CRAIG MCRAE INSIGHTS FOR SEASON 2023 - ROUNDS 1 - 6

                                          

Craig McRae has thoroughly confused the AFL landscape as watching Collingwood games is must see for all AFL-fans, firstly for there attack at all cost playing style but also the belief he has instilled in the group that they can win from any position imaginable.

They make teams play to the full minutes and make fans watch to the full minutes as well!

Late last year I did a single post consisting of various comments I picked up from his press conferences throughout the year but I'm going a bit deeper with it this year so here's what interested me from the early part of the season so far.

"You can only get belief through evidence and the evidence was that we had an enormous pre-season"

I've also put together a PDF of Collingwood Training Activities taken directly from their 2023 pre-season that has top of the ladder right now so to access the other 14 insights from Craig McRae register for a level 1 membership and/or for the Collingwood Training activities, again visit the register page.

JUNIOR SPORT PROGRAMS FROM AROUND THE WORLD PART 2

                                             

GERMANY FOUNDATION PHASE

We touched on Germany Youth Soccer above and here's a bit on more on some of the changes they made to make youth soccer developmentally fair, age appropriate, more game time, more dribbling, more individual success, more goals and more ball contacts.

In U11's they switched from 7v7 to small sided games with 2 goals at each end and shooting zones focusing on fun, player centered and adults only supporting.

A player who is intelligent goes through 4 phases being to observe the environment, understand what’s going on, make a decision and then execute but most training only focuses on execution.

Clubs now have 3 mini pitches on the same 7v7 ground and everyone plays all the time.

Players must be in the shooting zone in order to score and there's a last touch out of bounds rule.

Players have 2 attractors which is the ball and the goal and if you only have goals at each end then players only use the middle of the pitch so put extra goals on the sides to encourage playing with width.

The coach should invest more into thinking about the rules of the game and allow the rules to do the job and then sit back and observe, acting as a facilitator.

Play 2v2 on a ground 16x20m.

Play 3v3 on a ground 25x20m.

Play 5v5 on a ground 40x25m.

Play 7v7 (at under 10/11 level) on a ground 55x35m.

YOUTH RUGBY

Under 5/6 is 4v4 with a focus on fun, individual focus with no set positions.

Under 7/8 is 5v5 with the same focus as U5/6.

Under 9/10 is 7v7v with a 2/3/2 formation, an introduction to roles/responsibilities in each 3rd and a rotation of positions for all players.

 Under 11/12 is 9v9 with a 2/5/2 or 3/3/3 formation with the same focus as U9/10.

Under 13/14 is 8v8 with a 2/4/2 formation, a set formation and/.or strategy and players can only play in 1 area.

Under 15 is 8v8 with a 2/4/2 formation, adaptable strategies and players now have primary and secondary positions.

Under 17 is 8v8 with even more adaptable strategies and again primary and secondary positions.

BELGIUM YOUTH SOCCER

Analysis showed some u8/9’s touched the ball just twice in a half and I've seen my son train for over an hour without getting 1 kick at his local football club.

They adopted a new philosophy to let them dribble and play in small sided games such as 2v2, 5v5 and 8v8 with player development replacing player rankings.

The top 14 – 18 year old players are offered additional training x 4 mornings per week x 2 hours by the same coaches (school based), but they can still train with their local clubs and they can also choose what ratio that is from week to week resulting in some cases, receiving the opportunity for twice as much coaching as normal.

School based training is grade dependent too, so it keeps the focus on academics at the same time.

They took out tackling so players could educate themselves on when to anticipate and when to drop off etc.

GERMAN YOUTH SOCCER

This goes deeper into their youth soccer revamp from above.

Small sided games with shorter playing times, players regularly rotating with everyone involved and no referees or coaches - no adults!

They organise game afternoon/festivals rather than formal matches within leagues.

2v2 on small pitch with 2 goals per team.

3v3 on a small pitch with 2 goals per team.

