TRAIN LIKE YOU PLAY/GAME SENSE - WHAT DOES IT ACTUALLY MEAN?

The aim of training is to in part simulate game conditions in some shape or form.

I'm down with that.

Game sense, although sounding similar, is probably a more specific way to go about game stimulation in specific situations or skills required at a specific time - think the Western Bulldogs crazy handball training from 2016.

That's at the top end where training is state of the art, coaches are a plenty and talent is oozing out of everyone's ears.

At local/amateur level it's completely different.

We have players at such various levels in regards to 4 co-actives of performance that training can ebb and flow from nice and crisp to just downright nasty in regards to how it looks.

NOTE 1 - The 4 co-actives are psychical, psychological, technical and tactical and EVERY training should incorporate as many of these as it can

NOTE 2 - Training doesn't, and shouldn't, always look clean because that means the group as a collective is not being challenged

Have a think about most of the footy training drills you've ever done in your life - it's all about workrate (physical) most of the time irrespective of everything else (psychological, technical, tactical).

Sure we want the skills to be clean but with such a varying degree of skill level between your best player and you're worst player on any given training night, it's hard to enforce 100% technical success in team drills.

At L/A level you should aim to get at least 2 co-actives in every drill.

I'll take an example from my own team training last night.

We broke up into groups of 5 and did a little 4 v 1 keeping's off drill.

Pretty simple stuff but what my group did was has the 4 blokes on offense stand in a square formation.

WTF?

I was moving around trying to create and run into space (tactical/pschological/physical/technical) and they wanted to simply stand on the spot (technical at most).

I instructed them to move around like in a game but they said "all the other groups are doing it" of which I almost lost my shit.

So a game sense type drill designed to hit multiple co-actives (all 4 potentially) soon turned into yet another closed-drill with zero decision making taking place and also a very inefficient one, with only 20% of the team actually doing anything at the 1 time.

Breaking up into small groups is meant to increase training density, not decrease it.

As a coach, your aim should be make up, or modify existing training drills, that hit at least 2 co-actives.

As a player, during closed drills (cone to cone drills with zero opposition = technical only) then you need to find ways to hit another co-active or 2 on your own.

That is how training transfers to playing.