WOMEN'S FOOTBALL TRAINING ACTIVITIES

The girls and I have completed 7 training sessions so far and it's all been great so today I'll go through some of the training activities that we've performed (not real important) and the why and how's behind them (the most important).

I covered off a ground ball progression a couple of weeks ago which I'll include briefly here but I want you to take a hard look at the teaching points as a lot of coaches are either too broad on initial instruction which doesn't really direct attention enough or focus on the outcome and/or give instruction and feedback after the activity (we should have done this etc) which makes no sense.

WARM UP

I'll post about our warm ups next week but they have a different focus then most.

GROUND BALLS...

For full access to these training activities register for a level 3 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

ALL BLACKS LEGACY BOOK NOTES

                                                     

I think we're all well-aware of the collective excellence of the All-Blacks culture on and off the field and I picked up this book from the op-shop a little while ago and here are my notes from it with PLENTY of takeaways for individuals and teams alike.

• Only by knowing yourself can you become an effective leader
• What is my job, what needs doing and what do I know about that probably won't happen unless I attend to it
• It begins with character and character begins with humility
• It’s not how well each player performs, but how they perform together
• Capability + Behavior = Performance
• When you’re on top of your game, change your game
• Stages of Organisational Change x a case for change, a compelling picture of the future, a sustained capability to change and a credible plan to execute
• Growth Cycle x learning phase, growth phase and decline phase
• OODA Loop x observe, orient, decide, act
• 100 Day Plans x list 10 things you need to achieve in the next 100 days starting each plan with an action verb and no more then 3 words, making sure each plan is measurable and that each one is a stretch and simply tick them off
• Purpose relates to an overarching goal beyond the practical missions that are pursued every day and drives individual's intrinsic motivation and gives a reason to belong/sacrifice
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs x beyond fulfilling basic needs you are no longer driven by extrinsic motivation and can turn your attention to deeper needs finding a loved one and making a family then things like esteem, self respect, the respect of others, being recognised for our talent and our capabilities/behaviors
• Extra Dimension x core values/purpose beyond making money and is what drives companies from good to great
• If you want higher performance then you need a higher purpose
• People don’t buy what you make, they buy why you do it because the way we feel about something is more important then what we think of something – we follow our gut
• What gets you up everyday that you do, yet has a cost (financial, mentally etc)?
• If you hire people that believe what you believe then they’ll work for you harder then anyone else
• Whoever has a why can bear almost any how
• After a lot of petty youth crime, 1 bloke created the teenage kicks program, a 5-a-side tournament to turn gangs into teams to create a structure of meaning/purpose/teamwork/responsibility by entrusting them with responsibility for the success of the team – all in a low social-economic community – where organisers set everything up then let the youth make it all happen with alpha males encouraged to become managers who needed to find a captain and then the captain needed to find a team (pass the ball) and the the team needed to turn up for every game on time and 1 miss and they would be kicked out of the whole thing until next year (no team did though) and it’s still going 10 years later
• Form leadership groups with key senior players given a distinct portfolio of responsibilities from on-field leadership to social organisation to new player mentoring to community relations
• Shared Responsibility = shared ownership as a sense of inclusion means individual's are more willing to give themselves to a common cause
• Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders and arm their subordinates with intent and then step out of the way
• Instill in your players a sense of self-worth that any given time they can be the most important player out there
• Motivation x purpose, autonomy, mastery
• Excellence is a process of evolution/cumulative learning/incremental improvement
• Marginal gains x 100 things performed 1% better creates a noticeable improvement
• High Performance Environment x select on character, understand your strategy for change, co-write a purpose, devolve leadership, encourage a learning environment, turn standards into action
• A strong dislike of not being good enough is healthy
• Muhammad Ali called himself the greatest before he was even close to being so and this repetition of reaffirmation leads to belief and once that belief becomes a deep conviction then good things start to happen
• A message that is not immediately rejected as a lie will have the same effect on the associative system regardless
• Even with the most unrealistic goals, the aversion to not reaching it is mush stronger then the desire to reach it - if you can conceive/believe then you can achieve, visualise to actualise and fake it until you make it
• Anchoring x supermarkets saying it was $20 but now $5 and the perception of a bargain
• Priming x the suggestion of something altering our behavior to the stimulus around us, a response to a story
• Practice with intensity to develop the mindset to win
