COLLINGWOOD v WEST COAST GAME ANALYSIS

If you caught this game over the weekend then you'd be hard pressed to notice the complete center bounce clearance dominance from the Pies in the 1st half resulting in I think, 7 goals, a Pies record from center clearance.

This video shows 4 instances of Collingwood's dominance here and how they dragged the West Coast defensive/sweeper midfielder out of position to open p the front of the contest - their preferred exit point from all stoppages.

We also have a quick look at Bobby Hill using the subtleties of his direct opposition players' body cues to get the jump on him, even though Hill, his opposition defender and the kicker all knew where the ball going in a very slow play situation. 

For full access to these game clips, register for a level 1 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

MELBOURNE/CARLTON + SYDNEY/FREMANTLE GAME ANALYSIS

Plenty of game clips from this past weekend's games with a heavy focus on Sydney/Fremantle (today) and Collingwood/West Coast (tomorrow) with a couple of others sprinkled in as well.

Today we have look at:

• Melbourne winger Ed Langdon keeping his width at all costs
• Sydney using a short possession enabling them to push their defenders up closer to their goal each time while pulling Freo's forwards back further away from their own goal at the same time
• Sydney applying constant 360 degree pressure to Freo and using high player numbers to do so resulting in can't-lose outnumbering situations
• Hawthorn using outside 5 to man the mark in their own forward 50 and the advantages in doing so

For full access to these game clips, register for a level 1 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

DECIPHERING UMPIRING DECISIONS

Umpiring is the hardest job in football with most decisions being based off interpretations rather then yes or no/right or wrong rules but it require the same basic decision-making framework as players have to use to be successful.

Before I go into detail on this I just want to add some notes I took from the level 2 coaching course I took early this year on the umpiring component, as well as some thoughts of my own mixed in:

• Saturday/Sunday games come under an expectation that it’ll be umpired the same as the AFL game/s the night/s before
• Players often make 4 – 5 errors themselves between umpiring decisions so supporters also need to look that aspect in deciding what cost their teams the game
• Like players, umpires know when they’re having an off day so like you as a player don’t want feedback from everyone on those days, neither do they
• Ruck and midfielders should shake the umpires hand before the 1^st bounce but also on that, umpires don't come into each team's change rooms pre-game like they used to
• Like players, umpires can’t call what they you can’t see unless you want them to guess
• TV angles are not any of the umpire's angles and telecasters should be aware of this and not replay the 1 missed decision from 27 different angles and maybe try and decide which one was closest to the umpires angle and use that one so viewers can somewhat see what the umpire can see
• Just because it's a good tackle doesn't mean it's a free kick

On 360 last night hey had AFL Umpire Nathan Williamson talking about umpires round this week in all community footy as well as going into detail on decision making around holding the ball.

https://twitter.com/FOXFOOTY/status/1788150558978630131

Here are the basic frameworks he laid out and it should be coaches and players aim to understand these processes, so that you can play into and off of them, as well as maintaining your focus on what your doing and not on the umpires during games.

TACKLED WITH PRIOR OPPORTUNITY

1 - Has the ball carrier been tackled legally?

No - free kick against the tackler.

Yes = move to the next step.

2 - Has the ball carrier had prior opportunity?

At this point they take into account is the ball carrier balanced/steady? If no then play on. If yes then holding the ball.

Did they try to fend off, lift the ball up or fake a handball/kick? If yes then that's prior opportunity and holding the ball.

3 - The new addition is the end point of the tackle is now just as important as the actual tackle with the dumping rule in strong effect now so did you take them to ground safely? If no,then free kick against the tackler almost regardless of what happens before hand.

TACKLED WITH NO PRIOR OPPORTUNITY 

Has the the tackle been laid legally? If yes, then move to next step.

Has the ball been knocked out in the tackle? If yes then play on.

If the ball stays in possession of the ball carrier, they must be allowed an opportunity (time or action) to dispose of the ball and during this time the ball carrier needs to show a genuine attempt at doing just that.

If ball carrier makes a genuine attempt but misses the ball, without prior opportunity, then that's play on and this is where coaches/players get the most frustrated - but now you know and instead of whinging about, try to exploit it!

FRONT PRESS DEFENSE TRAINING ACTIVITY

                                                    

Earlier in the week I posted a video clip fro the Sydney Swans showing them executing what I call front press defense, and the 2 most important components to making that work.

Today I present a training activity designed for exactly this, which gives a the baseline version and then the advanced version that I have used with my under 16's team already this year.

For full access to this training activity,register for a level 3 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

SYDNEY FRONT PRESS DEFENSE VIDEO

                               

This short video clip shows Sydney putting the clamps on a GWS handball chain down the SCG wing.

