AFL KICKING STUDY

                                           

"Bad kicking is bad football"

Considering the sport is called football, it's safe to assume that kicking is a rather important part of the game so when, how and who you kick to does indeed have a mammoth baring on game results.

There is nowhere near enough focus on improving kicking at community level and although I suspect many coaches they are trying to do that at training, they really aren't with the way they designing their training sessions in the short and long term.

Most of what we see is skill, or, technique rehearsal where we receive unopposed, kick to an already pre-determined player in an already pre-determined spot, and then kick unopposed to a player unopposed.

There is no constraints based around space, time, ball location, score or opposition - the main elements that go into decision-making during.

This all leaves players displaying the same skill level season-after-season and zero kicking improvement which is a coaching issues,make no mistake about it.

Coaches not taking this account are leaving so much on the table regarding player development, it's not funny.

The notes taken from this study (I can't find the link for it!) will provide you with an insight of what actually happens in games and then you can go to work on using the same, or similar, constraints at training to dramatically increase your game representation during training and thus, transfer.

• Low kicking effectiveness was associated with physical pressure (35%) v high efficiency emerged when kicking to an open target (70%)
• On average, each player executes a kick every 10mins within an AFL match
• 0 - 2sec time in possession demonstrated a level of 50% effectiveness v a time in possession of 4 – 6secs x 64%
• Match effectiveness was 54%
• There are 4 levels of pressure x closing, chasing, physical or no pressure
• Kick % after a groundball, handball receive or from stoppage all dropped below match average v after a mark or free kick which were above the match average
• A kick under physical pressure from an immediate opposition ranges from 37 – 71% in effectiveness depending on the level of the time in possession
• Under frontal pressure it varies from 43 – 56% based on time in possession
• Kicks over 40m have increased effectiveness with shorter time in possession (0 – 2/2 – 4secs)
• Maintaining possession for between 2 – 4/4 – 6secs for kicks under or over 40m respectively result in the emergence of a higher % of effective kicks so to account for constraint interaction/s, the ranking of 0 – 2sec possesion time was used which showed a 50% kicking efficiency, only 4% below the average
• Kicking efficiency doesn’t show any context of what kicks are being performed by the player
• Short kicks attained by winning the ball in a stoppage, but also under pressure and a time in poss of 0 – 2secs, go at 14.6% efficiency
• Players are more confident kicking over short distances to open targets/from free kick-marks (80 – 90% conversion) v from possession sources in general play (38 – 45%) suggesting players potentially do not have the skill-set to gather/receive the ball under severe time constraints and then kick effectively to a covered target

THE BEST WAY TO RECOVER BETWEEN RUNNING SETS (BUT TOLD NOT TO!)

                                                        

You're knee deep in running at training with lactate being produced faster then it can be utilised and you're just finding any old way to get through until the end.

You hunch over and put your hands on your knees, an unconscious action you didn't purposefully think of, but just did anyway.

The coach yells " stay upright, hands on heads!" while you gasp for oxygen.

Where did this come from?

My opinion is that it is just 1 tiny slice of the ego-oriented coaching of what should be a bygone era that is no longer here - but it is.

If you look tired, even when you are, apparently that's a sign of weakness but it's not, it's a sign of...well...tiredness!

Sorry but this is all bullshit.

If you scour the options from this Google search, you'll find multiple studies dispelling the hands on head myth that it doesn't actually allow you to get more oxygen into the lungs (or whatever you think it does), but it actually does the complete opposite.

In a nutshell, bending places your body an a far more better position to move oxygen through it then hands on head - try running with your arms overhead and let me know how you go.

Here's some data I took yesterday during my own running session.

My session consisted of running a specific distance in a specific time (15secs) with specific rest, so there were no anomalies in the session design.

I ended up doing 40 sets of runs alternating sets of 10 with standing rest with 10 sets of hands on knees rest.

For all sets my aim is to get to 107 beats per minute or lower in as little time as possible, but also within 90secs.

For sets 1 - 10 I rested in a normal standing position, not even hands on head which is far worse and my average set time (running time + resting time) was 70 - 80secs.

For sets 11 - 20 I rested in a hands on knees position and my average set time was 60 - 70secs, so a 10sec faster recovery time then the previous 10.

