PLAYER PROBLEM SOLVING PART 2

Earlier this week I posted part 1 of this that asked the questions:

- What questions are you asking?

and;

- How are you asking them?

In that post there was a table of potential questions you ask a player about something that happen in training or a game, a problem that they needed to solve and how they went about it.

Sport is a series of hundreds of micro problems that need solving through technical, tactical, physiological and/or psychological means.

A teammate of mine some skill errors on the weekend so I thought I'd try this out on him.

For a bit of background, Melbourne's winter has been the worst in years as far as rain is concerned and our ground is muddy and slippery.

It's also tiny - about 125m long and couldn't be more than 80 - 90m wide.

Small space and slippery conditions will increase stress as it takes more time to collect the ball and once you do, there's a fair chance there's someone near you to apply pressure.

We're also div 4 reserves footballers so hardly the cream of crop either.

In the 3rd quarter he'd missed his 3rd target for the day and I "let him know about it"I suppose but not in an entirely bad way - just to let him know we must demand better as a team with hopes of going deep in the finals.

After the initial "dust up" we had a better chat 2mins later and all was well in the world. 

Before the questions I asked him to be as detailed as possible and that there are no right or wrong answers, just YOUR answers - it's about what YOU saw and how YOU tried to solve the problem/complete the task.

Following the image from the previous post,here are the questions I asked him Mon/Tue and his responses.

Q1 - WHAT DID YOU SEE?

I saw two teammates free within our forward line maybe 35ish metres out a couple metres apart, and so I decided to quickly kick it to the closest/most central option. I didn't think to look for a longer and possibly better option at that moment. I rushed the kick and it shanked off the side of my boot to an opposition player.

Main Problem - Rushed Kick

Analysis - Take more time with the harder/central kick. The longer/easier kick is still there even if it’s not done straight away.

Q2 – WHAT OPPOSITION POSITIONING/MOVEMENT DID YOU SEE?

Both targets were basically stationary. There was a pack of players 5 - 10m back from both teammates and another opposition player maybe 5m off to their right where the ball ended up being kicked. There was not much movement causing the decision to get the ball in quick before opposition made a moveBottom of Form

Main Problem - Psychological Stress

Analysis - There were open teammates in the middle of the ground with enough space/time to get the ball to them – definitely worth trying to get it to them if you can so a sound tactical move.

Q3 - ACCORDING TO YOU, WAS IT THE CORRECT/INCORRECT TACTICAL MOVE TO MAKE?

At the time I thought getting it in quick and getting a shot on goal was the correct decision, but thinking about it now I think the option that I chose may have been a bit beyond his kicking range and if I had got it in long and deep, it might have given us a better chance at a closer set shot or shot on goal from a rove, which fits more with our game plan

Main Problem - N/A

Analysis - If you have the ball than take the responsibility to be proactive with it. Your job is to get the ball to a teammate who can take advantage of it. Once you get the ball to them adequately, then you’re job is essentially done. Worry about what you can do with the ball when you have it and trust everyone around you to do what they need to do when they need to do it.

Q4 - DESCRIBE HOW THE TARGET WAS MISSED?

The kick was rushed the ball came off the side of my boot and went straight to the opposition player 5metres to the right of the target

Main Problem - Rushed Kick

Analysis - A technical error from you, a slight tactical error from your teammate/s who could have timed their positioning better as them standing there "too long" means they are closer to getting manned up on, increasing tactical/psychological stress

Q5 - LET'S SAY IT WAS THE CORRECT TACTICAL CHOICE, DID YOU DISPLAY GOOD/BAD TECHNICAL SKILL?

Bad tech skill, I rushed to get the kick in that I was not steady which affected the ball drop resulting in the ball coming off the side of my boot

Main Problem - Rushed Kick

Analysis - Practice kicking like this at training – kicking with the same amount of steps/time/intent that you'd have in a game

Q6 - WHAT COULD YOU HAVE DONE BETTER?

Pushed back properly off my mark and given myself enough space and time to steady my kick and making sure the kick hit its target

Main Problem - Not enough time and space

Analysis - Space = time = more time to find the right option = more time to execute the tech skill required

OK - a fair bit to analyse there but not really.

The common theme was there all along -  a rushed kick/technical skill at that precise time.

The next step is to determine why the kick was rushed which he ends up telling us in the last question - he didn't push back off the mark properly enough - so a technical fault on his behalf.

As I mentioned above though, his teammate standing in free, but relatively confined space too early, increased his psychological stress which in turn affected his technical skill.

Although they are both at fault in someway, he had the ball and is therefore in total control of what happens so if he was to attempt a short, risky type kick then it's on him to make sure that he can carry that out which will require space (pushing back hard off the mark) and time (more space creates more time to perform that harder kick/technical skill).

On a dry day on a bigger ground this specific kick might have been pulled off because many of the constraints of last Saturday probably would not be there so I'd still encourage him to attempt that kick but in order for that happen, he needs to push back hard and fast as that was his original problem that all the other problems branched off.

Breaking game problems down like this means you can actually come to a pretty valid and easy conclusion meaning you can easily fix it, over yelling at players/teammates to "hit targets"which means nothing as it's a result, when the focus should be on the process.