The NFL played its first regular-season game in Australia on Thursday, September 10, and the San Francisco 49ers made it look like an ordinary week at work.

In front of 100,021 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the 49ers beat the Los Angeles Rams 27–7. Brock Purdy threw three touchdown passes: a 39-yarder to DeMarcus Robinson, a touchdown to Mike Evans, and a 45-yard score to Deebo Samuel. The Rams' only touchdown came on a 5-yard run by Kyren Williams.

Unfamiliar everything, same job

Almost nothing about the setting was normal for an NFL team. A different country, a stadium built for cricket and Australian rules football, a crowd experiencing the sport's regular season live for the first time, and a trip of roughly a full day's travel from the West Coast with a body clock pointing the wrong way.

The field, though, was the same size. The plays were the same plays. The divisional rival across the line was a team both sides know extremely well.

That is the useful idea in a game like this. When the environment changes, the teams that cope are rarely the ones trying to rise to a special occasion. They are the ones who lean on the routine that works everywhere.

Routine is what travels

  • Anchor to what does not change. New surroundings are distracting. The fundamentals of the job are identical, and focusing there shrinks the unfamiliar part down to scenery.
  • Treat a big stage as a normal rep. A record crowd and a historic first are reasons for excitement. They are not reasons to play differently than you practised.
  • Let preparation carry the pressure. Composure on a big night is mostly the result of work done on unremarkable days beforehand.

The takeaway for everyone else

Most of us face our own version of the Melbourne game: a new job, a first big presentation, a move to a new city, a performance somewhere that feels bigger than usual. The instinct is to treat it as a moment that demands something extra.

Usually it demands the opposite. Do the thing you already know how to do, the way you always do it, and let the occasion be the backdrop rather than the headline.

For a coach who built a dynasty on exactly that idea, read John Wooden Taught Them How to Put On Socks.

Sources: ESPN, Netflix Tudum.