• Decision making within training should be harder then the game
• By throwing in random problems to solve, there’s better long term learning
• If you’re not over-extending then there’s not much learning happening
• It’s not the physical but the psychological they have mastered x randomness/unpredictability/constant questioning combined with pace/physicality to stress the brain/test decision making capacity
• Control of Attention x red head (heated/overwhelmed/tense = poor decision making) v blue head (clarity/awareness/analysis = good decision making)
• Blue head means to remain on task allowing you to ACT x /alternatives (options/adapt/adjust/overcome) + consequences (risk/reward) + task behaviors (stay on task/execute tactical/strategy)
• Most have the will to win but not the will to prepare to win
• Focus on technique, then add intensity, then add pressure and then drop intensity and get back to technique to consolidate
• Pressure is expectation/scrutiny/consequence and when under pressure then your attention is diverted/overwhelmed (red) or on track/clear (blue)
• When diverted then instead of just doing the skill unconsciously, you start doing it consciously which is mechanical/disrupts your smoothness
• Where we direct our mind is where our thoughts will take us – thoughts create an emotion, emotion defines behavior, behavior defines performance – so if you can’t control attention/thoughts then you can’t manage emotions to enhance your performance
• You need to recognise when you’re red and have strategies to get back to blu
• Brain x instinct/thinking/emotion and under pressure thinking shuts down so you’re relying on instinct/emotion but they can’t pick up informational cues to make good decisions
• Mantras are a way to tell ourselves a story for effective thinking and can be a mental road map out of pressure
• Controlling outr attention is about getting back to the present – what is over what ifs x how can I manage my energy v what I run out of energy?
• Authenticity can be thought of as a bridge that is secure from foundations of personal skills/friends/family so if all you’ve got is that your an All Black then you’ll come unstuck pretty quickly
• Leaders who fail do so from a lack of a strong identity/self belief/self respect and when they disrespect other, it’s usually starting with themselves
• Delivering Feedback x in the belly, not in the back
• You must be able to say to another player and just being a matter of fact, not pass personal judgement, that you need to do this to help me out with my job or what can I do that helps you do your job?
• Integrity x our thoughts/words/deeds are as 1, an alignment of our values/purpose/beliefs/behaviors all flowing in 1 direction
• Integrity is a central leadership tool where everyone does what they say they’ll do which builds clarity/productivity/certainty/momentum
• The more slippage there is, the less that gets done
• If you’re not early for a meeting then you’re late
• Authenticity is the alignment of head/mouth/heart/feet
• There are no crowds lining the extra mile, you’re on your own and the challenge you’ve set yourself
• Begin at the end at your own funeral – who would be there? What would they be saying? What would our life have meant to them? Did they cry?
• If we’re going to lead a life and going to lead anything then we should know where we’re going and why
• Leaders are storytellers and all great organisations come from a compelling story and this central thought helps people understand what they stand for and why
• Stories help us understand who we are, what we want, what we stand for/against and why we do things
• Values cannot be adopted at a conscious level – they are something that we are, but they can be captured into a living document that makes a difference
• Words start revolutions
• Successful cultures are organic/adaptable, they change/flow yet always maintain their foundational values
• Establish a vocabulary/mindset/attitude that builds a common language
• Mottos/mantras go straight to the heart of the belief system, becoming shorthand for standards/expected behavior
• Capture character in 1 sentence, change minds with a turn of phrase and distill essence into a few words
• Some would argue that metaphors are the basis of our understanding of life itself and all language is metaphor- they are where we recognise ourselves in stories and a way of attaching personal meaning to a more public narrative
• Based in strong resonant values, using a common language employing mantras/mottos/metaphors, storytelling helps leaders connect their people’s personal meaning to their vision of the future
• Creating a Change Story x story must be credible/relevant (authority/make rational sense), must be visual/visceral (appeals to all senses/must be felt), flexible/scaleable (easily told in any setting) and useful (turn vision into action/purpose into practice)
• Building trust, developing people and driving high performance behaviors is never-ending and rituals are the key to for reinforcing the emotional glue
• Rituals x reflect/remind/reinforce/reignite
• Rituals tell your story, involve your people, creates legacy, makes the intangible real
• Large or small, informal or formal, corporate or creative, personal or professional, conscious or unconscious, rituals create meaning with embedded deep values/purpose of the person/project
• By enacting a ritual we embody the belief system of our community/culture and acts as a psychological process – a transition from 1 state to another, taking us to a new place of being 

TASK SIMPLIFICATION TRAINING ACTIVITY

Yesterday I posted about task simplification and all the why's, what's and when's around it and today we get to the how with a real-world example I used this week with my senior women's team.

