USING DIGITAL VIDEO GAMES APPROACH TO JUNIOR SPORT

If you're a parent of a child under the age of 18 then you know the addictiveness of video games in all their formats.

On top of that us parents want our kids off video games but what we need to stop and think about even more is why they are so driven to them and as you'll see below, how it can be used in junior sport to create training sessions and maintain participation following a digital video games approach.

I picked this up from Twitter at some point and I'm pretty sure it was a table from a book but I didn't reference it when I put it in my notes so unfortunately I can't tell you where it came from specifically.

PRINCIPLES / CHARACTERISTICS

• What’s the mission?
• No technical or tactical focus
• The emphasise is on players strategising and re-strategising
• The coaching mindset from within the game shifts from "This is what we will be learning today" to "This is today’s mission".

USING THE PAUSE BUTTON

• Integrating varying degrees of support for players via the 4 C’s (cheat/change/clue/challenge)
• Only the players  decide when, how and with what they’d like support via the 4 C’s
• The coaching mindset within the game shifts from "How can I help/Challenge the players" to "How are the players responding to the mission?"

LEVEL UP

• Complexity (variations of time/space) moves from simple to complex levels, where players can be on different levels within the same game
• The initial assessment of players occurs via their meta-cognitive skill
• The coaching mindset from within the game shifts from "What’s my next progression for this practice" to "Who’s likely to level up next?"

EARNING A SUPER POWER

• Providing players with the opportunity to be more effective for a short period of time
• Players decide when and why they need the power and how best to use it
• The coaching mindset within the game shifts from "How do I adjust the task to meet the ability of all players" to "What super power might be helpful for players to earn?"

SAVING PROGRAM

• Individual players/teams can end/re-start the game at different levels and therefore with a challenge point that is relevant to them
• Players are inclined to take risks during the game play because the game won’t allow for regression
• The coaching mindset within the game shifts from "We need to cover all of this technical/tactical content" to "Let’s allow players to spend time mastering this game."

Let me know how you see that this approach could be used to develop your training sessions?

SKILL ACQUISITION TWITTER THREAD

                                       

Twitter has become my go-to social media platform these days and last week I stumbleed across a length thread on skill acqusition  and what the biggest bang for your buck is in relation to it.

Here are just some of the responses from varous coaches around the world from all different sports:

• Fail to learn
• The most important learning is learning to learn
• Don’t just artificially boost current performance levels but emphasise/encourage long term learning
• It’s not perfect practice that makes perfect it’s the effortful pursuit of perfect results in a representative environment designed to make attaining such results difficult, that makes perfect
• Fast learning doesn't lead to long term retention of information
• Develop through randomisation, slow performance progress and good quality struggle but every learner will have their own personal struggle limit
• The ideal challenge level is "pleasantly frustrating"
• Think of the ramifications of block v random practice
• Add variability to practice in whatever way you want to
• Use an athlete centered approach (autonomy, enhanced expectations etc)
• As an athlete try to realise the rich sources of information that live outside your perspective
• Invite the athlete to be an active participant in their practice design
• We can have the most robust practice design but that can instantly change with how you instruct and give feedback
• Communication is a form of constraint
• For anyone u16 years of age, it’s free play
• Emphasising the distinction between learning and performance, reinforcing that sometimes we want to sacrifice performance in the short term to improve learning in the long term
• Create a non-threatening relationship
• Be sure to implement skill planning/periodisation embedded by the principles of learning, as a lack of a well thought out plan can easily derail good practice design and slow development
• Consistently implement effective practice design, understanding the extent to which demonstruction/instruction/practice scheduling etc, is important in your sport, with your athletes
• Intrinsic motivation

How many of these have taken into account before training your players in the past?

What one's have you implemented?

What one's are your favourites from this list?

Can you add to this list? 

ONE ON ONE FOOTBALL COACHING

 

In the last couple of weeks I've joined up as a coach on the One on One Football platform to provide private coaching to footballers of any age but 12 - 18yrs of age specifically.

I believe most coaches do 1 on 1 sessions but I'm used to training small groups in my personal training business and also feel that players get a lot more out of drills and scenario's you can use with multiple players then simply on their own, so I'm hoping to get some groups together if possible.

