HOW TO MAKE 2021 YOUR BEST FOOTBALL YEAR EVER

Fair to say year 2020 was a bit off with zero footy being played in the heartland of Aussie Rules here in Victoria.

With that came full jealousy to all the other states that were able to get some football in.

I lost my old man suddenly mid-year which was tough and has led to me taking stock of everything moving forward.

2021 brings with it similar challenges but to take a slightly different look at the last 12 months or so it has also provided a much needed opportunity for everyone to reset a little.

To find what's ultimately important to you and to rediscover what really makes you happy.

For me it's footy and music at the moment.

On the footy side I'm definitely intent on coaching in 2021, either at my current club or somewhere else, or possible in the private sectior somewhere.

It's fair to say that I've done enough research on the matter and I really need to put it into action and see how it works in reality.

Music is just a home thing but I've made great strides in my guitar playing (I think) and I've got myself a keyboard I'm teaching myself how to play as well.

Being self taught leaves a lot of gaps in my playing but I can do enough to get by.

Getting back to coaching I've plenty of people asking why I don't offer much 1on1 training and to be honest I just don't rate too highly for football outside of anything in the physical co-active and possibly technical co-active but that's a huge grey area in itself.

If all you can do as a coach or a player is 1on1 training then of course it's better than nothing but if you can get as little as 3 - 4 other mates involved than you can introduce true decision making activities and very easily take your football to a whole new level.

I had great plans to start up some in-person training this year with the focus being on teaching tactics and patterns of play to youth footballers and I hope to give it another try this year.

If you've read my most recent posts you'll have read that decision making is based on many things but is the most important aspect of football.

Having a team tactic that is instilled in all players means this some decision making is already made for all players at that point in time.

If a long ball is going into our backline to a free teammate who will mark the ball, than before the ball even reaches them, all other teammates know what to do next and start making position from any point on the ground.

The ball player already knows what they are going to do before they even mark the football and their teammates are already moving into position to make this happen.

The decision has been made before the ball has even been marked.

Without having to go back off the mark and scan for all available options and then to process which options are the better choices only to have them dry up as time goes by, the ball can played immediately catching the opposition completely out of position and you've got a huge advantage and a major chance to score very quickly.

This is where I believe coaching should start for at almost all levels to some degree.

The days of kicking from cone to cone in a formation that is totally unrepresentative of the game have to go - with only 2 - 3hrs a week to training whatever you think you need to cover whatever you think you need to cover for football preparation, anything that isn't efficient has to be given a re-thought at the very least.

I'm not saying my way is the only and best way to coach - hell I haven't even coached my own team yet - but what I write is what I'll use when I do eventually coach.

With a huge focus on a game model that puts huge importance on aspects of the game requiring zero talent, each and every player will have game day roles that are ultra important for the team to play the best football they can week in and week out.

Players being given roles and feeling like an important part of the machine is vital for on and off field success - they'll be highly motivated to do what's required of them and they'll want to play football for the long term.

My method/s would go a long way to winning games of football but it's the teaching and inclusion part of how I mash it up that trumps how successful a team could be.

A coaches job is to create an environment that players want to be a part of and training that pushes players just slightly beyond their capabilities but still allows some success and allows for players to drop back a level when needed, and to make the environment psychologically safe to be able to do this, is where coaching is going whether you want it to or not.  

So if you want 2021 to be your best year of football ever, then join us at Aussie Rules Training, join other local/amateur coaches who are in the trenches just like you and receive the best Aussie Rules Football training and coaching content on the internet by taking up either of the memberships on the Register page.

Here's a quick look at some of the options:

- Level 1 - Training/Coaching Articles Only

- Level 2 - Training/Coaching Articles + Training Programs Only

- Level 3 - Training/Coaching Articles + Training Programs + Training Drills

- Footy Focus is an 8 week program for youth footballers with 4 challenges per week to complete spread over technical, physical and psychological co-actives.

- Develop Game Model is a 3 Zoom call (30mins each approx) + homework program where I guide you to build your very own game model for season 2021

- Season 2021 Package is a 12mth option that runs from October 2020 to September 2021

- Various pre-made packages of drills

Definitely something there for every coach of any level.

DECISION MAKING PART 2

 Here's another take on decision making that can be added to the framework from yesterday's post.

These notes are taken from an article from Peter Motzenbecker, a Soccer coach from the US and quite detailed and worth a read in itself.

Here are my notes from it.

• Environment, coach, team, club and the team's game model all play a part in decision making
• Coaches can provide principles/patterns/cues that players can follow as well as feedback that players can take in/learn from with suggestions for the future, but they can never make the decision for the player
• Perception-action coupling is a good place to start but even that can be added to as 1v1 requires a lot of information processing, let alone with plenty other moving parts going on around you
• Feedback should be based on the decision making process over the actual outcome meaning if a player misses an in-board kick from half back, that the decision (correct) is applauded more than the skill error is shunned.
• Perception-decision-execution is probably a better way to go, which separates the decision from the execution
• Saying players were "unlucky" provides zero information on the actual decisions made in that instance and is usually said by coaches who can't work out what actually happened and/or how to fix it so you're better off saying nothing
• Players need conscious awareness of what’s around them, the physical references of the field (space, teammates, opposition, ball, goals, lines etc) and they need to be able to recognise patterns/cues which can both be self conscious and learned from repetitious training
• A game model teaching patterns/cues is a must but must also allow freedom to play within it
• You can’t be too game model based as you’re useless when you can't play to it (environment, opposition, manpower), but you also can't be married to the "best players" model because you'll useless again when they are not in form or they are unavailable.
• Drills allow each player to see how every other player plays that particular pattern which also allows them to play off of that better during games (being predictably unpredictable)
• Being "automatic" enhances creativity and better decision making and those who aren’t automatic for whatever reason, use too much energy/attention on simple decisions and also results players having less potential solutions to problems and low in-game variability (give someone a hammer and they'll try and hammer everything).
• Don't shy away from skill work but build a foundation in what skills are needed for your game model then allow creativity around that.
• Everything you do at training needs to be stored and then to become subconscious
• The progression of decision making is:

1 – Feedback Driven and Immediate Outcome Based Decision Making

• This is the starting point where if you see "x" then you do "y" and "x" happens

2 – Instinctual Decision Making

• This is subconscious decision making which is you have done "x" thousands of times and it is the right solution for "y"

3 – Conscious Decision Making

• Being able to consciously process information that has been instinctual and breaking down why you do "x" when you see "y" and contemplating other ways to solve "y" based on triggers/cues/patterns etc

All this leaves us with:

Perception – Visualisation – Decision - Deception – Execution

• During the visualisation stage the player sees multiple possibilities
• During deception the player is able to disguise their action via ball/body manipulation

DECISION MAKING PART 1

These notes were taken from an info graphic that I came across about a week ago from UK UEFA Soccer Coach Michael Loftman and I reckon it allows to easily and simply breakdown what goes into each and every decision a player makes on the ground.

