"We saw it a little bit in the Canberra game, we saw it in half a game against Brisbane, last week was disappointing.
"We're back to where we think we were, especially defensively. Today was just typical Cronulla Sharks."
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