5v5 on a medium pitch with 1 goal per team.

5v5 on a slightly bigger pitch then the medium pitch with 2 goals per team.

5v5 on a bigger pitch, somewhere around 40x25m with 2 goals per team.

7v7 on the biggest pitch around 55x35m with 1 goal per team.

Heading of the ball is essentially eliminated.

Kids wanna play with the ball and score goals.

Under 6/7 is 2v2 on 16x20m pitch, 2 substitutes per team, 2 goals per team, goals can only be scored from within the forward half.

This age group can also do 3v3 on a 28x22m pitch with 2 substitutes and goals per team but scoring can only be attempted from within the 6m zone.

No goal keepers, players rotate after each goal, teams play 5 – 7 x 10min games over the entire festival using the 1 winner moves up and loser moves down sequence so each team will eventually find their optimal challenge point.

Under 8/9 is 3v3 on a 28x22m pitch and this age group can also play 5v5 on 40x25m pitch.

The 3v3 game is the same as under 6/7 above but the 5v5 game has 2 substitutes and 1 goal per team, again played winner up/loser down style.

Under 10/11 is 5v5 the same as under 8/9 but can also play 7v7 on a  55x35m pitch with 1 goal keeper per team with 2 x 12min games.

GAELIC GO GAMES

This comes from multi-sport Cork coach Colm Crowley and the changes he made to their junior youth program.

They moved from 7v7 for under 7 and 8's down to 5v5 which resulted in more 1v1's, more shots on goal, more ball touches and more individual skill executions per player.

The 7v7 game involves more rucks with 3 or more players involved, less potential movement and less touches and players being more spread out/away from the action - junior AFL to a tee.

Under 9/10 moved to 7v7 and under 11 to 9v9.

He also found that if there is 14 total players play a 10min game and everything is equal then each player would have 42secs of meaningful ball contact but if there is only 10 players total then that time increases up to 60secs.

The games also end up being more free flowing, less rucks, more clean strikes/kicks, less tackles, faster ball movement, less immediate interceptions, more space on a smaller pitch (35x20m) and the dominant players still dominate but with less impact on the game in the fact that there’s at least a play between them passing and receiving the ball back.

JUNIOR SPORT

Organise teams and games via ability.

If you have to mix abilities the use a scoring system based on ability with 2 - 3x normal goal scores for those yet to develop their skills.

Use playing zones.

Coaches can play as neutrals to ensure the ball gets to everyone.

Use a scoring system for the skill you want to encourage the players to try.

ALL IN ACRONYM 

Last year at my son's local club we had Collingwood premiership player Shane Morwood come and speak to us about building a thorough junior program and the foundations he laid were ALL IN being Ask, Listen, Learn, Include and Nurture.

4 CORNER DEVELOPMENT CONTINUUM

If you really wanna build your youth program out to really push long term development then you can use this framework from UEFA Soccer coach Gary Piggott which runs from aged 5 all the way through to age 20.

For technique, the focus for 5 – 11 year old's should be on basic technique's, ball/wall activities, improving basic skills, using games as a teacher, a rotation of positions, playing other sports and small sided games.

For 10 – 16 year old's, focus on improving technique's, skill execution, understanding the role in the team, attacking principles, defensive principles and individual units/groups using 9v9 to 11v11 games.

For 15 – 20 year old's focus on technique proficiency, improving decision making, complete problem solving and understanding defensive and attacking strategies using 11v11 and other small sided games.

For player psychology, the focus for 5 – 11 year old's should be on enthusiasm, imagination, exploration, avoiding anxiety/boredom, progressive introduction to psychological skills and progressive group activities.

For 10 – 16 year old's focus on the self concept, awareness, responsibility, goal setting, confidence and coping strategies.

For 15 – 20 year old's focus on lifestyle skills, develop a stable temperament, understanding, communication and advancing coping strategies.

