Coach AFL just put this up on their Facebook page today - a training activity (we've got to move on from drills that are predetermined and based on routine - language matters!).
They've been dormant for some time but have fired back up of the back of the Coaching Forum but it should never stop delivering to community coaches.
Here's the training activity:
The Positive's:
- All players are involved all the time - no cones, no lines, no standing and watching
- It contains information that represents the game - direction, ball, teammate, space/time constraints
- Low complexity - the offense will have at least 1 clear free player to kick to at any given time, whether that's the other player in the middle area, the end line player or a player in the next half
The Negative's
- There is no regression or progression to the activity
- It provides a hard rule of having both players in the middle area at 1 end having to touch the ball before it can go to the other half which doesn't open up more options, it limits them, and that goes against what happens in games.
Pretty much every training activity I see, and that includes a lot of them I saw at the Coaching Forum miss maybe the most vital part of designing training activities - affordances.
Affordances are opportunities for action.
You receive the ball and there's 1 player covered and 1 wide open - the affordance for action is to play to the open player...but what if defensive pressure is closing in on me? That affordance for action is not as strong as it would be if there wasn't any defensive pressure.
In front of me is space, space that I can run and carry through and get away from that defensive pressure.
I now have 2 affordances for action - kick or run and carry.
What training must focus on is on players being able to recognise these affordances in game-like situations and it's that decision making process that carries over into games.
If you're coaching from the sidelines and telling players to kick the ball as soon as they get it, they will never see the affordance of an open player or space to run and carry through, really putting the onus of player development squarely on you, the coach.
The hard and fast rule of both players having to touch the ball takes away affordances the initial player might have which is to keep playing forward once they receive, rather than looking sideways or backwards to make sure everyone gets a possession.
A better way is to add a scoring system around this so if each player can touch the ball before transitioning then award 2pts for every transition v 1pt for a transition where they don't.
This keeps both options, and most importantly all affordances, open to be used as the ball carrier sees fit.
Here's what I would do with this to make it a more complete training activity by building this out.
First, I need to settle on my intention and that can be the coaching focuses on the original image - first give, adjusting and protecting the ball.
I've never been sold on first give/first option as it's only the 1st option, it's not always the best option.
I'd possibly shift to a draw the defender towards you and then give and possibly keep it at that to really narrow the focus.
Alternatively, you can run at the defender if they are sagging off and make them focus on you, freeing up your teammate as well.
Going back to my Coaching Forum report from last week, let's use the concept and sill framework from Austin Stubbs.
The concept is drawing the defender and how to do that initially (wait for them, run at them, deceive) and the skill is the handball to your teammate (which hand to use, footwork, execution, outcome)
This might translate to only handball when the defender is within 2m of you and then seeing how they go about achieving that - you don't want to give the answers if they can learn them themselves which has greater learning retention then simply being told.
What might end up happening is a that the ball simply moves in a clockwise fashion as the defender will possibly always be a step behind being so disadvantaged.
To break this pattern up add a defender to the half-way line where they can go from side to side but must remain on the line - the ball will now have to be moved diagonally at some point.
My next step would be to bring those end players into the activity and bring in another defender so it will now be a 3v2 in each half and you can make a handball count before the ball can be passed to the opposite end
Again, I'm still staying with my original intention and the cues around it - don't go away from them, keep the focus narrow.
Another aspect you can add in is that 1 player from 1 half can run and carry the ball into the other half to again open up the affordance of run and carry if it's there, and once they pass off then they simply return to their original half.
I don't do laps - unorganised coaches send players on laps.
To make organisation easy during the session think about how can build out your first training activity into something else in minimal time.
In this case we can add kicking into this by simply extending the playing area and shuffling a few players around.
Let's keep the 3v2 in each half but then add back in the end line player but also some neutral wingers.
The end line player can cover the width of the end lines to receive and the wings can cover the entire length lines to receive.
Each end is now essentially a 5v2 which is a low complex way to start.
As we've moved to kicking then the intention has to change but it doesn't need to be turned upside down as the same concept as before can be used with different cues.
In a possession game you want to move the defenders which is done by moving the ball.
With the stand rule back in effect you really want to make that defender have to stand, so you now take them out of the game until you've kicked the ball - this could be your intention: make the defense stand the mark.
Once you've forced them to that then moving the ball will be pretty easy as there's only 1 defender to cover 4 players.
Pretty quickly I'd suggest adding another defender to each end and possibly extending the area again as we still want kicking success.
A rule might use here is that only middle players can transition the ball to the other end, either to the middle and outside players or only the middle players.
Each layer slowly increases the complexity of the training activity which keeps your players on high alert, engaged and solving problem after problem and using the variability of repetition without repetition to do so.
Finally you can take the half-way line out and play 10v6 end to end full field.
Double finally you can then add more defenders in but if offense is your intention, then keep it a +1 or 2 on offense.