Almost every local/amateur coach could improve their output dramatically if they look to really break down how and why things happen and it's only then that you can find the weak link in the chain and then begin to improve upon it.

Let's use this Dusty Martin game vision piece I used for another post on my IG from the 2019 Grand Final.

The 9 phases of decsion making in this framework are:

- Orientation

- Searching

- Perception

- Anticipation

- Prediction

- Attention

- Selection

- Adaptation

- Action

To find out what they are and how Dusty moves through all of them in less than 10secs over multiple game actions, register for a Level 1 membership or purchasing the Season 2021 Package at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/. 

25 COACHING TIPS FROM 25 COACHES

Below you'll find 25 tips from 25 coaches from all different sports and area's of life of which I've tried to link to their socials so you can give them a follow if you desire. 

I'm sure you can easily put half of these into action in your very first training session for 2021.

1. Culture (Daniel Abrahams) – award points for idea's and extra points for idea’s executed to incentivize ambition and also try to seperate the outcome from the process where a pass might be intercepted but it was still the right pass to make, rewarding the process irrespective of outcome
2. Skill Level (Steve Magness) – determines what possibilities for action you perceive in your environment and with greater skill level and variability, the more choices you have to act on
3. Chess and Sport (Fergus Connolly) – Chess makes you think beyond the first step and can also be reactionary to other moves in real time where you always need to consider other person’s intentions while thinking of long term outcomes and the final end game
4. Differential Learning (Tim Buszard) – refers to practive where you explore as many movement solutions as possible regardless of how impractical they might seem, exploring the limits of your capabilities which harnesses creativity
5. Leaders in Decision Making (Ed Smith) – decision makers often shy away from risk when the odds are against them, playing it safe to lose conventially but if you want to be differnet/better you have to bear the risk of being differnet and worse
6. Coaching (Rafa Benitez) – in his 1st session he told the squad to start running around the pitch but called them back after 20m and then said "Next time I ask you to do something, ask me why"
7. Learning (Mark Enser) – leads to motivation, not the other way around so provide an initial taste of success, avoid overload, scaffold to success, continue to model and build on what they know
8. Scenarios (Rugby Strength Coach) – are we pushing athletes past worse case scenarios into never case scenarios through the current use of testing/conditioning?
9. Ammo v Elite (Craig Edwards) – amateur players practice until they get it right but elite players practice until they can’t get it wrong
10. Learning Environments (Shawn Myszka) – experience the game in slices with game based learning environments centering around action/movements but also on what information is present so the learner becomes attuned to ony the most relevant information. The game is a great place to gain experience but athletes need opportunities to search for other functional solutions such as a player who prefers to using physical solutions being forced to search for movement/space availability solutions by the constraints of the environment/task
11. Game Model (Cody Royle) – you prob don’t win because of how good your game model is but because your players have consistency with whatever game model you do have and can therefore maintain a greater intensity for longer, essentially helping your players perceive, believe and then embody 5% faster, more consistently and  with more intensity, at what they’re already good at
12. Creativity (Amy Brann) – is intelligence having fun
13. Internal v External Focus (Tim Gallwey) – refers to what the body is doing in flight v what the ball is doing in flight with the concentrated mind having no room for thinking what the body is doing and 99times out 100 you’ll ask a struggling player what they were thinking and they’ll talk about the mechanics of their sport but it’s the complete opposite when you’re playing well where you don't feel anything internal in your body at all
14. Decision Making (Andy Ryland) – if your drill progression isn't increasing/layering speed, space, complexity, chaos and decision making then are you actually improving skill at all?
15. Habit Loop (James Clear) – reminder (the initial trigger/cue) + response (the behaviour/action/response) + reward (the outcome of the behaviour) = alarm goes off for training  and you get up or you don’t + you get more sleep or less training today. You need to identify your positive and negative habit loops
16. Constraints (Dr Matt Jordan) – internal constraints x how do you move when fatigued, how do you move when you can only generate 180Nm of knee extension torque, how do you move with anteriot/posterior knee instability etc? Task constraints x how do you move carrying an unaccustomed load? Environmental constraints x how do you move in a contract year, how do you move in front of a crowd and how do you move in the cold?
17. Beliefs (Ben Hunt Davis) – some things you can control and somethings you can’t so don’t dwell on them and resolve to focusing on what matters. The 3 key sources for your beliefs are personal memories (past successes etc), role models (who else has done this and how did they do it etc) and metaphors/analogies (stories etc)
18. Culture (Ryan Holiday) – you can only control thr effort, not the results
19. Psychology (Alex Hutchinson) – even in elite runners mental fatigue can decrease performance after a 45min computer task so no phones pre-game!
20. Psychological Safety (Dr Michael Gervais) – no one wants to look bad but when the fear of looking bad is stronger then the desire to learn, which is often accompanied by being uncomfortable, ungraceful, akward and clunky, that’s where we find coaches/players stripping potential but you gotta look bad at some point to learn
21. Variability (Adam Omiecinski) – how can you achieve a stable movement in a dynamic environment like sport because even as the earth tilts our center of mass changes?
22. Leadership (Scot Prohaska) – the 6 lanes of performance are psychological (emotional intelligence), sensory motor (vision/perceptual/rea skills), technical (repeat/accuracy/int), tactical, physical and recovery/restoration.These are backed up by courage, honor, respect, responsibility, communication, confidence, perseverance, innovation, ambition, learning and leadership
23. Space/Time (Matt Gordon) –if you understand it then you can position yourself to receive the ball giving you more to execute the skill so you can work a lot on skills but it’s only 1 small way to manipulate time/space
24. Ement (Jorg Van Der Breggen) – obsessing about winning is a loser’s game so you must create the best possible conditions for success then let go of the outcome
25. Efficiency v Effectiveness (Peter Drucker) - efficiency is doing the thing right, effectiveness is doing the right thing

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY (THE RICHMOND METHOD)

Ever since the outrageous turnaround from Richmond 2016 to Richmond 2017 and to now, we've heard a lot about their culture and how it is such a major driver of their on and off field success of recent years.

These notes are taken from an article by Laura Delizonna who is an executive coach with an expertise in psychological safety to optimise team performance who has actually written an entire book on the subject.

At local/amateur level we have so much to focus on that culture is hopefully just something "that happens" off the back of other things we do but there has to be a focus on it to get it started and here's how psychological safety is the very first step in doing that.

