NEXT LEVEL COACHING - GAME INTELLIGENCE...AGAIN

The NBA Draft is on tomorrow and I came across this article by US Sports writer Danny Chau focusing on the projected #1 pick Cade Cunningham, who although not blessed with super speed or athleticism, has impressed most with his ability to play a slower paced game based on game intelligence and skill performance over eye popping dunks.

In AFL circles we're talking Scott Pendlebury, David Mundy and even Marcus Bontempelli types who I think you'll agree won't be winning the half time sprint any time soon.

I posted a pretty big series on Game Intelligence back in January this year so this will rehash some of that but in vastly different terms and using different examples that might resonate more with some of you than my presentation of game intelligence did but remember this is based on basketball so some of the comments are basketball specific but I'll relate it footy where I can.

• From a game style point of view, the faster you play the more randomness occurs in the game which forces players to read and react faster and more often, putting game intelligence demands far in front of athleticism
• It doesn’t matter how athletic you are if you can’t recognise the underlying patterns in front of you within a small window of time
• The longer you can decipher the rapidly changing shape of the game, the longer you can stay on the ground without hurting the team so the ability to maintain concentration is also a huge assett to have
• Having "feel for the game" is the sum of a players pattern recognition, visual processing (especially in spatial recognition) and their processing speed and these 3 cognitive abilities come together to form an executive action that aims to solve a problem in the game
• Pattern recognition involves identifying a familiar situation, or formation, on the ground that triggers recollection of a similar experience, and that is then used as a template for your visual processing, which is the act of repeatedly updating information - delivered from the retina in your eye to the visual cortex in the back of the brain - about movement happening in your perceived surroundings and making a deduction based on the information gathered, making processing speed present as how quickly you can act upon the conclusion formed
• Processing can come in many forms such how quickly can I go from 1 option to another option to another  option + the ability in the moment to perform the right type of foot pass in bball (low/hard stabkick v sit it out in front of the player) which is recognising movement, placement, where teammates are and what their body language looks like
• Through motion we are constantly learning our own capacity to act within our surroundings and the only difference in sport is the parameters of what you have to play within which dictates the amount of time you have to act such as contested ground ball gather in congestion where you need to forst collect the ball cleanly under physical pressure, then look to see what passing options are available, are they in space, does it follow in line with our team's game model so other players can play off this action quickly and effectively, can you get the ball to them, can they receive under limited pressure etc, which takes a few secondss to literally read like just now, but in a game you have a split second to process all this information in real time
• When you understand how the brain and the probabilites around decision making work, at least at a theoretical level, you can really start to think about how you can manipulate that environment, how you can manipulate the decisions you make, and introduce new variables that would change those decisions in a way that spurs on development
• To encourage players to make better decisions and in a more efficient way have your midfeilders play key position where they have to react on everything that's happening in front of them but also give your key position players experience in congested stoppage situations so they can identify paterns of play of how and when the ball comes out of congestion that they can go back to when they go back to their original roles where both position switches create opportunites to work under different contexts and constraints
• Really skilled players are just seeing different things, picking up different information about the spacing/movement of players which allows them to make quick decisions in the moment
• Really good players are more attuned with what their teammates can do (called shared affordances) where I see an opening the same time that you do and we can both play off that far better than those who haven't seen it as fast as we have
• Can you influence a game with your mind and your skill set?
• Make the opposition adjust to you because the opposition can get calibrated to speed/playing styles etc and then get themselves in a comfort zone so by slowing things down to be far more effectively tactically, it can force the opposition to think for longer which wrecks havoc with their cohesion and that's when you can attack most effectively

TRAINING TO MIMIC THE SYDNEY SWANS BALL MOVEMENT

 

A few weeks ago I did a series of posts firstly on some of the tactics the Sydney Swans used to decimate the West Coast Eagles and then how by just adding few tweaks it can be used in local/amateur football to what I suspect would be great effect.

Here's a video of training drill/scenario that you can use to teach this to your players with some extras explaination below....

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MY JUNE/JULY RUNNING PROGRAM

I've posted my go-to aerobic/anaerobic threshold training program before (level 2 membership) but here's what it looks like in real time for me.

