For this blog to make total sense you'll probably need to go back and give them a good read or this will look like a whiteboard with rubbish all over it.
All coaches, but specifically footy coaches need to understand that just going out into drills and expecting learning to happen is a complete fallacy.
You've got to build an environment (culture, drill selection etc) to drive learning.
You've also got to get away from pre-determined drills for the most part because football is a game of complete chaos and you never know what' can happen from 1 play to the next so you need to tactically and psychologically train your players exactly for that.
The 1 specific example I'm gonna use for this today is the 45 degree square up kick - maybe the most attacking kick in football but also probably the most risky as inadequate attempt will more often than not lead to a score at the other.
I personally f$%ked one of these up this past weekend and a goal was the direct result (I'll try and get the vid up on Insta this week)
From our 45 degree square up kick we're gonna have 4 kick types to master.
#1 - You start with the ball in hand and simply turn and kick to the 45 degree option
#2 - You receive a handball from a teammate and you turn and kick to the 45 degree option
#3 - You mark the ball (at half back for example) turn and kick to the 45 degree option
#4 - You mark the ball (again like a half back), push back behind your mark, turn and kick to the 45 degree option
*** Player 1 is the kicker and 45 is the square up option
You could go option crazy here but I'll cap it at 4 for the sake of the blog and how you train these specific kicks is talked about in the motor learning blog.
On top of that you'll have 3 - 5 defender/stress options to add into the drill.
A) - Add a man on the mark (labelled MON) to options 1, 2, 3, and 4.
B) Add 1 zone defender (labelled ZD) to either side of the 45 square up option who will basically just squeeze up the target size, he won't necessarily rush in and try to spoil everything in site. The man on the mark stays in play.
C) Add a second zone defender to the other side of the 45 square up option (again labelled ZD) to shrink that target size even more requiring a more accurate kick to hit the target. The defenders just hold their position and the man on the mark stays in play.
OK so we have 4 different types of kicks to be performed in 3 different scenarios at the moment.
Following the progressions of practice from the motor learning blog is probably a good way to go here and we've increased various forms of stress by modifying the target we're kicking to.
All up we have repetition without repetition - exactly what we're after for learning variability.
To see how this might play out at an actual training session you could set up 3 stations around the ground with the 3 slightly different variations.
In the image below there are 3 groups with 1 being a literal 45 degree kick from half back to somewhere between the middle and inside edge of the center square, another group being a more deep kick from the boundary to square the ball into the middle of your center half back position to shift their defence and open up ground space for you and the third option is a mid wing position and direct sideways kick to allow you to push forward on the fat side.
I've just "squared off" the separate groups with those dotted lines.
We can put this on steroids depending on your level of football by having one of those zone defenders squeezing in closer, and then both zone defenders squeezing in closer so that target might shrink from an initial 20m, to 10m to 5m.
As you progress the failure rate will be high and that's EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT!
Players must be assured that you as coaches are pushing their skill bandwidths and we want them to find the solution to making these kicks.
Obviously not everyone will be able to make all of these kicks at local/amateur level either so also let them know they're not expected to be able to do it but you're looking at how they differ their kicks to combat the problem/s they run into (kicking too high, too slow, not pushing back for enough etc).
Let players mistakes are fine and will happen, but that repeat mistakes are not acceptable.
To make closer to a game simulation you could still have the 3 groups but the 45 degree square up option can position themselves in any of the 3 options above, or anywhere really.
This will actually teach the 45 degree player to improve their own locationing, positioning, timing and lead patterns to make this kick pay off on game day.
The final progression to this is determine who are your better players at doing what types of kicks from what types of positions.
A good kick at training with zero pressure may not be as good a kick in games so you can't assume they can do it on game day and obviously we can't test training strategies on a Saturday either.
What you can do and this is my anal side coming out, is to video each player and time how fast they can get possession of the ball and get it in the hands of the 45 degree player.
Say you have Zac who can hit on average 8/10 targets for option A (man on the mark) and he can do it in an average time of say 3secs, then you've got a little bit of data behind you and something that other players can aspire to reach.
If you have Anthony who can also hit 8/10 targets but it takes him 4.5secs, then he needs to get his time down either through cleaner possession or with a more lower and harder kick that the zone defenders in the next option won't be able to get to in time to spoil.
You could literally do this for any type of specific skill you want for footy if you take the time to put it all together - in other words create a training environment conducive to actual learning.
Hit me up with any questions you have on this.
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