Physically, for 5 – 11 year old's focus on agility, balance, coordination, speed, kinaesthesia, catching, passing, kicking, running, jumping, change of direction, motor control, mixed activities and multi skills.

for 10 – 16 year old's focus on adolescence growth spurt, aerobic development, changing shape, early/late maturation and athleticism changes.

For 15 – 20 year old's focus on muscle gains, strength improvements, power increases, lactate training, improving recovery and ensuring full potential is progressively being achieved.

Socially, for 5 – 11 year old's focus on fun/enjoyment, support from parents/school, inclusion/participation, forming relationships, providing safe environments with simple roles and ethics.

For 10 – 16 year old's focus on accepting responsibility, fair play, peer group features, values/beliefs and appropriate behaviors.

For 15 – 20 year old's focus on developing emotion stability, being socially responsible, recognising cultural differences, dealing with conflict and appreciating others.

JUNIOR SPORT PROGRAMS FROM AROUND THE WORLD PART 1

                                         

I'm always interested in reading how other sports and clubs from around the world set up their junior programs as I strongly believe we could be doing it much better over here, especially for Aussie Rules Football.

We have huge dropouts from under 12's to u16's and that definitely filters into senior ranks down the road with many teams struggling to field a reserves teams these days and some even struggling for stand alone senior sides in both men's and women's competitions.

The number 1 focus for junior football is participation which results in more fun per player which leads to greater retention so club' should be aiming to keep players in football for as long as possible and instead of bragging about incoming player number each year, they should strongly look at out going player numbers and really focus in on that.

Here are bunch of basic programs and idea's used by other junior sporting clubs around the world from all different sports. which shows you don't need to do what everyone else is doing, nor what you've always done, as there's many different types of clubs and to think they can all perfectly fit a single model is ridiculous.

Hopefully you get some idea's out of this to improve your own club's junior program.

HURLEY

This particular program focuses on skill development of junior Hurley players by breaking up the foundation skills of the game and then breaking them up into specific aspects of that skill and layering them through practice.

The foundations skill categories are fundamentals, stick control, ball control 1, ball control 2 and ball control while moving and each category has up to 6 - 7 specific aspects to them.

For example ball control 1 consists of ground strike, striking from a pass, hand pass, lift and strike, overhead strike and stick pass and in the article they were classified as R1 through to R6 respectively.

Once the skills were broken down then the aspect of that skill is moved to an age group where it is is focused on.

Using striking again, over a junior program it looks like this:

Under 6/7's x R1/Ground Strike

Under 8's x add in R2/Striking from Pass and R3/Hand Pass

Under 9's x add in R4/Lift and Strike and R5/Overhead Strike

Under 10''s x add in R6/Stick Pass

I'm not that big in deconstructing tasks and over-constraining players, especially junior players who simply need room to explore every possible action they can come up with, but frameworks like these but not necessarily on skill development, can really help clarify what/how to run practice for junior coaches who are often inexperienced to start with.

RUGBY LEAGUE

League is often played by kids who have bodies that fit the sport and it's requirements and therefore there can be kids the same age but 25cms and 25kgs apart but also the difference in skill can also be as wide ranging.

Bio-banding is grouping kids on training/playing age rather then chronological age which means early maturing players receive greater physical and technical challenges at a level much closer to their challenge point.

Late maturing players perceive less physical and technical challenges then early maturing players and with bio-banding they'll have a far more opportunities to demonstrate technical and tactical abilities against similar level competition.

Players will have greater enjoyment levels and have a perception of less injury risk as well. 

Last year my son's under 12's team played against a much bigger player who was overage but also on the spectrum and allowing him to play against competition closer to his own, will hopefully keep him in sport longer then if he was forced to play in his own age group.

There should be way more of this in junior football, way, way, way more.

AUSSIE RULES FOOTBALL

Shane Pill is a coach/teacher based in South Australia who has done a power of work around games based coaching and I reviewed one of his books a couple of years back on this blog his preferred method of setting up junior programs is similar to mine.