I don't usually do fatigue-ish running during the season as there's more then enough of it in games and at footy training already, instead opting for specific speed work.

At 43 years of age I'm down to training 1/week with the team these days so I can have more control of my training volume to ensure I'm tip top for games - if I have to do 2 relatively high sessions during the week then it's not gonna leave much to work with on a Saturday and anything after that is simply compounding my fatigue levels which can increase injury risk dramatically.

During planned weeks off during the season put in by the league, I usually try and get some extra sessions in while we don't have footy training/games where now I have 100% over my training volume and thus, schedule. 

Obviously this year we've into our 2nd mid-season lockdown here in Melbourne so I've had 2 opportunities to insert fatigue-ish running into the mix which is my performance limiter.

So we went into lockdown on the 27th of May I believe at which time my coaching gig went south so I was off back to my old team in a playing capacity so I wanted to do some extra running with the extra gamer time I was facing (half game v full game).

Since then I've done 8 running sessions and here's how it played out.

June 4th - 9 x 60m every 20secs x 2 rounds with 2mins rest

June 8th - 9 x 60m every 20secs x 3 rounds with 2mins rest

** I decided to take my heart rate 1mins after each rep for another metric to gauge progress on going forward where I got 138, 144 and 144bpm) 

June 10th - 9 x 60m every 20secs x 4 rounds with 2mins rest @ 144, 144, 144 and 156bpm

** This was a 2 week lockdown period so I squeezed these in over a week in the hope that we'd be training by the 2nd week, which we could have been, but we only trained the Thursday that week then straight back to games.

As stated I usually do speed work on a Tuesday in my own time but I wanted to continue with this so I attempted to.

June 22nd - 9 + 8 x 65m every 20secs x 2 rounds with 2mins rest @ 150 and 144bpm

** I did this at an away venue on the windiest day in history and the extra distance coupled with the wind and a slog-fest the weekend before just too much for this old soul to the point I couldnlt even get 9 reps on the 2nd set in the fuill allotted time per set of 3mins (I could only get 8 as it says above).

Deciding that trying to run with this during games on heavy tracks wasn't going to work for me I went back to speed workouts on a Tuesday.

On the 13th of July we went back into lockdown so again I was given full control of my schedule and training volume and decided to go back to them while I could, even with only 3 games remaining once we return to footy.

I also went with the increased distance of 65m per rep, up from 60m in the previous 3 session block.

July 16th - 9 x 65m every 20secs x 2 rounds with 2mins rest @ 144 and 144bpm

** I also decided to take the total time of each set too which should take exactly 3mins if I'm keeping pace with my 20secs distance time determined pre-program which today was 3:08 and 3:05

July 19th - 9 x 65m every 20secs x 3 rounds with 2mins rest @ 138, 138 and 150bpm in 3:01, 3:03 and 3:02

July 26th - 9 x 65m every 20secs x 4 rounds with 2mins rest @ 144, 150, 162 and 156bpm @ 3:04, 3:01, 3:05 and 3:07

I had originally planned to just 2 and 3rounds of 65m but after hitting very close to 3:00 on all sets at lower heart rates then normal I thought let's try and see what 4 sets provides which I just completed about 90mins ago.

All sets felt relatively harder than normal which could be from residual fatigue (I've trained 15 straight days up until this point) and you know, just being 43 years old!

After set 3 I still felt OK though knowing that there's just 1 x 3 minute set to go.

I started off on set 4 and felt OK for most of the first 4 up and back reps but at the turn of the 4th into the 5th rep, I felt an almost instant burst of leg fatigue and knew I wasn't going to be able to hold time, which I was for those 1st 4 sets.

My time blew over by 7secs and I instantly dropped the grass for a quick death although I still the inages of Ariarne Titmus' coach Dean Boxall running through my mind got me through the finish. 

From the 3rd session of each 60 and 65m block this is what my results looked like:

Block 1 - Total Distance x 2,160m @ 100% max aerobic speed of 3 meters per second with a 1min recovery heart rate average of 147bpm

Block 2 - Total Distance x 2,380m @ 100% max aerobic speed of 3.25 meters per second with a 1min recovery heart rate average of 154bpm

My pure sweet spot is probably 62.5m per rep which I reckon I could do without an increase in average heart rate which I was planning to do originally but when lockdown came I went for 65m knowing I had recovery all to myself.

