Check the Instagram post from belowe that 4 images to it:
I've tried my hardest for both senior and reserves training drills to not focus on cones and designated targets to receive the ball (cone A kicks to cone B etc) as those types of drills are extremely inefficient in the fact that they only train 1 or 2 of the 4 co-actives.
If you remember the 4 co-actives are physical, physiological, technical and tactical.
Premeditated cone to cone drills has zero tactical component to them and zero decision making components, probably the 2 co-actives you need most on game day.
This makes training transferability to games very poor and then what are you really training for at all then?
Let's have a look at the drills I went with.
DRILL #1 - DIAMOND DRILL
All players start in a pack in the middle then it's a lead sideways that the kicker has to hit by putting the ball in front of the player to run onto and mark.
The marker then pushes back and kicks to the next leader and around we go.
We did 2 versions of this where we started with leads of about 20 - 25m which gives the kicker more space to work with, thus making the kick easier to execute.
After a few minutes I threw some constraints into the mix via the leader now leading at literally 100% sideways where he should be larking at the 10 - 15m mark.
For the kicker, this meant that he had to push back hard and for the kick to get to the leader by the 10 - 15m mark, the kick had to be hard and or low.
The floaty kicks from the longer leads would no longer be suffice because in a game situation, more times then not you don't have all day to sit kicks out there to easily run onto before the opposition can close down that space due to ball air time.
As reserves footballers we're not all blessed with elite kicking skills so I assured them that whether they hit the target or not, the point of this specific drill is to practice low and hard kicks.
We're finals bound a kicks like this for a square up will result in goals more often or not at our level.
DRILL #2 - BACKLINE SWITCH OF PLAY
All year we have been saying if it comes in 1 side we take out of the other but we weren't doing it enough so I made this drill up to train it and for players to get familiar with it.
We had a non-contested stoppage situation and they just hack it into the back 50 where our backline takes the mark then switches out of defense.
The on balers from the clearance pushed to the opposite half back flank/wing to provide extra options for the backline once they've switched the play.
After a while we threw some forward defenders into the mix so the backline players now had to work tactically to make position for the switch of play and also decision making was needed to choose the right target at the right time.
DRILL #3 - STOPPAGE TO FORWARD 50 ENTRY
We split the team into game day player positions so forwards and backs went down to the goal area, and midfielder/wings were up at half forward/wing area.
Our home ground is extremely thin, hence the diagonal kicking drill from above (it's very easy to defend a down the line kick) and we also want to use the fat side for forward entries.
Our home ground is also not very long either so forward pattern leads can also be hard to do in a compacted state so we practice kicking to an area that the forward/s have left open so they can get a good run and jump at it or an uncontested mark.
Stoppage wise we use a quarterback player if needing to go out of the back of the contest which is again most of the time on our ground with all its tininess.
For constraints we threw in an extra forward and defender at times to mix up the forward 50 options as well as a half forward option for a chip kick out of congestion rather than along bomb to whoever.
DRILL #4 - PUT IT AL TOGETHER
Our seniors and reserves break off on a Thursday night and on this particular night we didn't quite have the numbers to do this drill but it's essentially putting the previous 2 drills together.
So you'd set up your 18 on the ground how you would in a game situation where in this case we have a stoppage on the wing area where our mids and wingers are.
We have our back 6 set up to defend which is where the ball goes like the drill above.
The backline, with assistance from the mids/wingers from the stoppage take the ball out of the other side and transition it into our forward 50.
All players are involved in each rep of the drill.
Now to hit the multiple co-actives for this drill because training under pressure does nothing for playing under pressure, ideally you'd have 24 or so players at training so you can have your 18 on the ground and 5 or so to use as defenders in different points of the ground.
So you might do 3 reps each with opposition numbers at the stoppage, then 3 reps with the opposition playing as forwards against our defense as the ball goes in then you might do 3 reps with the opposition playing as defenders against our forwards for the forward 50 entry.
You might scatter the defenders so half are at the stoppage and hald are against the defenders, half as defenders and half as opposition on the far side during the transition, or half as far side transition and defenders in our forward 50.
However you decide to go, the opposition is what will make this drill, and any drill, transferable to games as it involves perception, reaction and decision making of the opposition which specifically guides what you do at what time - nothing can be preconceived for a game as it might only happen once how you mapped it out and then you're majorly under prepared.
Let me know any comments you have on this and if you have any training drills you'd like me to add constraints to send them through.