For a bit of background, we did some game-sim the session before without any real instructions from me except the how to score to let me see the players' natural tendencies.

What I saw was constant kicking to the same spot it the play/ball came from even though 1 team's was goal was set up to use as much space, width especially, as possible and really stretch the other team on defense.

After we talked very briefly about kicking off the line and how we'll work on that next session so here we are.

At the next session I designed this training activity with a focus on kick decision-making based on a lot of the principles I wrote about yesterday:

For full access to this training activity, register for a level 3 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

TASK SIMPLIFICATION

                                         

Traditional skill acquisition practices goes something like this, using kicking as an example:

1 - Stationary kicking to a stationary target

2 - Cone-to-cone kicking drills

3 - Games

There might be some game-based practice somewhere between stages 2 and 3, but it's still not as prevalent as it should be so let's get to work on that.

There is a time and space for all 3 (or 4) of those stages above but coaches often lack the understanding of when and how to move from 1 stage to the next.

During stages 1 and 2 specifically, coaches tend to deconstruct the skill where they break down teeny tiny components of the skill and then try and have the learner put those alterations back into their action, to cement a single technique when kicking.

2 major problems with this approach is that the skill deconstruction is usually carried out via internal cues (arm here, foot here etc) which only takes focus away from the full action/technique required for the skill, plus you'll never perform the same kick twice in a game of football so only being able to kick 1 way isn't going to serve your players too well on game day where adaptability is king.

When designing practice coaches often seem more concerned with task design, ensuring that the drill/activity addresses a problem from the game, in an isolated fashion that lacks game representation.

Game representation refers to designing training activities that maintain game information to some, or usually high, degree.

The most important game information as it pertains to footy are things like opposition, time, space, ball location and consequence.

Any skill acquisition activity that doesn't include at least 1 of these is not training skill at it's core - which is player adaptability.

OK, so far we have made the following points...

For full access to this training/coaching article, register for a level 1 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

CORRECTING MISTAKES

 

These notes come from Soccer coach Bernat Mosquera who has some great threads on his Twitter page and is definitely worth a follow.

Giving feedback/correcting mistakes also act as major constraints for player performance because what a coach says to a player will then also dictate where they look, what they look for and that informs their proceeding actions, so coaches need to know exactly how and when to do so.

The points below will help you understand why mistakes happen in the first place and then once you know the why, then you go ahead and tackle the how to correct them.

• Often coaches critique player technical actions without considering the game cycle/context
• What a player does before receiving the ball greatly impacts their actions
• Focus should be on where to move/how to receive v how to execute the technical action where it usually is like when we train a corridor kick but the player is already standing there on a cone that tells them to stand there but in games they are still lost in regards to how to create and the timing to utilise that space in a game without being detected by the opposition
• The receiver needs to find a space then use the correct timing  time to move into it
• The ball carrier needs to identify advantages and then exploit them.
• It’s crucial to understand that a player’s perception of space/time is the key to improving their decision making but are we helping them create/manage space/time better? Not with cones we're not
• Perception enables players to uncover various game options based on a situation but perception goals vary with each scenario
• Perception is also the key when receiving the ball, especially while the ball travels to us and during possession
• When receiving, if you can perceive spaces and understand their advantages, they can make better decisions about where/how to move while creating more space for a successful ball reception by optimising their timing/direction/place
• When the ball is travelling to the player they must assess the immediate space around them to adjust their reception which leads to more options, granting them more space/time
• When in possession, perception should focus on identifying/exploiting advantages and only after this analysis should the player execute the action.
• Execution is the final step, not the 1^st step
• Coach correction/feedback should also guide players in recognising key game references
• Helping players understand how the ball, teammates and the opposition interact/influence space/time, can help them discover new opportunities to exploit
• Technical execution is often a consequence of good perception/decision making

KICKING THROUGH A KICK OUT DEFENSIVE ZONE

                                       

Score source stats from the 2024 AFL season showed that Port Adelaide averaged the highest point total average in the league at 6.3pts/game and they also reached the highest single game total of 26 points.