• There’s no team without trust
• Psychological safety is knowing you won’t get punished when you make a mistake
• Allows for moderate risk taking, speaking your mind, creativity and sticking your neck out without fear which is the type of behaviour that leads to breakthroughs
• In uncertain environments the brain processes a provocation by a coach/boss as a life or death threat and the amygdale, which is the alarm bell in the brain, ignites the fight or flight response hijacking higher brain centers which is to act first and think later which can lead to brain structure shutting down perspective/analytical reasoning so when you need it the most it's not available
• Fight or flight is great for life threatening episodes but is a terrible in strategic thinking situations
• Success in 2021 and beyond depends on the broaden and build mode of positive emotion (trust, curiosity, confidence, inspiration) which allows us to solve complex problems and to foster cooperative relationships
• We become more open-minded, resilient, motivated and persistent when we feel safe
• Humor increases as does solution finding divergent thinking – a cognitive process underlying creativity
• When environments are challenging but not threatening, oxytocins levels in our brains rise to elicit trust and trust making behaviour
• Approach conflict as a collaborator not an adversary (how can we achieve a mutually desirable outcome?)
• Speak human to human as everyone pretty much has/wants the same issues/things as you (hopes, anxieties, vulnerabilities, friends, family, children v feeling respected, appreciated, competent, peace, joy, happiness)
• Anticipate reactions and plan countermoves
• Replace blame with curiosity (what do they know/sense, are they seeing/predicting etc)
• Ask for feedback on delivery
• Measure psych safety

In football terms this can be as simple as changing some age old training "habits" that coaches and players have that are long overdue to be given the flick such as these 2 below:

Running Punishments

• you want your players to run during games but at training they often run because of something that has gone wrong so it's associated with a bad experience and thus it will not become 2nd nature like you want it to

Ball Hits the Ground Turnover

• we're local/amateur footballers and to think the ball never hits the ground in a game is delusional and you need to train what DOES happen over what you WANT to happen, especially if it's our your team's grasp. I remember the great Sam Mitchell (Hawthorn scum unfortunately) had the ball coming through the middle of the ground and had nothing forward to go to and looked sideways. He saw that a teammate was running off to the interchange bench so he just kicked the ball out there for the player coming on to run onto. The smartest kick and VFL/AFL history would have been deemed a turnover at footy training and the ball given to the opposition. If the ball hits the ground but can still be played by the offensive team without interference then let it go for god's sake!

There are 2 simple examples of psychological safety that you can instill in your very first training session for 2021 - can you think of some others? If so post them below.

SEASON 2021 PACKAGE NOW AVAILABLE FOR XMAS

I've just made up a package that will consist of all posts from levels 1, 2 and 3 from September 2020 (this year) that will run through to September 2021 (next year), giving you a full "footy seasons" worth of training/coaching articles, training programs and training drills to make 2021 your best season yet.

This package is a 1-time payment of $150 that can be made here titled "Season 2021 Package".

I'll be back dating the posts I have already posted for this off/pre-season.

This package will be taken down on Xmas eve so if you're a player, coach or a football club, treat yourself a little after a tough year!

SO WHEN CAN I USE CONE-TO-CONE DRILLS?

I've laid it on cone-to-cone drills pretty hard long enough as 99% of the time they are just simply no good and not even remotely representative of a game, of which I've discussed adnauseam in previous posts.

That being said if you aren't part of the solution then you're part of the problem so here are how they can be used within a training structure.

THE PROBLEM + THE SOLUTION...

If you would like access to this training/coaching article and many more than register for a level 1 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

3 GAME COMBO TRAINING DRILL

Today I watched a training drill from an Irish Gaelic coach today and thought how similar it looked to 1 I have already posted but also how I could make that previous drill also more game representative and wholla - the 3 Game Combo training drill is born.

This is definitely one of the best drills I have!

Players Required: Everyone who trains that night divided into 2 teams and then 3 mini-teams for each team.

Balls Required: 3

Space Required: half of the ground

Drill Level: Moderate to Hard

To access this training drill and plenty of others to take your pre-season to levels not seen in your current league then register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

WHY TACTICS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF COACHING (PART 2)

Earlier this week I posted part 1 of a 2 part video on why I believe tactics are the most important aspect of coaching, especially at local/amatuer level where elite levels of skill and running ability aren't seen too often.

Below is the link for part 2 of the video as well as a PDF of the slides.

Video Link

PDF Document - tactics2

WHY TACTICS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF COACHING (2 PART VIDEO)

We had a Xmas lunch function this past weekend for the footy club and I got into discussions with the new President who I've played along side for years in regards to training and how I think it should look like.

That was after about 10 beers so I thought I'd lay it our properly so here it is.

It's a 2 part 25min video (part 1 today and part 2 tomorrow) detailing why I beleive teaching your game model and it's tactics is the very first thing you should do and how everything else we train for has to come off of the back of the game model to transfer to game day.

Tomorrow with part 2 I'll attach a PDF of the original presentation I made up for it as it's a bit hard to see the writing on the boards I had in the videos.

Like always let me know your comments and feedback.

You can see part 1 here.

INTRODUCING/TEACHING TACTICS

I've come to the personal realisation and opinion that everything starts with the tactical co-active.

From a technical standpoint there will be specific kicks and handballs that you need to be able to do in each tactical game moment with the prime example being an in-board kick that needs to be low, flat and hard with anything being outside of that bandwidth flirting with danger of being intercepted by the opposition.

From a psychological stand point, knowing what type of skill's you need specifically in this situation and then training them accordingly will provide players with confidence in those situations.

From a tactical stand point already knowing where you're meant to go and that there will be a teammate where you expect them to be makes decision making easier and thus, faster.

From a physical standpoint with less psychological stress comes less perceived physical stress so players will feel less fatigued for longer throughout games.

So you'll end up with players who will be able to make the correct decision quickly, with great and variable skill level under less fatigue more often than the opposition.

Sounds like a winning formula, yeah? 

This is how you can go about teaching tactics of which I'll use a switch kick in the backline for an example.

One of our main tactics in the seniors last year was "in 1 way and out the other" which was a huge driver for our winning premiership in a division 4 competition where huge running distances aren't seen to often so if you expand the ground than you'll find a lot of space to work in at some point.

In the ressies though the coach and I just couldn't get the players to do with as much frequency and thus success as the seniors were able to do it and we get done in the first week of finals when we probably shouldn't have.

We tried to train it up in the back end of the season but waited too long and a lack of continuity of layers throughout the season didn't help either.