Lastly as a sprinter-type my resting heart rate usually sits at about 60 on average but when I do htese running blocks it drops rather dramatically down to the low 50's and at 1 point a few days ago 48bpm!

And top effort to my 10yr old Archie who did all these sessions with me but at 45m reps each time.

DISTANCES, PHASES & SPACES - ROBERTO MANCINI (ITALIAN SOCCER COACH)

These pointers come from an article on Italian National Coach Robero Manici, hot off the heels of a Euro Cup win a week or so ago.

I'm not a soccer fan at all but I do read a fair bit of tactical content on the game, of which a lot of has found itself into AFL circles in the last decade or so.

Alistair Clarkson probably started the trend when he returned from an off-season trip in the mid 200's where he visted a soccer club and was introduced to Gegenpressing which formed the base of the Clarko Cluster.

The Western Bulldogs under Luke Beveridge worked their angle on this after he came over from Hawthorn and most recently Damian Hardwick, another ex-Hawthorn assistant coach of the same era put his spin on it at Richmond.

All 3 clubs have been ultra successful in the last decade.

It's important that coaches look at other sports and see what they're doing and how they're doing it because if you can be the first to introduce it to Aussie Rules Football, then you'll be a year or 2 ahead the your competitiors.

Here are my favourite points from this article as they pertain to soccer but think about how they can or reference to footy.

• In both defensive and possession phases you want your team shape to be short and narrow
• During the possession phase you want leave and then occupy space, making it hard for the opposition to control your ball movement
• The distance between the ball carrier and receiver/s should not be more than 12 – 15m because if the distance is any greater then that then the pass needs to be more accurate, it will usually need to be kicked in the air and your also often kicking to an isolated player, who then can be outnumbered by the defense
• Pressure/preventative blocks allow for less running and saving energy for sprints, when your energy is really needed
• There is a time for multi-styled football in the one game so if we have to sit in deep and defend with organisation then counter-attack, we are Italian, if we win the ball and have no immediate opposition to counter then we are Spanish and if the best solution is to go as fast as possible then we’re German but we need to set our game up on who are as nobody can be better at that then us (be Italian)
• The further away from our goal the ball is, the safer we are and when you attack well, you’ll defend well and when you defend well you’ll attack better
• You need to travel together as a team with the ball so you can defend hard when you lose it but if you’re too far away from where you’ve lost it then you can’t press the opposition, so be together connecting with passes to be able to win it back immediately

GIVING FEEDBACK - JOSHUA BONHOTAL

 

These pointers on giving feedback comes from a Twitter thread from Joshua Bonhotal, a coach who now leverages technology and fitness to optimise human performance (give him a follow).

As a coach it's not just the content of the feedback of what you giove to your players but also how you deliver that feedback and also what personality type the player falls under who you're delivering too.

Here's some tips to take your feedback to the next level.

• Keep positive feedback personal and negative feedback technical
• Triumph their wins by drawing clear associations between their efforts and the successful outcome
• Don’t attach blame to failure by keying in on technical/tactical solutions
• Model extreme ownership and they will follow
• Take windows of opportunity as timing is everything and when you say things is as important as what you say
• If emotion is high then they won’t be open to critical feedback which could lead to long term performance anxiety/resent, which fractures trust
• Use growth v fixed language to shif their mindset by focusing on what they can controland embrace failure as a fundamental and welcome part of the growth cycle
• Create an environment that is safe to take calculated risks and fail (psychological safety)
• Don’t give the answers too quick but also remove the safety net by allowing them to explore for their own solutions
• People will rise or fall to the level of their expectations but be careful not to base them on past failures/short comings or you’ll get proven right which is not what you want, but instead set the bar just out of reach and lift them up
• Cue "do this" over "don’t do that" to focus their attention on the desired action/positive outcomes

SYDNEY SWANS TRANSITION OFFENSE AT LOCAL/AMATEUR LEVEL PART 5

#5 – KICK OPTION FROM BEHIND INTO THE CORRIDOR

This pretty close to what the Swans often try and achieve, especially during a slow play where they've defender outside the corridor. 