I'll be working the Newport/South Kingsville/Altona North/Williamstown area and although my booking location says the Donald McClean Reserve (Spotswood Football Club), I can travel in the area to more suitable locations for your training sessions.

Whether you are part of a football club or a just bunch of mates that all want to work on improving your football for season 2021 and beyond, then book in some sessions at the link above and we can get to work right away.

OFF-SEASON WOMENS FOOTBALL TRAINING PROGRAM

                                                

I put this together about a year ago for the women football players at my local club for some training to do before actual footy training started.

It is split up into 3 parts:

#1 - Robustness / Injury Prevention

Using bodyweight exercises it has a focus on the lower body specifically to decrease the risk of ACL tears

#2 - STRENGTH TRAINING

Using a variety of gym based exercises focusing on both upper and lower body

#3 - RUNNING PROGRAM

Build aerobic capacity in progressive and gradual manner

Each part has 2 phases consisting of 3 weeks each.

To acces this training program and many others register for a level 2 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

THE LEARNING PROCESS (ARTICLE + TRAINING DRILL)

 

Here are some notes from an article by Australian Sports Phyiso Greg Dea based here in Melbourne who has some excellent content that can be applied to most sports.

This one specifically discusses the learning process and I've added a training drill based around this as well.

Here they are:

• There’s a diff between performance and learning with performance being what happens during a session
• Research indicates that there are certain strategies that enhance performance within a session that will not be as good as other strategies when you do a retention of learning test 2 days later, indicating learning hasn’t happened even though improvement occurred during the actual session
• It’s still important to use repeated movements initially until you successful achieve the movement, as players need to know what a successful movement is and attach a feeling to it, as the body learns best through feeling, not words
• The strategies quickest to getting accurate movement within a session but with less retention are immediate feedback, often feedback and physical guidance, by moving the player through the movement - how most skill development programs look unfortunately!
• The concept called the "illusion of learning" is where you perform well in a block practice session and then you think you’ll be as good 2 days later in a retention test when you probably won’t
• Using the method below players will often predict they’ll test worse but actually test better then block training players.

Once a player has achieved a successful movement according to your performance bandwidth then the strategies that lead to more success in retention tests are:

1. Delayed Feedback (only providing feedback on say reps 1, 4, 9, 16 etc)
2. Random Practice
3. Serial Scheduling Practice
4. Contextual Interference (constraint – environment, task etc)
5. Intrinsic/Augmented feedback to help you connect how they feel with the success/error of the movement pattern
6. Using a performance bandwidth that ensures feedback is given only when an error occurs outside a tolerance range which depends on the population/task and includes criteria for success, efficiency and safety

The training drill below touches on numbers 2 and 3 from this list...

To access this training drill for optimal player learning register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

THE 4 MOST IMPORTANT GAME PRINCIPLES

                                                           
Below are probably the 4 most important game principles involved in any team sport, especially Aussie Rules Football.

Every coach and every player needs to be familiar with each of these as it will then make things far easier when implementing your game model.

They can also be used categorise different game moments which will help you plenty when trying to organise and implement training for your team as coach.

Once you know how to separate game moments in a game like footy which all seems to mesh in to itself over and over, you can then specifically break down how to train them on a Tuesday and Thursday and thus improve them on a Saturday.

#1 - LOCATIONING / POSITIONING...

To access these 4 game principles to take your coaching to a completely new level then register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/

PLAY WITH PURPOSE

                                       

Shane Pill is an Australian PE Teacher/Sport Coach who every coach should read up on in my opinion.

Here are some notes taken from an article of his that I titled Play With Purpose in my notes but might have gone by a different name when he published as I can' t locate now!

Being a PE teacher his focus is not on winning like sports coaches bur rather player development on an intricate level as well as player participation, 2 things local/amateur coaches of all ages and grades should focus on a lot more and what I try to get out to the masses through my content.

