GAME INTELLIGENCE PART 1

The crux of this series of posts is about Aussie Rules Football Game Intelligence, what it is, how's it used and how you can develop it with your players and coaches.

Essentially, the better your understanding of the game then the better your decision making can be during the game amist chaos and unpredictablility.

Game intelligence is a product of coaching and experience and if you haven’t been exposed to either then you won’t develop an IQ for the game and this is a coaches responsibility to their players.

Physically we're always thinking that our players need an extra meter on the field but they really need an extra meter it in their heads.

Game intelligence isn't about thinking, it’s about bypassing the thought process and going straight to the action unconsciously.

Training = Thinking

Game = Action

Great soccer coach Johan Cruyff once said "You play sport with your head, and your legs are there to help you," and that's how we need to start thinking at local/amateur levels of football.

Let's now take a look at what elite/experienced players develop and possess as they master the game of Aussie Rules Football.

During training they will observe the actions of those around them activating the brain’s mirror neurons that store information to use later on to either incorporate into their own game, or to predict what their opponent is going to do next.

They can activate more area’s of the brain than novices such as when they see an opponent heading towards them and they are better at anticipating their moves.

Experienced players develop a "checking" system that suppresses the urge to react instinctively. making themselves likely to fall for deceptive movements from the opposition.

Top players watch one another and pick up cues that others can't see while novices watch the ball with the greatest downfall of this being that if you watch the ball too much then you’ll be a low level processor as the ball is the cue, but player movement is what you need to tune into

Once you have optimised your motor skills (kicking, running, handballing etc) then that allows the brain’s cortex to switch off during a game, handing over to the subcortical circuitry, which is much faster and this frees up bandwidth for you to carry out game model based duties - this is known as executive function.

As you'll see in the next post, there's so much going on at all times you need to be able to compartmentalise every little thing that is going on and then attune to the most relevant and important information at that specific moment in time.

The best players don’t just control their emotions, they channel them and in the absence of emotional intelligence, technical/tactical intelligence are rendered useless.