It perfectly shows the 2 components of this tactic being:

1 - Leaving your direct opposition or space to impact the ball receiver/carrier as fast as you can, trusting your teammate/s to also leave their man/space to cover for you

and;

2 - Having runner/s coming from where the ball came from to push hard to get up and then behind the handball chain as we delay the opposition's forward movement, to create what I termed in the video as "the main block".

Tomorrow I'll post a training activity developed especially for this I've used with my under 16's team this year.

For full access to this game clip, register for a level 1 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

THE SKILL-PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIP STUDY PART 2

                                          

Continuing on from yesterday, these notes come from a 30-page long study titled "A Theory on the Skill-Performance Relationship" and looks at how skill and performance are entwined in various parts of life, but I'll keep it sports-related.

There's plenty of notes here that should be able to influence some changes in your coaching approach for the absolute better!

• Embodied cognition shows that memory of long/complex movement series in ballet can be enhanced by "marking" in practice, which is mentally rehearsing them rather then physically doing them, and that last part decreases cognitive load
• Recreation players often try shots that are outside of their ability and thus have very low success rates and are psychologically/ego-driven for social reasons
• Deficiencies in psychological skills leads to anxiety in critical situations which reduces motor coordination and increases rigidity of movements (freezing degrees of freedom), decreasing performance
• As skill improves, additional degrees of freedom are unfrozen, making your action more fluid and then you get more skillful again by then being able to regulate your degrees of freedom along with anxiety and other psychological disruptors/enhances
• Many people experience anxiety in tests and perform lower then they’re actually capable of from a knowledge point of view
• With expertise, skill execution becomes automatic from nonconscious processing but if experts are forced to consciously focus on skill execution, their performance decreases markedly, even to the level of novices
• When conscious thoughts are primed then these cognition's interfere with your well-rehearsed patterns of skilled movements turning fluid into slow, decreasing confidence and thus performance (choking/yips)
• Behavioral execution of skill does not occur in a psychological or social vacuum and is heavily influenced by internal/external factors
• Behavioral execution is also neurologically based where the loss of aversion correlates with performance decline/choking and the deactivation of the ventral striatum at high levels of incentives in skilled tasks
• The deactivation of the ventral striatum appears to mediate the relationship between incentives and performance such that those with more stable neural activity, achieved by not focusing on possible failures, perform better in high-skilled tasks
• Neural preparation for action starts well before intention to act and the action itself is the identification of neural representations of motor plans/encoding movement sequences
• The brain can activate various neural structures associated with action while blocking execution of that action
• Conscious cancelling is possible if it happens 200ms before the movement onset but its unclear how the brain does this
• Performance variance of a group of neurons prior to onset of a motor movement is linked to behavioral variance
• 50% of variance in behavioral performance is neural performance prior to an initiation of the movement suggesting nonconscious opportunities start well before an actual execution of skill and that the more you practice, the more it’s relegated to nonconscious processing resulting in greater efficiency in neural performance and fewer demands for cognitive control
• As performance improves it becomes more automatic and requires less cognitive control
• Continuous practice/application of skill changes the brain structure around that specific movement, and thereby behavioral performance
• Extended practice promotes neural efficiency which then takes less synaptic activity to produce internally generated sequences of movements
• Skill learning strengthens cortical representation of motor movements such as practicing golf swings increasing grey matter density which strengthens neural pathways relevant to the skill bring trained
• Overall performance does not consist of a monolithic performance but a series of separate performances, of un/successful performances
• Initial success forms the basis for momentum that has its roots in self confidence, perceived competence and internal attributions brought about by initial success, leading to a greater perceived likelihood of success and as momentum gains an upward spiral, its power to facilitate continued success increases and becomes more nonconscious in the process, especially in experts with automatic skill
• As sensorimotor skills improve they become increasingly proceduralised/less conscious thus not relying on explicit attention control
• Skillful performers have longer episodes of momentum and they bounce back faster when it breaks down
• When initial success is of high intensity like a big dunk then it gives a rise to high intensity momentum which is conducive to more frequent/more lasting episodes momentum
• In fast-paced sports performers, perceptions go back and forth/fast and continuous, with 1 feeding another so that a sense of momentum reinforces/strengthens perceptions of competence/confidence and likelihood of success, and vice versa - all leading to an upward spiral for more success
• Perceptions are almost completely nonsconscious so that a sense of momentum is experienced without conscious awareness where confidence/skillfulness is only recognised when momentum is lost and attention to conscious efforts to get it back, often leading to a negative momentum and a spiral of deteriorating performance
• When action is not fast-paced it gives more time for conscious thoughts that can interfere with the skill-momentum performance loop
• If individuals/teams have a lasting streak of success going on between different performance days, it may protect them from temporary losses and make negative momentums shorter within 1 performance day
• High skill does not automatically lead to momentum as performers may not be able to utilise their skill to build momentum and also because of the involvement of teammates/opposition