He proposes:

Under 8/9's x 9v9 consisting of 3 backs, 3 mids and 3 forwards per team but for lesser players you should also look at 6v6 so the strong players don't just get all the kicks and limit opportunities for the lesser players.

U10's x 12v12

U14 x 12v12 up to 16v16

U16's and up - 18v18

Yes you're reading that right - teams don't reach adult stages until at least under 16's.

You'll also need to adjust the field sizes to fit the team numbers and yes, teams don't reach full field until under 16's as well.

And I agree entirely.

LOCAL SOCCER

I have a heap of Soccer examples and this one from Shane Smith is similar to Aussie Rules, proposing:

Ages 5 - 8 x focus on fundamental movement via play and games

U9's x 4v4

U10's x 5v5

U11's x 6v6

U12's x 7v7

U13's x 8v8

U14's x 9v9

Again teams aren't reaching adult team/ground sizes until they are 16.

GERMANY MINI-FOOTBALL

Germany recently redesigned their junior requirements with the basic concept being 2 teams of 3 rotating to attack and defense of mini goals on a small pitch.

Every team has 1 substitute player and it must be made after each score by both teams.

Goals can be only be scored inside the attacking area and there are always 3 balls waiting on the sidelines to be used for an immediate restart.

Instead of leagues, games are played at carnivals where teams compete against each other on the day, dramatically lessening the need for the 12+ volunteers required for every individual game of junior football.

The game can be expanded to 4v4 or 5v5 but it's 3v3 where this truly shines.

Without corners, off sides and throw ins it really forces players to decide how to move the ball around.

Is not designed to replace junior soccer but is definitely an alternative and can be adapted to include a goal keeper where shots can now be taken from the half way line and the keeper is also swapped out after every game because in the smaller games they get far more keeper opportunities so need not to stay there for multiple games.

TENNIS

I've posted recently on Philip O'Callaghan, a Tennis coach who does a heap around a constraints'led approach, of which I posted a couple of long Twitter threads on earlier this year and he loves to use scaling in his teaching on junior tennis players.

Scaling refers to altering the equipment used in your sport, and for tennis reducing the height of the net and court size contributes to acquiring successful serve patterns while showing an increase in first serve success, more aces and more un-returned serves.

GAELIC FOOTBALL

Similar but far less technical than the Hurley version above.

U12's x Kicking, Hand Passing, Tackling, Fielding

U14's x add in Protecting the D, Complex Skills/Applied Skills/Overloads

U16's x add in 3rd Man Angled Runs, Restart Contests for Possession

U18's x add in Support Play Formations, Introduction of the Principles of Play and Tactical Awareness 

YOUTH SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Rob Gray is a Skill Acquisition Specialist from the US who is always presenting new studies completed and this particular one looked at 10 and 11 year old soccer players completing 22 weeks of practice involving small sided games but not any traditional technical instruction like we always see and do.

The goal for the players was to instead for them to learn skills like dribbling and passing in game situations.

Dribbling and passing skills were assessed pre, half way through and post the 22 week program.

While there were no made in the half way assessment, there were significant improvements in decision making and in the execution of the skills in the post program assessment.

So while it may take longer for basic skills to emerge, in the long run athletes develop the same fundamentals we see in traditional isolated training but recent commentary from reputable coaches suggests fundamentals as we think of them, don't really exist, and I agree.

The fundamental concept comes from the long assumption that there are basic building blocks that we must put together to become skilled, that development is linear and that it works in an order of steps which it doesn't, and why I wasn't a huge fan of the intricacies of the Hurley method above (but liked the framework).

At it's core, fundamentals fail to recognise that skills are highly specific to the information available in the environment.

LOCAL YOUTH SOCCER

The Salisbury Rovers Football Club is a local club from the UK who have totally transformed their junior program in the last couple of years to really focus on participation, enjoyment and thus retention.

