Collingwood psychologist Jacqui Louder has made a huge impact across the last six seasons.
The psych has been credited by Jordan De Goey himself in his career turnaround while she works with the entire playing and coaching list in ongoing mindset training.
With Collingwood winning the 2023 premiership, Louder has come in for praise with the side seemingly able to continuously win close games in big pressure situations and the psychologist herself even plays a role on game day.
While the bulk of her work occurs during the week at the AIA Centre, Louder explained what she’s tasked to do during games with dealing with the tactical sub and the player that’s subbed off first on her agenda.
“I sit on the bench through the game, which I've done the whole time I've been at Collingwood and that’s been player-driven,” Louder told SEN's Sportsday.
“You'll see me sitting there and the poor sub needs to sit next to me which probably doesn't look good when they've got to come off and have to sit next to the psych. But that's just the position the AFL says we have to sit them in, which is the corner.
“(Where I sit) is a great opportunity for whoever's coming on for us to really make sure that they (the sub) are in that headspace so they’re really paying attention to the game.
“Mentally, if you stay in the game when you're on the bench, you transition onto the field a lot better.”
As well as working with the sub, Louder says she’s free to pick her moments during the game while sitting on the bench to make an impact.
On top of providing messaging to players, Louder says she’ll take notes during games to work on certain moments with individuals the following week.
“Then it's picking moments,” Louder said.
“I get to hear the conversations that players are having and quickly reset if they've not remembered a couple of things we've done through the week.
“Then the other opportunity we have is if the coaches need to get messaging to the players and they're not quite sure of what their triggers might be or their resets. I have all that information because I've worked on that with the players.
“We've got access to everything we use through the week and then I'm able to sit there and take some notes on some things that we might want to work on next week because I can hear where our conversations go and watch our emotions through a game.”
Defender Brayden Maynard was open in his praise for Louder after he was initially banned for three weeks following a smother gone wrong which knocked out Melbourne’s Angus Brayshaw in the Qualifying Final win.
Maynard said that Louder made him feel confident and comfortable despite a long ban hanging over his head while she also guided him through his feelings towards the incident and accidentally hurting Brayshaw.
She talked through what her process was with Maynard immediately after the ban came through.
“I think probably if it was my first year at the club, that might have been a little bit harder,” Louder said.
“But I think the players are so used to having me as a resource.
“That week for him it was, ‘What can we control?’ and we don’t shy away from the what ifs.
“I always make the players work through that (the what ifs) and say, ‘If we follow the right process that the AFL makes us complete and if we miss games, we will manage that, and this is how we will do it, and this is what we can expect will happen’.
“If we don't miss games then, ‘These are things we need to factor in as well’.
“I think one of the big things for him was just actually addressing what he was feeling at the time and not letting anything slip by us.”
Louder also runs her own practice out of the Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre and works with the Melbourne Storm and other individual athletes such as Brisbane Broncos superstar Reece Walsh.