• Skilled players have better anticipation and decision making skills from more play at training
• Coaches should try to deliberately manipulate games for a specific purpose by using constraints such as exaggerating (decreasing goal size etc), eliminating (small sided games etc) or reducing (area etc) specific game aspects, depending on what you want to work on
• The change in formula for these constrainted games is through a difference in coaching style, how scoring occurs, area/dimension of play space, number of players, game rules, equipment, inclusion strategies for special needs and time of play in possession/phase of play
• Coaches can shape the strategy used by their players by knowing the desired game behaviour, sequencing the game progression from simple to complex, use questions to focus players thinking/actions and reinforcing learning through volume of engagement and repeated  exposure to the desired game behaviour
• Design training by choosing  a tactical concept for that session and designing games that match simulation to develop it
• Skill is the ability to be in the right place at the right time and to select the correct technique on demand and is therefore concerned with making judgement and selections, making it  psychological-tactical skill
• Players can only perform in games what they have practiced in training

1 STEP RELEASE KICK LAYERED DRILL

Kicking is a general skill.

Being able to perform specific kicks is a specific skills.

All game models at any level of footy will require the use of specific kicks to carry it out.

This all stands to reason that if you need to use specific kicks for specific reasons (i.e. to fulfill your game model), than you better use at least some isolated practice in training these kicks.

Isolated practice is what most teams usually do but in a very general fashion, kicking to stationary, pre-determined and unoppossed targets.

There is also the training of the receiver who needs to know how to get to that spot during a game as it won't neccesarily just be sitting there nice and open when they want it to be.

We can accomplish all of this by layering a drill specific for it.

Step #1 - Isolating the Skill...

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

FREE CONTENT

                                                

Here's a list of all FREE content you can find on the site:

1. STRAIGHTENING UP KICKING (training drills) 
2. AEROBIC CAPACITY TEMPO RUNNING (training programs)
3. MITCH ROBINSON ON HOW TO PLAY THE WING (training/coaching articles)
4. THE TEENAGE BRAIN AND HOW YOU CAN COACH THEM (training/coaching articles)
5. FOOTY FOCUS COURSE WEEK 1 (training programs)
6. THE KICKING MECHANICS RABBIT HOLE (training/coaching articles)
7. KICKING MECHANICS KINOGRAM METHOD (training/coaching articles)
8. CONTEXT KICKING PROGRESSION (training/coaching articles)
9. MY BIGGEST FOTBALL FAN #RIP DAD 
10. JAMES WORPEL/SAM MITCHELL FILM SESSION (training/coaching articles)
11. DEVELOP YOUR GAME MODEL COURSE (training programs)
12. PLAYER ASSESSMENT ESSENTIALS (training/coaching articles)
13. 5 REASONS WHY YOU NEED A GAME MODEL (training/coaching articles)
14. TRAINING DRILLS DIRECTORY
15. 4 THINGS I LEARNT FROM THE ADVANCED CERTIFICATE IN COACHING FUNDAMENTALS AFL SKILLS COURSE (training/coaching articles)
16. TRAINING/COACHING ARTICLES DIRECTORY
17. COACHING LANGUAGE (training/coaching articles)
18. PLAYER MOTIVATION + OPTIMAL LEARNING ENVIROMENT (training/coaching articles)
19. RESTRUCTURING JUNIOR FOOTBALL DEVELOPMENT/TRAINING (training/coaching articles)
20. PRE-SEASON 2021 STARTS + KICKING PROGRAM (training/coaching articles)
21. 3 TEAM GAME  (training drills)
22. 3v3v3 POSSESSION (training drills)
23. RONDO (training drills)
24. PLAY WITH PURPOSE (training/coaching articles)
25. THE LEARNING PROCESS (ARTICLE + TRAINING DRILL) (training/coaching articles)
26. ONE ON ONE FOOTBALL COACHING (all about me unfortunately!)
27. SKILL ACQUISITION TWITTER THREAD (training/coaching articles)
28. USING DIGITAL VIDEO GAMES APPROACH TO JUNIOR SPORT (training/coaching articles)
29. WANT TO GET DRAFTED? HERE'S HOW... (training/coaching articles)
30. 20 GAME SENSE DRILLS VOLUME 2 (product)
31. PLAYER DEVELOPMENT: HOW TO CHALLENGE YOUR PLAYERS (training/coaching articles)
32. GAME DAY PART 1 - PRE-GAME (training/coaching articles)
33. GAME DAY PART 2 - IN-GAME (training/coaching articles)
34. GAME DAY PART 3: POST-GAME (training/coaching articles)
35. PSYCHOLOGICAL CO-ACTIVE PART 1 (training/coaching articles)
36. PSYCHOLOGICAL CO-ACTIVE PART 2 (training/coaching articles)
37. LENGTHEN THE GROUND - GRAND FINAL VISION (training/coaching articles)
38. HOW TO NOT DEFEND DUSTY MARTIN - GRAND FINAL VISION (training/coaching articles)
39. GAME SENSE COACHING APPROACH TO AFL BOOK REVIEW (training/coaching articles)
40. 10 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE AFL SPORTSREADY GAME PLANS COURSE (training/coaching articles)
41. 10 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE AFL SPORTREADY GAME PLANS COURSE PART 2 (training/coaching articles)
42. 10 STEPS TO DEVELOPING TRAINING DRILLS THROUGH YOUR GAME MODEL - VIDEO (training/coaching articles)
43. TRAINING ON THE EDGE (training/coaching articles)
44. 1ST TRAINING SESSION BACK - FULL LAY OUT (training/coaching articles)
45. WHY TACTICS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF COACHING (2 PART VIDEO) (training/coaching articles)
46. WHY TACTICS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF COACHING (PART 2) (training/coaching articles)
47. SEASON 2021 PACKAGE NOW AVAILABLE FOR XMAS (training/coaching articles)
48. PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY (THE RICHMOND METHOD) (training/coaching articles)
49. 25 COACHING TIPS FROM 25 COACHES (training/coaching articles)
50. DECISION MAKING PART 2 (training/coaching aricles)
51. HOW TO MAKE 2021 YOUR BEST FOOTBALL YEAR EVER (training/coaching articles)
52. GAME INTELLIGENCE PART 1 (training/coaching articles)
53. GAME INTELLIGENCE PART 2 (training/coaching articles)
54. GAME INTELLIGENCE PART 3 (training/coaching articles)
55. GAME INTELLIGENCE PART 4 (training/coaching articles)