They've done as good a job as anyone on taking club ownership on their own junior program and running it in line with their values.

They're thinking is that kids must have fun, kids voices are prioritised, there's a clear view on how kids acquire skills, there is no standing on and dribbling around cones and it's all about long term participation.

Every kid has the right to play with no trials, no selection, equal playing time, the choice to play, the choice to make choices and what that looks like.

Adults are expected not to shout directions at the players during games/training, kids voices should be the loudest and always encourage independence and confidence.

There's a huge focus on free play by offering lots of it without adult intervention as self motivation drives development and kids that play more get better.

It's non-competitive which means they don't play in leagues but that allows flexibility from rigid team sizes, structures and adult control that builds competitive and resilient kids that lead and support others.

NORWAY v USA YOUTH SPORT

Footy is very similar to this with a huge proportion of draftees each year attending private schools on scholarships but junior player fees are also a bit out of control with my under 12 son costing $250 plus uniform expenses on top of that. 

I come from a family of 4 boys in a single parent household and there's no way even one of us could have played football in the current climate, let alone all 4 of us at once.

USA x players specialise in 1 sport from an early age (wonder why NBA draftees break down in their first couple of seasons?), exorbitant fees, travel fees, don't play in any other sport in case they get left behind, parents screaming from the sidelines and constantly questioning the coach, parents then lecture their kids on the way home, parents want to brag about their kid's achievements on social media above actually supporting them and striving for college/national spots.

Norway x kids play multiple sports at the same local club whether they;re good or bad at them, nominal fees but free if you can't pay from lottery subsidisation, volunteer coaches, no standings/competitions until age 11 and sometimes older (as we've seen above), kids free to choose their own sports and decide what they do in practice, no specialisation until high school.

As you can see it's ego and money v fun and the fact that the NBA is now dominated by overseas-born players is an indication of this.

Keeping kids engaged in sports can save money on universal health care in the back end if they're still healthy in their 60's and 70's. 

Part 2 Tomorrow.

THE CAVE OF ADULLAM DOCUMENTARY

                                             

The Cave of Adullam follows Detriot-based martial arts teacher Jason Wilson and his teachings within his facility.

He focuses heavily on releasing past and current trauma through various techniques, not just martial arts, for not just kids but adults as well.

The hyperlink above says it will take you to the movie but it doesn't work on my computer but the error is coming from ESPN so good luck.

I did manage to find it late last year though but for the life of me I cannot find it again!

Anyway he has plenty of clips on social media which gives you a fair insight into the stuff from the documentary and as far as teaching young boys, who can be a handful at times, it's first class.

I'm not going to say that our socio-economic difficulties in Australia is anything like some of these kids are facing, but the principles of the teachings is the same.

If I find a working link then I'll be sure to post it.

Here are my notes from it:

• If you get angry don’t let it rule you and infiltrate your decision making
• Sport can put you in situations where you have to handle life problems but without the life consequences
• Start training by having each player say out loud what’s overwhelming them and then asking why if you they need to go deeper
• Don’t look at the distraction, focus on the problem
• It's easier to raise boys then repair broken men that come from broken boys
• Don’t hold trauma, release it
• Masculine males lack compassion, patience, tenderness and are long suffering so it’s not gonna solve every problem like you think it will (e.g. hammer and nail)
• Sit holding up a pole in front of you with a ball on top it and keep it from falling off which will require relaxation and focus, then have a coach try and distract them without touching them and see if they can maintain it
• To train focus, have a partner flail their arms up and down like wings, and you have to choose the right time to pass a ball through when a gap opens up gap with other distractions going on around you
• Fight before the fight meaning fight your emotions to control yourself
• If you get angry and then let it rule you then write "I will not be mastered by emotions instead I will rule over them" 300 times
• Every time you don’t finish the fight, you’re still in it
• It’s not a lack of discipline, it’s a lack of desire rooted in not loving yourself
• If you move away to fix a problem but the problem moves with you, then moving isn’t the problem
• Give them the best so they don’t get accustomed to settling for less all the time
• Try belly breathing taking all of your negative emotions captive and blowing it out of your consciousness and a  coach will tap you but don’t let it distract you then follow up with 1 thing that’s on your plate for each person
• Don’t give yourself outside responsibilities if you’re not serving yourself first
• When you have internal trauma you use distractions to keep everyone, and the trauma, at bay
• Badly behaved kids puts pressure on the entire family so have dad do push ups with son on his back so the son can notice all the extra load they’re putting on him and the family, also asking the son how long can dad/mum do that for on top of their other responsibilities and that they could be sucking most of the energy out of him/them which is slowly crushing the family
• Follow that up with the son then also putting their hands on floor and helping dad do the push ups where they are now taking responsibility for themselves
• For control and focus, with a knife and fork on a dinner plate, cut up a tortilla bread into 4 pieces without heating that scratchy plate sound
• If trauma can be handed down from generation to generation then so can healing

SAME GAME, DIFFERENT CLASSROOM

                                                               

If you've kept up with reading my content then by now you should have some familiarity with constraints and how they can provide affordances for your players which is one of the strongest learning methods there is, especially in team sports.

To quickly recap, constraints are alternative rules a coach can include in traditional games that can direct the attention of the players to specific information the coach would like them to try and locate during the game.

This specific information can be used to exploit the rule/s and when this information is perceived, then the player can  been offered an affordance, or an opportunity to act.

Then it is up to the player to decide how and when to act based on other external and internal information they have on hand at that time.

If you just play traditional games, then the dominant players remain dominant, the mid-tier level players stay in the middle, and the lower tier players don't get much of a look in and remain where they are.

In the end no one actually improves.

What you can do with constraints is top place them on certain players allowing more affordances to present themselves to the mid and low-tier players, giving them far more repetition in game situations that can then carry over into games.

This might be as simple as having top tier players only gaining 2 points per goal, mid tier 4 points per goal and low tier 6 points per goal.

What this can do is incentivise teams to create for their mid and low tier players to be able to score as it's simply more efficient that way.

This specifically incentivises the low tier especially, to get into scoring areas and be available to receive passes in those areas, so they are directing their attention to a specific task rather then watch the reigning 2 time best and fairest winner score again and again which can be easily shut down in games with 18 opposition players.

What I'll present here is probably the first step in this concept from soccer coach and coach developer Tom Skeath, called same game, different classroom, which refers to training in different sized and shaped areas which can shape player intentions and playing styles within them.

BIG GROUND SIZE...

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10 TIPS FOR IMPROVING CLUB CULTURE PART 3

                                                           

I've done another of these back in Jan/Feb 2020 and I have a heap these so I should do them more regularly plus there might be 1 specific point that you decide could take your club to the next level and then it's all about action.

The season has already started but building culture should never stop because as soon as you start seeing the behaviors you're after, then it requires even more discipline to continue to display them under varying degrees of pressure.

Teamwork...

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3 GAME/TRAINING SCENARIOS - SLOW PLAY + MOVE THE BALL TO MOVE THE OPPOSITION + CREATING A RUN FROM BEHIND PASSING OPTION

                                           

As promised here's another 3 game/training scenario's for you to use at training and today we look at slow play, moving the ball to move the opposition to create passing options and creating a running from behind passing option.

#1 - SLOW PLAY

GAME MOMENT - MARK BY KEY FORWARD IN DEFENSIVE HALF

PREVIOUS GAME MOMENT - KICK OUT

GAME VIDEO...

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3 GAME/TRAINING SCENARIOS - KICK OUT + RUN FROM BEHIND MARK OPTION + DEFENDING WITH AN OUTNUMBER

                                           

I haven't done any of these for a while so I'll do 3 here today and another 3 tomorrow with kick out, run from behind mark option and defending with an outnumber today and then slow play, too fast/too deep and move the ball to move the opposition tomorrow.