This play starts with Dorca hitting up and marking then hitting up a forward pushing up towards him on the half forward flank...

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SYDNEY SWANS TRANSITION OFFENSE AT LOCAL/AMATEUR LEVEL PART 4

 

#4 – KICK OPTION FROM BEHIND TO KEEP FORWARDS BACK

We work the ball along the boundary to the mid-point of the ground via fast play and we’ve got a line of players tearing through the middle, and through space, from the half back line where the ball came from...

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SYDNEY SWANS TRANSITION OFFENSE AT LOCAL/AMATEUR LEVEL PART 3

 

#3 – KICK OPTION FROM BEHIND TO KEEP FORWARDS BACK

This starts with a short hit up from Benji and he does exactly what the Swans do on his own by pushing forward from behind so your forwards don’t have to come up too high leaving you with no one to kick to...

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SYDNEY SWANS TRANSITION OFFENSE AT LOCAL/AMATEUR LEVEL PART 2

I should have mentioned yesterday that we tend to go lateral/backwards a lot because our home ground is postage stamp and that’s often the only way you can maintain possession and lengthen the ground to open up space in front of you, which works there but it makes it hard focus on bigger grounds when we don’t gain territory enough at the same time...

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SYDNEY SWANS TRANSITION OFFENSE AT LOCAL/AMATEUR LEVEL PART 1

Last week I did a monster 4-part analysis on my Sydney Swans and their complete destruction of the West Coast Eagles, with a close look at their ball and player movement during transition offense.

I'm back at my old club in a playing role after my coaching gig fell through but I did take a small amount of time on Saturday to quickly run through how this similar, but different, way to create and hit up 45 kicks to possess the ball could work for us, as it's similar to the game style we've worked on all year.

Game day isn't really the time to introduce new tactics and I wouldn't advise it normally but as I said, this isn't too far removed from what we already try to do as you'll see.

Here's 5 pieces of vision (1/day this week) from our game over the weekend where we could utilise some of the things we saw in my 4 posts on the Swans last week.

#1 - 45 DEGREE KICK OPTION FROM BEHIND...

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SYDNEY SWANS ANALYSIS v WEST COAST EAGLES PART 4

                                          

In part 4 I take a look at:

- 3 examples of creating and maintaining wing ground width and how it advantages your team

- What opening up space can do for your forwards down the feild

- The Sydney Swans Super Play encapsulating everything discussed so far this week in a single play

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SYDNEY SWANS ANALYSIS v WEST COAST EAGLES PART 3

Today we look at:

- Defending Around the Boundary Line

- Keeping Forwards Closer to Goal

- Defensive Half Slow Play

- Frontal Pressure Defending

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SYDNEY SWANS ANALYSIS v WEST COAST EAGLES PART 2

                                             

Today we take a look at:

- Lateral Kick to Option from Behind

- Defending Wide

- Who man's the mark?

- Team Defense

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SYDNEY SWANS ANALYSIS v WEST COAST EAGLES

As a long time Swans fan since the mid-80's I was reasonably happy after yesterday's demolition of the West Coast Eagles so after watching yesterday's game I thought I'd take a closer look at some things from the game.

I actually have 2 pages of pointers I collected and I'll give you 12 of them throughout this week with vision and images to run you through some of the how and why's of each play.

DEFENSIVE 50 THROW IN FORMATION...

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21 GAMEDAY COACHING TIPS YOU CAN USE TOMORROW - DAVID SHARKEY

                                       

These points come from an article from David Sharkey, an English teacher and Rugby coach from the UK, but is relevant to coaching for any sport.

At the local level a lot of coaches spend so much time making player changes on their coaching boards they sometimes fail to pay attention to other aspects of the coaching at a more deeper level on gameday, which is understandable sometimes with so much going on.

Here are some pointers to enhance the gameday coaching experience for your players and hopefgully lead to better success.

1. Be a calm and calculating influence
2. It's the players job to bring the emotion, not the coach, but they need to know that
3. Focus on controllablesfor on and off field
4. Have as many positive conversations as you can
5. Develop a coaching language of your own and rehearsal it prior to games...

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