We did make strides when we wanted to though in the only final we played we goaled after marking deep in their backline and doing exactly what I'm about to lay out below but on a majorly windy day the confidence to do that again just wasn't there.

Here's a sequence you can use to teach tactics to make a bit easier and less daunting for you and you're players.

STEP 1...

To continue reading this training/coaching article and gaining access to plenty of others then register for a level 1 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

GAME SIMULATION ONLY SESSION

 

We train to get better at games, that's a given.

The biggest problem that we all know is there is that you can't just play games of football each and every week for fear of injury so we need to find other ways to train simulated under similar but different, conditions.

My personal belief is that every 3 or 4 weeks you want to use a game simulation only session to get a look at how the concepts you've been working on are transferring to actual game play, you know the point of training.  

You can't train concepts under conditions not prepresenative of the game and wait until March for practice games to see whether what you've trained for all summer is working or not.

So I've made up a full ground, small team based game simulated session that looks like this.

Players Required: Everyone who trains that night divided into 2 - 3 groups and then divided into 4 - 6 teams.

Balls Required: 1 - 3

Space Required: 1/3rd of the ground length-wise per group

Drill Level: Moderate to Hard

I'll explain everything in the video so if you'd like access to this training drill and plenty of others than register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

TACTICAL COACHING CHECKLIST

 

Footy training is now a go-go with everyone finally being able to get back to business here in Melbourne, including my mob tomorrow night (rather keen...).

I thought I would put together a quick Tactical Coaching Checklist that you can use just to ensure that you're planning for the most common elements that occur in a game football so your team/players don't get too exposed during the season as if you base your training around most of these elements, there's not a situation that a player will encounter during a game that they wouldn't have encountered in training prior to that, or something closer to it.

STOPPAGE...

If you would like access to this coaching/training article and many more than register for a level 1 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

1ST TRAINING SESSION BACK - GAMES

Part 1  – Introduction

Part 2 – Warm Up / Kick Development / Defense

Part 3 - Line Work (Midfielders/Forwards/Backs)

The last portion of training is now the games portion which allows to playeres to put into a competitve situation all the different information they've taken in and processed during the session so far.

If you've designed your training sessions properly it will also add representation to the activities you've done leading up to know as well.

I've got 7 more of these sessions made up in my folder all consisting of completely different drills with each week building on the next so let me know your interest and if there's a groundswell then I'll release them them into a package for purchase. 

GAMES DRILL - MIXED SQUARES

Players Required: Entire training group but break up into 3 groups of top senior, bottom senior/top reserve and bottom reserve/thirds groups so everyone is challenged as close as possible to their edge range. 

Balls Required: 4

Space Required: Half of the Ground

Drill Level: Moderate to Hard...

If you would like access to these training drills and the others involved in this "1st Session Back" series than register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

1ST TRAINING SESSION BACK - LINE WORK (MIDFIELDERS/FORWARDS/BACKS)

Part 1  - Introduction

Part 2 - Warm Up / Kick Development / Defense

At this point we're about 30 - 35mins into the session and it's time to break into groups.

Grouping your players into their specific lines that they'll most likley play in is all part of the stream lining approach as well as making training ore specific to each player.

So break your players up into backs, midfielders and forwards but there might be a little bit of switching of players depending on the drill as I'll outline below...

If you would like access to these training drills and the others in this "1st Session Back" series than register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

1ST TRAINING SESSION BACK - WARM UP, KICKING DEVELOPMENT, DEFENSE

Yesterday I kicked off this week's "1st Training Session Back" series with an introduction on how all this came about and how I went about putting it all together.

Today I'll take you through the first 3 parts of the session and my thoughts on each of them as well as the specific training drills I would use, being:

• Warm Up
• Kicking Development
• Defense

WARM UP

You've got 180mins total time to train each week at 90mins per session.

Not long really when you need to cram in skill development, team/line tactical work as well as all the physical-based work teams like to do.

With all these non-negotiables you need to find a way to majorly streamline your warm up.

The days of 2 laps with some stretches thrown in haphazardly should be left to die as it's 15mins out of your 90mins per session essentially wasted.

You can warm up and get benefit out it at the same time...

If you would like access to this training drill and the others in this series than register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

1ST TRAINING SESSION BACK - FULL LAY OUT

I sent out the weekly newsletter last night and in it I mentioned that with the uncertainly around the lifting of restrictions here in Melbourne, coupled with my team not having a committed senior coach at the time (as of about 4 - 5 weeks ago), I put together an 8 session pre-Xmas training plan if on the off chance that we still didn't have a coach yet needed to get back into training.

In the end I spent countless hours going through all my drills I have on file, drawing them up, printing them out and making out a folder so I could categorise them all.

From there I went to work and ordered each drill within their own category to form a progression of training activities for that category.

I must have reordered them 5 times as I devised different ways to categorise them but time was a-plenty.

In the end my categories ended up being:

• Warm Up
• Kicking Development
• Defense
• Midfielders / Defenders / Forwards (split up into seperate groups at times)
• Game

Within each positional category they were then broken up into:

• Game Model Rehearsal
• Positional Tactics
• Small Sided Games / Scenarios

 As stated I built an 8 session plan where no 1 training activity is repeated except for the kicking development category.

The reason for this is that with players having been out of the game for 12 months, I want to expose to them as many situations/problems as possible as soon as possible, forcing them to have to process a lot of different information and then solving all those problems.

I don't want to do 3 - 4 cone drills that solve the same problem (if you can call no opposition or decision making a problem...hint: you can't), as we'll be well behind from the outset and need to "catch up" in fast time.

There are limited cone drills apart from some of the game model rehearsal activities but that's basically to teach positioning and they will be taken out as soon as possible.

So for this week I'll lay out the first session of this 8 session plan with all the training activities that I planned for that session.

It will be based on the types of systems our team used last year, which I believe we should build on more rather than "start again" so it might not be ultra specific to all of you but footy isn't a hard game and we all pretty much want to do the same thing with and without the ball.

Tomorrow I will post the warm up, kicking development and defense activites in the training drills section so make sure you check back in.

TRAINING ON THE EDGE PSYCHOLOGICAL CO-ACTIVE

Part 1 – Training on the Edge Introduction

Part 2 – Training on the Edge Kick Development

Part 3 - Training on the Edge Decision Making

Today we have a look at training on the edge in regards to the psychological co-active, or mental strength, but just a quick reminder of what training the edge really means which is “training a player at a specific level that lies just above or below their level of capability.”

To train on the edge psychologically you need to induce great stress to the player's system which can be a number of ways but before that you need determine what co-active you want to focus on whether that is individual player-based or team based.