RETURN TO KICKING PROGRAM

It's time to get the footy back in my hands so I've developed a footy day in my training regime as discussed here.

As part of that I've developed a "return to kicking" program that I can do on my own for the most part but will also use my son who trains with me everyday anyway.

As mentioned in my linked post, I have 3 old baseball pitching mats on a wire fence that are all different shapes and sizes that I use for kicking target practice for various drills.

Although they are stationary targets it's harder then it looks to hit the smaller one's as there is no room for error, no arms to reach out or legs to move with, if the ball is not the exact path.

Be sure that this is not actual skill aquisition or development either, I can already kick, this is more of a skill rehearsal drill as I haven't kicked since February.

Here's my 12 session program...

To gain access to this training program and plenty more than register for a level 2 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

PRE-SEASON 2021 STARTS + KICKING PROGRAM

                                                     

Having barely touched a footy since we stopped footy training in February, for the last few months I've been running through a cycle of:

• Day 1 x Neural Prep Day
• Day 2 - Sprint Day
• Day 3 - Recovery Day (X Basketball shot makes in X mins)
• Day 4 - Upper Body Weights Day

As I'm training for footy I think now is the time to get a footy back in my hands so I've developed my new program for the next 3 - 4 weeks that started yesterday and I'm rolling with the same schedule but the neural day that would normally be 20 sets of 5m starts from various positions is now a "footy day".

I'm using my Rebound Net for an exercise progression to train hand-eye coordination, reaction time and clean hands.

I've made a quick progression of throws that I'll be running through over the next 8 or so weeks being:

Normal Throws

• 1 and 2 Arm Underarm Horizontal/Vertical Ball Throws into Net and Catch

Handballs

• Handball into Net and Catch

Partner Throw

• I'll have Archie throw the ball into the net

Partner Throw Turn and Catch

• I'll face the opposite way to the net, Archie will call when he throws the ball into the net and I'll turn and catch...or attempt to, we'll see how this one goes!