For added context, the 5th placed team,the Western Bulldogs averaged 5.5pts/game and Sydney 13th at 3.3.

So as far as the AFL goes, scoring from kick outs is extremely hard so a more-process driven data piece showing what you're achieving from kick outs is probably where your possession chain is broken.

In local/amateur football pretty much every team runs with the same zone defense on kick outs being a 3/5/5 and then 3/1 or 2/2 behind those first 3 lines.

Most teams are able to sort this out with the ample time it takes to get the ball from over the fence, back into play and then to kick out, only to then see the ball bombed as far as it can go to a pack of players from both teams to a 50/50 contest at best - hardly a potential score source!

What I propose here is to really test the opposition's zone defense.

Do they balance the gaps between they're lines correctly?

If you break 1 line of defense, then does the next one collapse opening up another 1 behind it?

If we use short kicks to short options in effort to move the opposition (not the ball), can they move collectively to keep gaps from opening up?

Do they move at all after the initial kick out?

Can we string together 3 - 4 short kicks in pretty quick succession to get them unorganised and then take advantage of that?

Below are the most common kick out locations, not including long bombs that anyone can do, and then how you can train them specifically using Rondo training activities.

Rondo's are a popular Soccer training activity that can be performed a million different ways but the most common form that we see in football is the old 4v1 or 4v2 with the offensive players forming a square around the 1 or 2 defenders in the middle - that's pretty much as far we we tend to go with Rondo's but they are a great post-warm up activity to use that includes all players thinking and moving all the time, plenty of touches and are a very easy way to set up, verbalise and get going to maintain ball-rolling time.

They're played in 360 degrees so there's no specific end to go to, you're just trying to utilise those players in the middle because that's the most dangerous position on the ground, to avoid getting stuck along the boundary which is what the opposition want.

SHORT KICK OUT TO THE SIDE...

For full access to this game/training scenario post, register for a level 4 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

GROUND BALL PROGRESSION

                                                       

My new team I'm in charge of is a rebooted team but is essentially a start-up with no carry over of players from the initial team from pre-Covid. 

We have solid numbers but a lot of beginners at football but we're still aiming to grade ourselves into division 2 if we possibly can, otherwise division 3 and no big deal.

Regardless of where we end up I've watched games from both divisions from 2024 and like most local/amateur football of all ages, abilities, experience and genders, the ball is on the ground for 70 - 90% of the time.

That means that ground balls are king and any success you achieve in football will be correlated to ground ball wins and that's what we intend to be strong at in 2o25.

Over our last 2 training sessions we have already put a huge emphasise on ground balls but no by low-context lane work ground balls, no, we've identified some of the most common ground ball actions used I games and have started to focus on them.

What we want to teach them is to not slow right down and stop to groundball as that's just gives time for trailing opposition to get get close enough to apply perceived or physical pressure and there's some coaching cues I use to hopefully avoid that from happening.  

2 GROUP GROUND BALL...

For full access to these training activities, register for a level 3 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

DAD COACHING DONE PROPERLY

                                                      

While I was doing my sprinting session at my local footy ground this week there was a "dad-coach" with his daughter practicing kicking.

Before I go further just be sure that one of my 2 all-time favorite things these days is seeing girls kicking the footy in their own time and the connection dad's have been able to make with their daughters through footy.

One of my biggest reasons for coaching and continuing this site year on year is that I believe every who wants to be coached, should be able to do so at a high level.

We were training about 25m away from each other so I was able to hear close to everything he said to her although his intentions were super, the method is an outdated one and more than that - probably how he was taught, which is usually the biggest factor with dad coaches, regardless of if those methods are effective or not...

For full access to this coaching/training article including a framework to follow for these 1v1 settings, register for a level 1 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

STRUCTURING MY OWN COACHING FOR 2025

I've been appointed a head coach of a senior women's team here in Melbourne and I simply cannot wait to get stuck into it!