PLAYER BASED

To push the boundaries of an individual player you first need to determine what their biggest performance limiter/s are.

Hint: it probably isn't fitness...

To access this training and many others, especially the others in this Train on the Edge series, than register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

TRAINING ON THE EDGE- DECISION MAKING

Part 1 - Training on the Edge Introduction

Part 2 - Training on the Edge Kick Development

Today we have a look at training on the edge in regards to decision making but just a quick reminder of what training the edge really means which is "training a player at a specific level that lies just above or below their level of capability.”

This drill can be performed in a number of different ways within the same basic set up which is the image above...

If you would like access to this training and many others register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

TRAINING ON THE EDGE - KICKING DEVELOPMENT

A quick recap from the introduction yesterday that refers to training on the edge as "training a player at a specific level that lies just above or below their level of capability."

Here's a quick way you can train kicking development in each and every player within a team training setting.

Here's what the basic set up looks like...

If you would like access to this training drill and many others than register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

TRAINING ON THE EDGE

Every player has their own strengths and weaknesses and as a coach it's our duty to build on those strengths and develop those weaknesses.

Knowing how 99% of team training operates at the local/amateur level with everyone doing the same drill at the same time then we're probably not attending to the strengths and weakness and even 1 player like we should be, let alone all of them.

Coming from 1 of the most under resourced clubs in all of Melbourne, I know that lack of coaches can be seen a major roadblock here but I don't see it as stopping you completely from being able to train on the edge of most players capabilities with a little bit of planning beforehand.

Now when most coaches think of training on the edge of a players capabilities they'll often go straight to a skills under fatigue mentality, but this is only 1 of 4 ways to train on the edge and I would put it a distant 4th out of those as well, not the first only way to train on the edge.

What does training on the edge look like?

To train on the edge means to train at player specific level that lies just above or below their level of capability.

This level can also be called the ugly zone because players will often move through periods of success to periods of not as much success, the new skill shifting from a conscious and unstable output to unconscious and stable output.

If you think of a toddler learning to walk, every step is a picture of concentration while they wobble all over the place, eventually reaching a point where walking doesn't need to be thought about and balance is perfect.

But in between those outputs is the ugly zone where sometimes they'll stand up and fall straight down (no success), sometimes they'll stand up and take 3 - 5 steps and then fall over (moderate success) and other times they'll take 5+ steps and make it all the way to your arms and not fall over at all (success).

During this time the outputs will vary as well with some efforts being successful and others not successful in the same "session" but over time the successful outputs outweigh the not successful outputs as the skill of walking stabilises and becomes ingrained.

But back to footy.

Once again we need to focus on the 4 co-actives:

• Technical
• Tactical
• Psychological
• Physical

As mentioned above there's always coaches pushing the edges of the physical co-active either through running drills like a time trial or yo-yo/beep test so I'm not really going to touch too uch on that.

Another thing that coaches do a fair bit is to use drills that focus on executing skills under fatigue.

This isn't a no-go option at all but like all things life there is a time and a place for it and if you haven't worked specifically on IMPROVING skill development at the edge of the capabilities of ALL players then you have no business executing poor skills under fatigue.

If players have low skill initially then what happens under fatigue?

Skills drop off of course so what are you training now?

Shit skills under fatigue?

Is that even a thing?

If it is then it shouldn't be.

For the rest of the week I'll present training idea's and drills that all coaches can implement immediately on how to train on the edge for the technical, tactical and psychological co-actives so be sure to check back in.

KEEPING DEFENSIVE SHAPE TRAINING DRILL

 

Earlier this week I posted a presentation video titled 10 Steps to Developing Training Drills Through Your Game Model.

In it it provided you with some general guidance on what a game model entails, how you go about developing it and then how it can drive what you train and how you train it.

It's best quality is how it breaks down a complicated game such as Aussie Rules Football that can then allow you to train specific aspect of it in isolation.

In 99.9% of cases, us coaches go straight to the integrating the many aspects of a scenario, such as team defense, but in such a broad and general manner that the foundation that the tactic or strategy is built on is not as strong as it could be and it breaks down under the pressure of game time.

In the presentation I used the following example:

• Game Moment - Defense
• Macro Moment - Defend the Goal
• Micro Moment - Make the Ground Small

Making the ground small will increase the chances every other defensive based micro moment being successful (the foundation as mentioned above) so here's a training drill that can help do exactly that.

Players Required: 5 + Your Defensive Formation

Balls Required: 1/Group

Space Required: Half of the Ground

Drill Level: Moderate

If you would like access to this training drill and plenty of others than register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

10 STEPS TO DEVELOPING TRAINING DRILLS THROUGH YOUR GAME MODEL

I've harped on about game model's for ages now and I'll keep doing until every coach from division 8 under 12's to AFL premiers has one.

It's greatest use is how it organises not only your game plan, but how you teach it and that trails through to how you can train far more effectively than cone to cone lanework for maximal transfer to games - the actual point of training.

Here's a 10min video I made on how to do this:

EDIT- 2 of the slides didn't make it through the recording process so I've made a video for them below the main video.

Missing Slides:

10 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE AFL SPORTREADY GAME PLANS COURSE PART 2

 

I finished off my previous post after the first of 2 Zoom calls for the course with the 2nd one here having a huge focus on game vision and seeing how different tactics and strategies look in actual game situations.

#6 - FAST PLAY OPTIONS

For every mark your player takes, their teammates must strive to get in 1 of the 5 options being in the corridor, lateral to the marking player, behind laterally to the marking player, skinny side boundary side and long down along the line.

#7 - SLOW PLAY OPTION

Where possible you want to try and turn slow plays into fast plays and a great way to do that is with the run and block, which you would have seen almost every AFL do at some stage recently.

BP is the player with the ball, the green X is the man on the mark and the purple X is your teammate, the skinny side boundary winger from above.

The skinny side boundary winger will need to push in on to the fat side of the man on the mark, not come behind them, and then push back into them as they put the block on.

Also be aware that you cannot put the block on until the ball carrier has played on so it's worth investing some time in training this to get the coordination and timing of it correct for game day.

Instead of only getting the ball as far as the kick down the line, the run andblock allows for an extra 10 - 20m run and carry and a mid to deep forward entry depending on the kicker.

#8 - Boundary Throw Ins

Richmond love to play that high half forward as an extra midfielder up at the contest and this shows a little bit of what Kane Lambert does

The L in a circle is Kane Lambert, blue X's are Richmond and purple X's are the opposition with Richmond going to the left of screen.

The other Richmond mids pull back slightly from the contest to provide more room for Lambert to operate in, especially the 5 and 3 o clock tap options as labelled above.