For sets 21 - 30 I again rested in a standing position with my average set time 65 - 75secs, faster recovery then the original standing rest sets.

For sets 31 - 40 I again rested with hands on knees and my average set time was just 50 - 60secs, and even faster recovery then any of the previous 30 sets.

I intended on ding another 20 more sets but my dog decided to cross the road from the park and started sniffing people's front yards so I had to stop and get the bugger.

Also keep in mind that this was yesterday, when it was a high of 39 here in Melbourne and already 28 degrees at 10am when I did these so even the heat on it's own should have been making these runs harder the more of them I performed.

It didn't and I could have easily got another 20 sets in and imagine if I did hands on knees rest for all of them? 100 sets would be in my sight for sure and I'm a terrible endurance runner being 46 and a sprinter/power type.

So it's settled then.

Hands on head recovery sucks and actually doesn't let you recover as fast between efforts as hands on knees does and if it gets to games and you're still not allowed to do it for fear of looking tired to the opposition, then I'd rather BE recovering faster between efforts then looking like I am but I'm really not, and coaches are doing a disservice to their players of they go too hard on this.

AFL CHANGE POINT ACTIVITY DURATION STUDY

                                          

Here's another AFL-specific study looking at how long you let training activities run based on a umber of factors.

Most of the time we see activities run for too long and the players lose interest,which us coaches see as "a drop in talk" - if there was something interesting to talk about then they would be.

Drop the footy cliches, they're just holding your coaching and your players back from improving in the current form of the game, of which I'll touch on in my next post.

Here were my notes from it:

• 5 behaviors were analysed being disposal frequency, efficiency, pressure, possession time and player movement velocity in an even numbered small sided game and each team scoring at each end of the ground
• There were 10 – 12 players/team on a 90x60m playing area with a minimum activity duration of 4mins
• For each rep, coaches chose teams mostly based on position but had different players in most sessions
• Skill data composes was disposal (kick/hb), type (in/effective), possession time (-/+2secs), physical pressure (within 3m yes/no)
• A kick longer than 40m is effective if kicked to a 50/50 or outnumber advantage for the attacking team
• Kick under 40m are effective if the intended target maintained possession
• There were 4 sequences to describe the skilled behavior during each training activity x disposal frequency (possessions/min), efficiency (%), pressured disposals (%) and disposals under 2secs (%)
• 6 iterations of a training activity were also evaluated resulting in common change point locations between 196 – 252secs (alterations in player behavior) x disposal frequency x 5 – 7/min, 71 – 88% efficiency, 24 – 54% pressured possessions, 8 – 38% possession time, velocity x 120 – 135 meters/min
• All 6 reps totaled 185 skill involvements and 29mins
• Players had reduced aggregate physical/technical performance following periods of peak high intensity in match play during 2^nd halves + 2^nd half physical activity is influenced by 1^st half activity meaning training can be designed more specifically to player activity levels
• Change point for pressure was 124secs probably from fatigue and thus defender's adapting to how they defend (space v player)
• Use change point to identify the moment a behavioral change occurs that signals the end of an activity rather then just going for time, or for a coach intervention and an added perturbation to preserve the metrics above such as number advantage to make it easier/harder for the offensive team

THE 3 WORSE FOOTY TRAINING DRILLS IN HISTORY

All cone-to cone drills can completely die off for me but there's 3 in particular that I still see constantly and that's lanework, 5 star handball and triangle kick.

I mean if I have to do these again then I'll just flat out refuse - it's lazy training design and it's lazy coaching.

At local/amateur level there's only so much time we have available to train and to waste any of it on something that is close to completely useless just does not make sense to me.

"It's just for the warm up though" I'll hear but really what are you actually warning up?

Decision making? No.

Thinking? No.

Learning? No.

You might argue that a) you're working on skill development/acquisition, or, b) getting the legs going but 1) no you're not, and, b) there's you can do other warm up activities that do that as well as the other aspects listed above.

What ends up eventuating when starting with drills that are too basic such as lanework is that then we then move to something like I'm going to describe below but we've already wasted time at the start that could be going to something far more representative later in the session and over a year this equates up to a hellava lot of time dedicated to pretty much nothing.

Now I know change is hard so I'm just going to give you 1 kick and 1 handball option that can deliver a proper warm up that activates your players physically, technically, tactically and psychologically.