I'll video each of these as I do them over the coming weeks and I'll do 5 sets of 20 of each.

After that I have a kicking program I've made for myself to train on my own to reintroduce kicking into my training.

Out here in the western suburbs of Melbourne there's a baseball club/field attached to a huge grass area by the bay and they have e old pitching mats against the wire fence to the old batting cage as you can see in the video above.

I've used them for all sorts of kicking target practice in the last few years and I've developed another program around them for this program.

This full kicking program will be added to the training programs section this week.

After that I finish with some footy specific sprints:

You can see a white hat that I sprint to after I kick the footy which is 10m so I can time my sprints and compare them to my sprint day 10m sprints - I did these last week and clocked a couple of sub-2sec 10m sprints which is decent enough for a first try and also the fact that the ball will rarely bounce perfectly forward so that I don't have alter my movement where any in an action where .01sec is crucial, the slightest movement alteration can add time to a 10m sprint quite easily.

I'll be doing 5 x 10m of these with my main sprinting day to follow the next day, acting a neural prior for those.

Look out for the kicking program later this week!

4 LEVELS OF SKILL ACQUISITION

                                    

These are notes taken an article from Irish coach Phil Learney. 

STAGE #1 - WHAT THE ATHLETE DOES...

To access the rest of this article and plenty more register for a level 1 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

RESTRUCTURING JUNIOR FOOTBALL DEVELOPMENT/TRAINING

                                       

I've had this note about structuring junior football on my phone for 6 months now so it's time to do something with it, although I might not make many friends with this post.

For memory someone asked on social media somewhere about what to do with them at training or how to do whatever...I can't remember but this is what I typed in my notes anyway without actually responding to it!

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF AS COACH

• Who is there?
• Why are they there?
• Where will they be in the future?
• What do you want them to do?
• What do they want to do?

In a super quick question and answer session you'll have a junior/youth age group of 25 players spanning 2, maybe 3, specific ages but close enough to be lumped together for the most part.

They are going to be there for a wide variety of reasons such as to learn about footy, play with friends, to make new friends, to feel/be active and even from being "pushed" from parents into it.

I'll make up some figures here but in the future 90% will still be playing in 1 - 2 years time, 60 - 70% will still be playing in 3 - 4 years time and probably less than 50% will still be playing in 5 years time.

All up you might be lucky to have 5 players from today that play right through juniors to seniors for your club and less than 1% chance of anyone of them making an AFL list at any stage.

Now as a coach you want them to sit, be quite, listen and then do drills where they stand in line and waiting impatiently, losing concentration until you call them into sit them back down only to send them back out to wait in more lines.

As the coach you then judge those players on the training environment you have provided for them, whether that is good, bad or something in between.

The kids/players all just want to have fun and be with their friends - none of the stuff you want to do at all.

A coaches ability to retain junior players year after year is their most important coaching tactic so the BIG QUESTION is now how do we make sport/footy more fun - it's already fun, that's why they turn up every week.

The BIG QUESTION is how do we stop adults interfering and removing fun from kids sport/footy and turn the focus from teaching them how to win into teaching them how to move and play anything sport related in as many different ways as possible, not just in football terms.

Already this should probably get you thinking about how you could things differently from now on.

This could really be a book with all the stuff I have on youth sport but for now I'll leave you with a very brief look at how my junior training structure might look like if I was in charge of a specific aged team or in a junior president/development type of role at club level.

If I was in charge of all junior football in Australia than I would change all football competitions to mimic something like this because:

***Smaller Dimensions + Less Players = More Touches Per Player***

So now it's...

***More Touches Per Player = More Enjoyment = Greater Retention***

I'll also add that some sports develop sport qualities better than football does so I would also use them at the footy club to build those qualities in junior players such as basketball for awareness/agility, gymnastic for body awareness/coordination and non footy games to teach the basics of invasion sports, such as footy.

This can all be done next season IF you lay out the expectations to parents as I know my own son would not give a shit if he didn't even see a footy at all at footy training, and I'm positive he's not the only kid like that these days.