It's a re-booted women's team that disbanded after Covid so we're essentially a start-up team as the club structure and personnel has completely changed during that time period.

It is also a club that I have had no prior affiliation with prior to this appointment.

After being officially appointed in mid-to late November it was time to get to work.

I've always got training/game day coaching stuff ready to go but with zero players that mattered very little so the focus went directly to recruitment, contacting as many local players from around our club as possible as well as taking all new player inquiries.

There 3 divisions to the women's league we're in but we;re hoping to make the jump directly to division 2 via the grading games to start the season as we feel that's a far more sustainable option for the women's program going forward.

Currently we have anywhere from 15 - 30 players as we're finding where men already know if and where they're playing for season 2025, it is not the case for women but we're hoping for more certainty in the coming weeks as we start training and gather some on-field momentum.

There are 3 divisions to the women's section of the league we play in but we're hoping to make the jump directly to division 2 via the grading games to start the season as we feel that's a far more sustainable option for the women's program going forward.

We'll definitely have a team that's for sure but at the moment we feel we need 3 - 4 more top-tier players to achieve the goal of reaching division 2 this season goal but it's not the end of the world if we don't reach it.

Women tend to have a greater social ties to their current clubs then men which is a bit of a barrier for us as we don't have a current program in place but we'll work around as best as we can and cultivate our own culture to create those string social ties with the players we currently have and the new one's yet to jump on board.

The club, and in particular the President and Committee have been excellent so far, providing everything I've needed so far and are definitely altering the culture of the club for the better, already attracting 2 ex-AFL players and multiple high quality local football recruits well-known across Melbourne and the women's program is another cog in the engine to be a relevant football club again. 

So now with training schedules for next weekend and us being a touch behind everyone else who trained pre-Xmas and are already an established team, last week and this week has been fully focused back to the on'field side of things.

This is always an ongoing with me as I research, learn and update my procedures/philosophy but now it needs to be all consolidated and streamlined to it's absolute maximum so it's fit for the players to read, process, understand and then implement and this is probably the toughest part of coaching. 

I have a framework that I'm currently working through that will detail everything I'll focus on, what that will look like and the timeline for each of those focuses.

That part will malleable as I can't really set in-stone a game model without knowing my players action capabilities, which was the focus of our single pre-Xmas session and the first couple of sessions starting this year.

I've created training activities that are game-based but require a heavy dose of the specific technical skill/s I'm assessing such as:

• Kicking (long and short)
• Handballing (in congestion)
• Marking (unopposed)
• Reading the Play (defense-bias)
• Contest (ball hunting/ground balls)

As all activities are games-based I can also assess decision-making during game simulation,not relying on cone-to-cone unopposed planned technique rehearsal abilities to all of a sudden carry over into live opposed unplanned skill execution during games.

Once individual and collective action capabilities have been assessed at their current level then I can pitch them against my preferred game model and then questions that need to be answered are:

Will they match up?

If they don't match up, are they close enough to start work right away on specific aspects of the game model?

If they are well off what is needed for my preferred game model, do I think that we can improve them to a standard that would allow my current preferred game model to be used?

If not, then do I change the game model to fit my players capabilities?

A lot of times local coaches have a game plan and that's it, regardless of who they're working with, or they find out way too late that it can't work and than have to try and change on the fly which is hard to do and simply confusing for the players.

All that being said a lot of my game model is structure based and ensuring that everyone has and knows their role/s away from the ball,which is 99% of footy and therefore the area that yields the highest and easiest amount of improvement.

I should have this framework all filled out in the next week or 2 and then I can go to work on delivering the game model to the players which needs to be carried in a way that is simple for them to understand, not too complex for them to process, designing training activities that constrain-to-afford those specific game actions/interactions and allows a high degree of success in the process.

I will use the many teaching and learning techniques I've researched in the past such as challenge point, the use of constraints, scoring systems to incentivise the actions we want to practice and get repetition without repetition in and being highly aware of cognitive load at all times.

This is all in a quest to be ultra-efficient with each and every second we have together and also to maximise engagement, enjoyment, motivation and thus, fun!

So that's where I'm up to so far - plenty of work to do and not enough time to do it in (always the case!) but we'll give it a crack anyway.

Let me know how your own coaching process is developing for season 2025.