Hopefully these training activities will get you thinking about how you can alter your current cone-based training activities into something with closer representation to the game and dramatically increase your chances of training transferring to games, which is kinda the point!

HANDBALL OPTION...

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AFL REPRESENTATIVE LEARNING STUDY

                                   

I've got a bunch of AFL-based studies from this year that provides great statistical insight into the inner workings of training and games that you can use to base your own training game plans around.

Today we look at representative learning which refers to how much your training includes literal game information and this study compared the constraint interactions and their frequency in training.

Here are the notes I took from it:

• The constraints of pressure and time in possession were assessed alongside disposal effectiveness through an association rule algorithm and then expanded to determine whether a disposal was influenced by the preceding disposal
• Disposal type differed between training and competition environments, with match simulation yielding greater representation v small side games
• The subsequent disposal was generally more effective in small sided games compared to the match simulation and competition matches
• Pressure possession is graded when the opposition defends the ball carrier from any direction
• Time in possession is graded on less or more then 2 seconds
• Effective kicks are graded as over 40 meters in length, to a 50/50 contest or better or a kick less then 40m that maintains possession
• Association rules were a) kick/under no pressure/possession time under 2secs, b) kick/under no pressure/possession time over 2secs, c) kick/under pressure/time in possession under 2secs, d) kick/under pressure/time in possession over 2secs, e) handball/under no pressure/time in possession under 2secs, f) handball/under no pressure/time in possession over 2secs, g) handball/under pressure/time in possession under 2secs and h) handball/under pressure/time in possession over 2secs
• The lowest support was rule E and highest was rule G
• Match simulation greater reflected game representation v small sided games
• Rule G has highest support in match simulation v rule D in small sided games
• Occurrences of sequential rules were similar in match simulation v small sided games
• The 3^rd disposal in the sequence was more likely to be effective in small sided games relative to games and match simulation
• The frequency of the 3^rd disposal being effective ranged from 54% – 89% for games, 49% – 84% for match simulation and 77% – 88% for small sided games
• 3^rd disposal effectiveness in games was +70% with only 6 sequences less then 70% v 28% sequences in match simulation resulting in -70% effectiveness
• Match simulation was more similar to games v small sided games in regards to disposal type but games incurred a greater frequency of pressured handball’s performed with in 2secs (Rule G) relative to match simulation
• The difference between training and games can be from activities intentionally favoring a specific disposal type (kick or handball) as well as less pressure v games and this can help with task manipulation to ensure adequate representation such as big and small spaces to encourage no pressure and/or pressured disposals

AFLW GRAND FINAL GAME ANALYSIS

 

North Melbourne were just far more superior over the weekend, not even giving the Lions a sniff of a sniff!

Hopefully teams go to work on what North do and how they do it and we get a more aesthetically pleasing product in the years to come, after a drop in quality this season.

In the last game analysis for the year we look at:

• Excellent deception used by Brisbane
• Brisbane wing crossing over the mid-line then causing confusion
•  Garner forward run
• 4 clips looking at North's around the ground stoppage set up

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TRANSFORMING CONE DRILLS TO LIVE TRAINING ACTIVITIES

A lot of coaches are still stuck in the traditional methods of running training which means a lot of cone-to-cone stuff which is a massive misrepresentation of what the demands of a game are but it's always a case of teaching how you were taught.

I'm here to right that and have been for some time so here's another way to start your move from cone-to cone drills to  live training activities without having to do an immediate 360 flip on how you train your players and creating a huge sense of being overwhelmed and then simply resorting back to your traditional, but out-dated, ways.

What I'm presenting below is a step-by-step progression of transforming a traditional cone drill to a live training activity and if you'd like me to transform other drills you run regularly, then have a crack at developing your own progressing to transforming to a live training activity, send it to me and we can work through it together.

The cone drill we'll start with is something I ran yesterday at the school I'm doing some academy coaching at and what I've simply titled Wide Switch to Inboard Kick. Another coach actually thought to run it and had a far better name for it than mine!

LAYER 1 - Normal Cone Drill

Simples - 1 kicks to 2 kicks to 3 and so on. Red is player movement. Ball is ball movement. No decision making, no pressure, no constraints - just technique rehearsal - limited game learning - that is all.

LAYER 2...

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