At the back and fatside of the contest you have the skinny side winger (SW) and the fat side winger (FW) who can defend the front of the contest of the opposition but more importantly start Richmond's run and handball express game through the middle.

#9 - AFLW

These are your best chances of being a successful team at AFLW level based purely on where the game is at right now in regards to skill development, running capacity and tactical prowess.

• You're best served by getting time in your forward half by pressing/manning up and trying to create an area of space in your forward 50.
• Be adept at defending the long kick down the line as that's where most of them go.
• Cause defensive 50 stoppages and
• Be able to defend within the contest
• Teach your players how to take the ball off the line
• Instruct your players how to turn a slow play into fast play
• Kicking is a harder skill and can cause worser errors than kicking which can allow the ball to go into space and then if you donlt have the numbers they can hurt you on the rebound so run the ball via handball
• Run in waves
• Most scores come from stoppage and fat side movement
• Have a rebound strategy
• Possession consists of 40% contested and 60% uncontested ball
• The ball is usually in dispute upon turnover so train to keep your shape/s
• Use high half forwards to get out the back for easy goals

#10 - Junior Football

• Strategy compliments skills and skills need to be executed to execute a strategy
• It's harder to score on skills alone v with just a strategy on its own
• Juniors usually learn offense 1st but it's easier to teach defense and it wins games
• Defensively look at instilling a form of press, play man on man on the back of the goal side shoulder, own territory and press
• Offensively look training via a  strategy/skill/skill/strategy process, put speed on the game, attack through the corridor/switch the play
• In the contest use some form of shape around the ball
• For stoppages use some basic structures, train stoppages on the wing, midfield and mid arch area's of the ground and devise player starting point positioning for each of them 

All up another banger of a course delivered by Austin who has aloso goiven the confidence to hit the coaching route in 2021 which I will.

I'm happy to call him a mentor of mine, he's always up for a chat so look out for his future courses coming up.

10 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE AFL SPORTSREADY GAME PLANS COURSE

 

A couple of weeks ago I took part in another AFL Sportsready course run by Austin Stubbs from AFLHP, this time looking at game plans.

Earlier this year I took part in a skill acquisition course that I posted about here.

It consisted of pre and post-course reading and questions, 2 x 2 hour Zoom calls and we also had a mid course pre-Grand Final analysis call with the AFL season finishing when it did right in the middle of the course.

Austin doesn't leave many stones untouched and completely fills the 2 hours so it's handy that they record the Zoom call video so you can go back to it later if you miss something.

The course was filled with elite level coaches from a just retired AFL premiership player, AFLW assistant coaches, VFL coaches and even some data analysis people who have ridiculous insight into how the game is played.

Me not having actually coached a team yet would have been the most inexperienced coach there by a long shot but I'll hopefully put all this coaching content to use in 2021.

I have 14 pages of typed up notes from this course so I've basically randomly chosen 10 points for this 2 part series with the first 5 coming below.

#1 - DRILL DESIGN

I won't let this go until you do but the sooner you can get rid of cone to cone drills the better and as I've said in the past it's bordering on pure laziness to stick with them in my opinion.

They only look at the offensive part of the game but how are games won these days?

Defensively.

To combat this, create drills that present a problem for the players to solve both offensively and defensively to enhance learning.

By creating game simulated action via scenarios and small sided games it more represents a game situation thus exposing your players to more game action which exposes them to more problems to solve which forces them to find more solutions to solve them - just like games.

#2 - STRATEGY v TACTICS

Strategy enhances decision making by aligning players to work together to solve a problem and they compliment high skill and increase the chances of winning over skills alone.

Examples of strategy are fast v slow play, defensive press, offensive fast play on, contest shape, stoppage structure and set plays for kick ins.

They are reliable and are used every in every quarter of football.

Tactics are "actions" such as opposition tag, bench rotations and player positioning but unlike strategy you might not use them all the time.

You won't beat good opposition with tactics but you will with strategy

#3 - LIST ANALYSIS

- What do you have?

- What do you have a lot of?

- What are your strengths?

- What don't you have a lot of?

- What do you need?

- What are your weaknesses?

Build your game plan around your top 20% and what they provide then try and surround them with what they need to carry that out.

#4 - PHILOSOPHY

Defensive skills are easier than offensive skills to build as a lot of them don't rely on high skill level.

The difference between good and bad clubs is the ability to score and having the best strategy to do that which will result in deeper and better shots on goal.

Speed disrupts defenses and repeat speed is the hardest physical thing to perform so you can wear the opposition defenders out through using it.

#5 - MY NOTES AFTER CALL 1

- Gegenpressing is a soccer tactic used to great effect in AFL in recent seasons which causes the ball carrier great stress and puts them in complete chaos (I'll post an example in the training drills section in the next week).

- Control the opposition and their physical output with your ball movement that can wear them out chasing you around and manning marks.

- A left footed defender should be positioned on the side of the ground that allows them to dispose of the ball according to your game plan/model. So if you want in board kicks then they should be positioned right side of the ground looking at your own goals so they can immediately turn in board and go. Alternatively if you want to play wide then position them on the other side of the ground so they can turn that way far quicker and open up more space for the kick. Vice versa for right footers obviously but lefties are better lets be honest.

- The forward line is the most important aspect of your team defense as the top teams excel at forward pressure and repeat entries.

GAME SENSE COACHING APPROACH TO AFL BOOK REVIEW

 

Shane Pill is a PE Teacher and Author who runs his own site called Learning Through Sport.

I've been following him for about a year and a half now and he's always putting out good information that has been through the trenches throughout his coaching and teaching duties covering a variety of sports, with AFL being one of them.

His thing is along the lines of game based training with a purpose so instead of just setting up a mini-game of football and letting the kids go, you would develop a game involving the skills you want to develop, use rules/constraints that highlight them, set an acheivable goal then let the kids/players self explore themselves through it.

It's definitely an athlete-centered approach where the coach acts more of a facilitator who creates the ideal environment to elicit the change/improvement you would like to see.

Throughout the gamed the coach then would allow pause breaks for questions and discussion about what's currently happening and to also ask players for idea's about how they can better go about it. 

He has plenty of articles on the site linked above so I would strongly encourage you to go back through those (I have) but here's a peak at what's in the book.

There are 6 basic levels to the book:

1. Games for Fundamental Sport Skill Development
2. Games to Refine Sport Specific Skill Development
3. Games to Develop Attack and Defense Structures
4. Developing Practice Plans
5. Developing a Game Plan
6. Task Cards/Session Plans

Each level sort of matches up to an increase in player age as you can see by the subjects of each level.