#1 - KICK OUT

PREVIOUS GAME MOMENT - OPPOSITION BEHIND

CURRENT GAME MOMENT - KICK OUT

GAME VIDEO...

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COACHING OPTION MAKING

                                               

These notes come from an article from soccer coach David Garcia about option making from teammates off the ball so the player with ball can have an easier time making positive decisions and I add some real AFL specific scenarios at the bottom of the article..

• Playing football is a constant decision making process and the more options a player has in each situation, the longer their decision making will take so decrease the amount of options so that they can make quicker/better decisions
• Too many options can induce anxiety/decision paralysis where you spend so much time assessing each option you fail to take action before opposition arrives
• Shoppers with 30 varieties of a single product v 6 varieties are less likely to purchase anything product all
• Students given 30 topics to choose from write an extra credit essay far less then when given only 6 topics
• Unconstrained freedom (too many options at once) leads to paralysis
• It is self determination within significant constraints, and within rules of some sort, that leads to optimal decision making which is where we find success in providing opportunities for players to make decisions while avoiding decision paralysis
• Say you’re in the pasta sauce aisle and there’s 50 varieties but you know what you’re looking for and what brand/flavor so you turn your attention away from everything else and focus solely on the 2 – 3 best options right in front of you
• To make correct decisions you must master the skill of where to look and what to pay attention to
• Option making is the same as decision making but it’s presented in a different way
• 1^st you need a clear game model with clear game principles that creates a non/verbal language to communicate through
• Option making consists of limiting the decisions that players have to make...

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4+2 v 4+2 TRAINING ACTIVITY

This is a forward/defensive 50 game that's pretty easy to set up and get going quickly once players know their roles.

I've made the example with 12 players but you could easily increase that up to 16 players with 6v6 in the main area while staying with the 4 neutral players.

This is how it looks and then I'll list the specifics below:

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COLLINGWOOD'S CORRIDOR POSITIONING BUILDING THEIR OFFENSE

Earlier in the week we looked at Collingwood's defensive positioning allowing them to transition off turnover in a matter of seconds and today we'll look at something similar but within a different stage of the game.

This mostly used on kick outs but also on slow plays that they initiate from deep in defense.

It's hard to get from a single shot but it looks a bit like this:

This play uses a different but similar player formation but with some small tweaks to make it work for this game moment which I'll detail in this video and the above image will make much more sense!

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COLLINGWOOD'S DEFENSE BUILDING THEIR OFFENSE

                                        

Let's take a quick look at how Collingwood set up defensively as a team and how it feeds their offense which is what you're really after as a solid defensive scheme on it'sown can restrict opposition scoring but it doesn't really help you to score off the back of it.

Collingwood want to own the corridor defensively which in turn has them own it defensively upon turnover.

On a Collingwood kick out it looks like this...

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SPACED RETRIEVAL PRACTICE FOR BETTER COACHING/LEARNING PART 2

                                                           

Last week I introduced spaced retrieval practice so now here's a bit more on that and also how to do it.

In the study these notes came from, 1 group performed spaced retrieval practice and the other massed practice which looked like this:

The spaced retrieval practice group performed 1 x 10min lesson per day for 3 days followed an unannounced test 6 days later with a learning success rate of 75%.

The massed practice group was performed performed 3 x 10min lessons on the SAME day with an unannounced test 6 days later with a learning success rate of 66%.  

To further emphasis how much better spaced retrieval practice is then massed practice, it came out on top again when tested 9 months later.

Another study also found that medical students were more successful in performing surgery when they practiced the surgical skills in 4 spaced sessions over a 1 week period then if they did 4 sessions in 1 day.

That's pretty confounding evidence right there.

To implement spaced retrieval practice you need to...

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