UNDER 8's

• Pure Enjoyment via Games
• Teams not exceeding 6v6
• Dimensions not exceeding 30m x 20m 

UNDER 10's

• Games
• Introduction to Basic Skills
• Teams not exceeding 8v8
• Dimensions not exceeding 40m x 30m

UNDER 12's

• Increased Skill Development
• Introduction to Small Sided Games
• Teams not exceeding 12v12
• Dimensions not exceeding 45m x 40m

UNDER 14's

• Increased Skill Development
• Introduction to Basic Tactics
• Small Sided Games
• Teams not exceeding 14v14
• Dimensions not exceeding 80 x 60m

UNDER 16's

• Skill Development + Tactical Development
• Small Sided Games
• Introduction to game scenarios
• Team not exceeding 16v16
• Full Ground

PLAYER MOTIVATION + OPTIMAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

                                     

These are notes taken from a 3 part article series from UK Senior Coach Developer who has a lot of great articles here.

Plenty of super takeaways here so make your self comfortable.

• The self determination theory (SDT) is made up of autonomy (a sense of control over your own life/volition), competence (being effective/skilful) and relatedness (to feel connected/cared for by others) which can be enhanced by being satisfied by 1 of these categories but is optimised through all 3
• We are inherently driven towards being creative/curious while seeking any opportunites to satisfy our needs, to be the masters of our own destiny and to be effective and feel connected
• Amotivation comes from not thinking the outcome is valued (relatedness), not perceiving the outcome as being in our control (autonomy) or not being perceived as attainable (competence)
• Self determined behaviour means you do something for the shear joy of it
• Intrinsic motivation (which comes from within) and intrinsic behaviour regulation (the regulation of your own behaviour and keepiong it under control whether you act on the motivation to engage or not) and intrinsic focus of casuality (you believe that you are the cause and therefore in control of the outcomes of your behaviour)
• Coaches have huge control over the learning environment and how it is experienced and players need supportive learning environments
• Autonomy is the most important as it provides the most options but is not always attained if the coach can’t provide it
• A coach’s autonomy supportive behaviours directly influence the players perception of competence, autonomy and relatedness so provide choice within team structure via specific rules and limits, provide rationale for tasks and limits, acknowledge any negative feelings, provide opportunites to take initiatives and to work indepedently, provide non-controlling competence feedback, use non-controlling language and avoid conflicting behaviours and use competition and rewards wisely to promote a mastery rather than ego involvement (promote achievement)
• Giving feedback after good performances is way better then feedback after poor performances
• If they can’t do the movement pattern at all then adjust/change the constraints (task/environment/player) rather then giving negative feedback as the feedback you give can influence the players expectations of the learning process and how malleable they perceive their performance to be (don’t like wet weather, close checking defenders etc)
• To create objective feedback create opportunites to self check
• Don’t use controlling feedback (those kicks were good, like they should be) and avoid should, must, have to, I would expect, as you should have etc as they are all guilt-inducing criticisms and emotionally laden statements that could be seen as threatening
• Giving rewards for everything can result in thinking nothing is worth doing for it’s own sake but the detrimental effects of rewards in undermining autonomy/reducing intrinsic motivation is far greater in children than adults
• A mastery climate encourages improvement of their own skills and success is judged by changes in their own performance and is hugely influenced by expectations of learning and future competence as well as being supported by goal setting
• Providing needs-supportive coaching, particularly autonomy support, can result in far better learning as it changes the way we learn
• A learner-centered focus considers task constraints (technical/tactical), environment and nuances (motivational etc) of the player performing it
• Individualisation is most effective when the learner gets to decide how and what to individualise resulting in increases in motivation and skill acquisition via more focused decision making, increased overall effort, optimal levels of challenge, reward through levels of competence, increased relationship satiusfaction with coaches, increased perceived needs support and increases in perceived needs satisfaction
• The best way to implement this as a coach is to let the player choose their own level of skill difficulty or practice schedule challenge (self pacing) but the coach also has the responsiblility to ensure that the range of tasks/levels are appropriate, well structured and have the opportunity for progression to ensure learners have the information they need and the skill level necessary, to make their decisions

COACHING LANGUAGE

                                     

I've discussed coaching language before a little bit on this site in the past and it's still very much a very underappreciated skill in any coaching job.