Each level starts with basic questions to ask throughout this level as alluded to above followed by 10 - 20 training drills that you can use for different scenarios/activity goals.

Each level finishes with a game simulation activity you can do suitable for the level these players are at.

I've used a lot of stuff I've read from Shane's articles in my own writings so if you like the content I release then you'll love this.

Every junior club should have this book and have it available for all junior coaches to use to base their training sessions on.

HOW TO NOT DEFEND DUSTY MARTIN - GRAND FINAL VISION

Dusty finished the Cats last night and wrapped up the Norm Smith with his 3rd goal last night with about 8 minutes to go to put them up by 22 points - but she he even had been able to do so in the first place?

As mentioned in ym last post, during the AFL coaching course I;m doing right now we talked a lot about how to play Dusty if you were Geelong and watching all the footy shows last week it was clear - clamp down on him!

Easier said then done in some cases I know but in this case it baffles the mind as to how it wasn't done and I in my family group message where my brother and sister are both Richmond supporters, I sent this as soon as it happened:

Later I set this in the group message:

And then of course the vision:

As a defender you have to guard the most dangerous player or space, in this case it was the player who's only at the time is only a 2 time premiership and Norm Smith medallist so I'm not sure if the roll back defense and to guard nothing but grass was the best option so it would be interesting to get an answer as to why Blicavs defended the way he did.

LENGTHEN THE GROUND - GRAND FINAL VISION

This week I started another course through AFL Sportsready titled Advanced Certificate in Creating and Coaching AFL Game Plans again presented by Austin Stubbs of AFLHP.

We've covered a lot of different tactics used by various AFL teams with a lot more to come in part 2 this week but as the course fell on Grand Final week, we also had a good look at Richmond and Geelong, what they want to do and how they'll win the game.

1 tactic we touched on was lengthening the ground which Shane Edwards talked about post game:

Here's a bastardised version of what it can look like and what he was referring to specifically with what Richmond wanted to do in the 3rd quarter after being smorthered for most of the 2nd quarter by the Cats:

This is definitely something that can, and should, be trained as there will definitely be times that you'll need to implement this in a game situation and instead of just bringing it out of the blue at half time in round 7 and expecting everything to turn out OK, make it something that your players are familiar with and can use at their own discretion to be even more effective.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CO-ACTIVE PART 2

 

Grand Finals are won above the neck and here's some more pointers on winning the psychological battle against yourself and assisting your players to do the same.

• Players might looked gassed but they might actuallybe freaking out mentally as they are unprepared for the gravity of the moment and all their senses and thus, output, heightens dramatically
• Situations that on the surface might appear to be fitness problems but aren’t, might really be your team going down a man in the 1st few mins (anxiety), a player on debut (nerves), getting scored on early in the match (panic), the tempo of the match exceeding expectations (perception of effort) or bad tactics (opposition has advantages in various scenarios aiding their ability to build up/disturb your build up/exploit transitions)
• If you want to improve a players ability to make correct decsion making actions from the middle of the last quarter to the end of the game, then you need to agree on the goal (improvement/the maintenance of pressing actions from min 100 – 120) + you also need to determine the limiting factor (Is endurance ability too low?, Is communication poor? Are your tactics not as sharp as they need to be? Are you pressing at the wrong time? Are you making the wrong decisions? Do you lack aerobic capacity? Do you lack repeat speed? Are you pressing too hard when you need to corrall and vice versa putting you out of position and thus forcing to expend more energy resources to recover your position? Is your pre-game nutrition poor?
• Whatever the factors are you need to pinpoint which one's are the fartherest behind (vo2max might be only be average to good but you're also not eating pre-game
• There always seems like there’s so much to improve on but you need to choose what you’re NOT going to do
• Everything can help but what’s going to help right now?

PSYCHOLOGICAL CO-ACTIVE PART 1

 

My favourite day of the year, Grand Final Day, is upon us which usually coincides with my birthday week.

The 2 teams who make it to grand finals can no longer gain any more technical, tactical or physical benefit from training to make them any more prepared for what they are right now for the big dance, and there's only 1 co-active left that can now make or break the grand final result...

Psychological.

The psychological is easily the hardest co-active to master from a coaches and players point of view.

Most coaches don't have any experience on how to train their players for greater psychological capacity, not even know what it is.

Like everyday people, players won't naturally challenge themselves psychologically until "challenged" by others/coaches so it's pretty easy to see how this can be put in the too hard basket.

Here's a little story from my local club during grand final week last season (which we won).

We could quite possibly be the poorest club in metro Melbourne footy, without exaggeration.

In 2019 we were kicked off our home ground as it was deemed unfit to play on during that season by auditors so last year we played at a different ground, 4 suburbs away from our home base where we continued to train every Tuesday and Thursday.

We have 2 and half lights meaning we can't use the whole ground and can only train in parts of the ground effectively.

We're battlers, we know it.

Our ground's a shithole, but it's our shithole is one of our motto's.

We had been flogged in the first week of finals but then we bounced back in the second week to gain a spot in the Granny.

One of our players is the CEO of a VFL team and organised us to use their ground to train on during grand final week.

A VFL/AFL quality ground with full lights - it was Christmas time for our footy club.

Psychologically this provided a boost for us that no other team could have at that time of the season.

We had maybe 35 - 40 blokes train on that Thursday, more then we probably had at any other night that year.

Our skills were the same, our fitness was the same but psychologically I felt it gave us some major momentum, bloody hard to get from nowhere in August.

We already felt that we had the best team, we had displayed it during the year but now that we were on even keel in that we can train just like every other club on a full ground with full lighting and full player numbers, even if just for 1 week, I felt like it now put us in a close to unbeatable position, the psychological boost we gained giving us the edge over of the opposition.

Coming from our shithole, we were training on a ground far better than any other in our league, with lighting far better than any other in our league, and it gave us a feeling that we are now even even, albeit temporarily in front of our grand final opposition that gave us a sense of invincibility that would carry into Saturday and we lead the game from the first score to the last score.

This week will be focused on this with tips on what to look for, how to train it and make it a strength of your club with it then becoming a part of your culture.

GAME DAY PART 3: POST-GAME

 

PLAYERS

• Post game ask the players what the half time message was and see what you get back

REVIEWING LOSES

• Lack of conditioning is often not the problem so look at other factors such as tactical/technical (poor errors/decisions), sleep, poor pacing strategies, temperature/humidity, nutrition, hydration, poor load management in training, opposition exploiting your tactical/technical weaknesses, psychological stress, physical adaptation and eliminate them before doing more training volume, especially during the in-season.

FEEDBACK

• Negative appraisal post-game can cause testosterone levels to drop and what you say can impact the following week so choose your words wisely.

