Profiling for serious athletes.
The CVMP (cricket), FVMP (AFL), and parallel versions for netball, basketball and hockey are structured profiling instruments built for senior school, pathway, and adult athletes. They organise reflection across eight dimensions informed by coaching practice. The instruments have not been formally psychometrically validated and are not intended to predict performance or support selection decisions.
The profile does not predict who makes it. It shows you where the work is.
A self-serve Profile tier is also available as the entry-level read, a separate online questionnaire with a written report, $79. Begin the Profile →
What these instruments are actually for
The CVMP and FVMP were built by the practitioner who uses them, drawing on fifteen years of assessing cricketers and footballers at elite level and working from established sport psychology frameworks. They are intended to structure reflection within a coaching conversation.
The output is not a pass-fail. It is not a selection tool. It is a structured read of where a player currently sits across eight psychological dimensions, response-style checks and pattern summaries to explore with a practitioner. These do not establish honesty or predict future performance.
Used properly, the profile does three things: it gives the player a language for what they already sense about themselves, it gives the coach a defensible structure for conversations that used to be instinct-only, and it gives the practitioner a map for the individual work that follows.
The practitioner cricket version uses Team Orientation; the self-serve Profile uses Tactical Orientation. AFL practitioner labels also differ by sport. Compare results within the same instrument and version.
What the profile measures
The dimensions below describe the self-serve Profile. Practitioner instruments have sport-specific labels and item banks, including Team Orientation in cricket and a separate AFL taxonomy. The versions should not be treated as interchangeable.
Competitive Drive
The appetite for direct one-on-one contest. Wanting the ball, wanting the strike, wanting the match-ending moment.
Tactical Orientation
How a player thinks about the game situation. Reading the context. Choosing the right option rather than the instinctive one.
Adversity Response
What happens after a mistake, a dismissal, a turnover, or a run of outs. The capacity to recover and re-engage.
Identity Anchoring
Where the player's sense of self sits. Tied to the scoreboard, or anchored in values and behaviours that the scoreboard cannot touch.
Growth Beliefs
Whether ability is seen as fixed or developable. How feedback is received. How discomfort in training is treated.
Connection & Belonging
The player's read of their role in the group. Capacity to contribute to team cohesion. Willingness to make others better.
Process Commitment
Attention to the controllable. Preparation standards. Whether behaviour under pressure follows a trained routine or defaults to the scoreboard.
Values Clarity
Alignment between the player's stated values and their visible behaviour. The gap between "who I say I am" and "who I act like under pressure."
What the profile actually produces
The output is not a single number or a personality label. It is three distinct layers, each of which does different coaching work.
A normalised score on each of the eight dimensions, zone-classified red / amber / green / gold. This is the base layer: where the player currently sits across the architecture. It is the easiest part of the profile to read and the easiest part to misuse, because the scores on their own do not tell you what matters most for this player at this moment.
A count of responses that demonstrate willingness to acknowledge tension, imperfection, and honest self-assessment rather than choose the flattering option. High self-awareness in a profile is a leading indicator of coachability. Low self-awareness is a leading indicator that the surface scores should be treated with caution.
Response-style and consistency indicators highlight answers to explore with the player. They are not proof of honesty or dishonesty and have not been validated as lie detection.
Underneath those three layers sits a fourth output: cross-dimension pattern detection. Eight specific interaction patterns (e.g. Fragile Performer, Capable Avoider, Compliant Operator) that emerge from combinations of dimension scores. These patterns are prompts for coaching discussion; they have not been validated as predictions of future performance.
Built for senior school and pathway
Senior school programmes
First XI and First XVIII squads at independent schools with meaningful senior programmes. The profile sits inside the annual schools programme as the data foundation that anchors the season's coaching work.
Pathway and rep cricketers and footballers
State academy, under-age rep, private school First XI, AFL-Academy-adjacent players. The genuine pathway conversation where psychological architecture is the differentiator.
Individual athletes in development
Players and their families who want a structured read of where the psychological work is, and a coaching plan built off the back of it. Profile plus debrief plus follow-up sessions.
Coaches wanting a defensible read
Head coaches and Directors of Cricket / Football who rely on instinct to read their squad and want the instinct cross-checked against structured data before making a squad call or having a difficult conversation.
The profile is not a selection tool, a diagnostic instrument, or a substitute for clinical assessment. It is a coaching instrument. Used by a trained practitioner, for specific coaching purposes, inside a broader programme of work.
What actually happens
- Assessment. Your practitioner chooses a sport- and age-appropriate questionnaire. Item banks differ by version; the self-serve Profile is a separate questionnaire. Complete it at your own pace and discuss the responses in context.
- Scoring. The practitioner reviews the raw data, the dimension scores, the credibility flags, and the cross-dimension patterns. The full profile is generated.
- Debrief with the player. A structured 45 to 60 minute conversation walking the player through what the profile is showing. The player leaves with a language for what they already half-knew, and a clear read of where the work is.
- Coaching plan. From the debrief, a structured follow-up: individual sessions, integration with the coach's training environment, and review points. The profile is not the destination. It is the starting point.
- Re-assessment (optional). Longitudinal tracking. The same instrument, re-run six to twelve months later, shows the direction and rate of change. This is where the profile earns its keep over time.
What the profile is not
A few things worth being explicit about. The CVMP and FVMP are practitioner-built instruments drawn from established sport psychology frameworks and fifteen years of pattern recognition at elite level. They are not formally psychometrically validated in the academic sense. They have not been through an independent reliability-and-validity study.
The scores and pattern summaries are coaching hypotheses to explore with the athlete, rather than established predictions or diagnostic findings. Their usefulness should be judged in the context of the conversation and the athlete’s own experience.
If a formal validated instrument is what you need for a research setting or a regulated context, these are not the right tools. If a practitioner-grounded read of a player's psychological architecture, in service of coaching, is what you need, they are.
Frequently asked
How long does the assessment take?
Can players fake their responses?
Who sees the results?
Is it a selection tool?
How young can a player take it?
How often should it be re-taken?
Can a player take it without being part of a school programme?
Also relevant
Enquire about profiling
Schools, individual players and families, and coaches wanting a defensible read of their squad. Get in touch and I will walk you through a live anonymised example before you commit to anything.
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