What you say and how you say it can have HUGE implications on how your players interpret it.

Any interaction between coach and player generally follows this loop:

1. What You Said
2. What You Think You Said
3. What the Player Heard
4. What Your Player Understands
5. What Your Player Remembers

It's a massive game of Chinese Whispers within specific football context and we all know how the same story passed down the line can change dramatically from the 1st person to the last.

Football has a similar but maybe worse issue in that coaches are telling 20 - 40 players the same message 1 singular way.

If you go back to the interaction loop above it's easy to see how that 1 message can get interpreted 20 - 40 different ways.

The language you use matters a lot more than you think and after 36 years of footy I've heard the same shit repeated each year around footy:

"I want you to come off f$&ked"...

"Hit'em hard!"...

"We owe these c$#ts!"...

Emotive language for sure but emotions are fleeting and to think that will carry a team of 22 different players for 2 solid hours in ridiculous.

I read about a famous soccer coach not long ago who basically said that coaches who use a lot of words are simply deflecting their actual lack of coaching ability and I tend to agree.

The simplier you communicate your coaching to your players, the better.

The simplier messages you coach to your players, the better.

I was watching a game review a coach had done for a player on social media earlier today and he mentioned "multiple efforts".

The player gathered the ball, handballed to a teammate that got defelcted, they regained the ball in the same motion and tapped it out to the original player they tried to handball to.

Now as everything was displyed in the same motion then there was only 1 effort, a continuous effort that involved multiple ACTIONS.

Seems pedantically picky doesn't it?

Well yes and no.

If you want a player to display multiple efforts then if they think that multiple efforts is actually mutiple actions in a single effort, then the actual multiple efforts you are asking for may never happen.

As a coach you than would perceive "multiple efforts" as a weakness for this player when in fact according to the player, they might say "but I tried 3 different things there - I picked up the ball, I handballed it, got it back and handballed it again."

What might have been missing from the player is the change of direction after that last handball/tap on from above to shepard an opposition player from pressuring the ball carrier.

As momentum is needed to be altered and a change of direction required, that would be classed as 2 seperate efforts - the gather/handball/re-gather/handball effort and the change of direction and shepard effort.

All up you're got 6 actions and 2 efforts in the space if 2 - 3 seconds.

For 2021 I challenge each and every coach to work hard on the language they use and the context they use it in which can be assisted through the development of a game model, instilling a team language/code and more individual or team line coaching, over full team coaching in games and during training.

GAME MODEL - TRAINING THE MICRO MOMENTS (5 VIDEOS)

Even at local/amateur level, the focus on team defense in footy is clear to see with zones, clusters and the like.

The part I want to focus on is the "team" part which means that everyone is working on conjunction with everyone else on their team but as dictated by the opposition.

It's not what 1 person can do in a team defense, it's what the collective can do and how effective they can do it.

This is what the game model develops.

Within the team defense each player has their own responsibilities to carry out that create a sum of all parts situation when everyone does it at the right time.

If 1 person fails in their own responsibilities then this entire team defense can fall apart in that particular game moment.

Naturally some players will be better at some of these responsibilies then others such as pushing up on the mark quickly, reading what the ball player is wanting to do, knowing the structure behind them of their own teammates and so on.

With this in mind it stands to reason that every player will need to put in situations where each of these responsibilities need to be trained but most of them are so "simple" that coaches just assume that every player will apply them but you don't know what you don't know.

The micro moment we're going to focus on here is manning the mark during the opposition's defense to transition offense game moment - a time in the game where you are at your most vulnerable as you've just pushed forward to try and score and a good portion of your defense is disorganised.

If the opposition can regain possession and exit your forward 50 cleanly and quickly then they are already in an excellent position to score even though they are 100m from their own goal.

Let's say the ball is kicked out from your forward 50 wide to the * on your half forward flank:

This is exactly where the game model benefits your team the most - where an individual player has to assume the responsibility of the entire team on their shoulders during a specific micro moment - in this case it's the closest player to whoever receives the ball as indicated by the blue circle, who is most likely your fatside wing player:

                                                       

The opposition can receive the ball in 2 different play scenarios - closed play and open play...

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