INJURY REPORTING

• Each week over 25% of your players will sustain an injury of some description that doesn't result in any loss of training or training time
• Those players who don't self report these minor, non-time loss injuries are then 3.6 x more likely to sustain an actual time loss injury in the next 7 days compared
• Those players who don't self report a moderate, non-time loss injury are then 6.9 x more likely to sustain an actual  time loss injury in the next 7 days
• 68% of all time loss injuries were preceded by not previously reporting a non-time loss injury with 94% of knee and 90% of hamstring time loss injuires preceded by a non-time loss compliant in the same location

POST GAME RECOVERY

• Positive interaction experiences is the best recovery modality as positive input wins in recovery and having fun promotes this

GAME DAY PART 2: IN-GAME

 

Yesterday we kicked this series off with Pre-Game so let's move to some of the different aspects you'll come across In-Game.

GAME ASSESSMENT

• Game components are consistency of sport mechanics/actions + control sport skill/player placement + anticipation (player movements to recover to base position and then respond).

PLAYER ASSESSMENT

• Is the player making tactical errors or are they not aware of their positioning?
• Perhaps they are not moving properly in relation to teammates on defense or not close enough as they move to offense?
• Is it a timing issue where they haven’t played enough, is your team preparation archaic and/or has there not enough focus on game sense at training?
• If positioning is fine but your team still loses the ball then to say it’s an individual mistake is lazy and wrong but you still need to look at each players technical/tactical/physical/psychological output at the specific time to find any other weak links.
• In invasion sports, the key to understanding the problem can be found with the interaction of all involved players where if the pass was made just 1 second earlier then the receiving player might have had more time and space to make the next pass which then would have put them into positive space and a score opportunity would have occurred.
• So is it a player positioning mistake or has the coach not even coached them in regards to it?
• Observe 1 player x 5 – 8mins specifically on the game components and calculate a score (4 is high, 1 is low) for them.
• Also grade on the ball skills (controlling the ball/ disposing of the ball) and off the ball skills (positioning/reading the play, knowing when to attack or defend).
• Having teammates judge their teammates might also help in their learning (seeing v being told).

TACTICAL SPEED

• Speed is often confused with insight.
• When you start running earlier than the others you will appear faster.
• Being quicker than your opponent is of less advantage if they can read the build up of play better than you so create position specific scenarios at training for this.

SCANNING

• Great players scan their environment 6 – 8 times/10secs before they receive the ball to increase likelihood of possession.

TEAM SPEED

• If 1 player accelerates then 3 – 4 others have to join them to throw the opposition into disarray and disrupt as many as their defenders as you can.

PACING

• It isn’t just the distribution of energy resources but the rhythm/skill required to actually utilise the changes in effort
• Requires physical and psychological expression where both need to be on the same page as one without pacing skills can be useless at the end of games
• First you need to be physically prepared or you’re just prolonging the inevitable (get blown up) as the end goal is faster pacing
• Pacing is highly motivational so psychologically profile each player to see how they respond to different modifiers in training
• Rehearse pacing but make sure players learn how to win without being dependant on just a single strategy (starting well and tapering off v finishing strong)
• You need to know where pacing fits into your sport (MMA can be 2secs or 5min rounds, tennis can go for 2 – 5hrs, bball is 48mins split up by 24sec segments etc) to find the gaps you can exploit and gain advantage
• Pacing can also be deceptive as players can be fast but play slow and vice versa
• Less skilled players play aggressively as they often rely on effort over brains and coaches can be the same with their pre-game approach in what they say and instruct players to do
• Motivation, confidence, strategy and tactics will determine what pace is ideal
• Pace is not the same as speed and pace is more of a work rate type than speed with Lebron James, Lionel Messi and Rafer Nadal all being low paced athletes who have excellent speed/acceleration when scoring
• Mix up the same conditioning drill as 1 that has an end (5 up and backs) vs one that doesn’t (undisclosed time) and see how athletes match up with their outputs to see what they respond to best

HALF TIME

• Is 15 – 20% of the total game time
• Ask line captains questions to get their thoughts
• Ask line captains what opportunities are you seeing for us that we can take advantage of
• Sometimes you might only speak to players with specific roles or team lines that seem to be out of whack
• Each line meets x 90 – 120secs, the the coach meets with line captains x 60secs, then the coach meets with the entire line x 60secs for all lines that will take about 12mins all up
• Alternatively each line meets and writes on the white board 3 things they’re seeing then look what matches up from line to line
• Players will be on their own in as the coach moves from line to line
• 90 - 120secs beforegoing abck out the caoch and then gives their final address to the entire team to let everyone know what everyone else is doing
• Each line only has 2 – 3 objectives/game so this could take even less time then this, giving players more "free" time
• If a coach talks too much then squirt them with water

GAME DAY PART 1 - PRE-GAME

The best round of football for the year, Preliminary Final round is upon us and by jeez it should be a cracker so I thought I would gather some notes from my files in regards to the different aspects of game day.

This will be a 3 part series (Pre-Game today, In-Game tomorrow and Post- Game Saturday) mostly in short form just to provide you with some idea's that you can than run with.

GAME MODEL

• Reduces player uncertainty when they play and provides more time for creativity

DEFENSIVE CHECKLIST

• Isolate the player in possession from their teammates
• Guard their teammates in a way that terminates their role in the offense
• Dispossess/win the ball back

ATTACKING CHECKLIST

• There is no such thing as reaction or defense as you’re either attacking with the ball or attacking the team in possession of the ball, to get it back.
• The defense must get into, and stay, in attack mode until it has possession, by applying sustained pressure so that the opposition become reactive rather than proactive.
• In doing so you have the chance to force a turnover.

PRE-GAME PLAYER NARRATIVE

• I’m going to take charge of myself
• I'm going to be the best individual and teammate I can be
• Nothing will take me away from my best mindset
• I can’t force a great performance
• I will have my best game possible

LEADERS

• You have to affect someone else on the team causing them to play better by the way that you play

PRE-GAME PHONE USE

• Causes mental fatigue especially if used 30mins pre-game
• 1 study showed that within 3 different groups (video watchers, video gamers and social media watchers) they all made the same amount of passes but the quality of passing decision making decreased in the social media and video games groups
• Social media/video gamers leads to a prolonged period of electrical impulses in certain areas of the brain, reducing the speed of information processing and thus leading to less successful decision making accuracy
• When mentally fatigued, players usually demonstrate longer fixation time on opponents and shorter fixation time on their teammates and they may not adequately interpret (sports perception) or anticipate (frontal cortex) opponents actions affecting their decision making accuracy