by teamvida | Oct 21, 2019 | General Footy, Player Development
Coaches should understand the importance of trying to add, and/or set KPI’s for hand-balling to a player running from behind.
What we mean by this is to have a player running past another player who has either marked the ball or received a free-kick. The player receiving the ball should be running at a reasonable pace to try and get the ball forward faster than what the marking player would.
The below example of how fast the ball can be moved forward from a running player, creating a situation where the defence may not be set-up properly.
At all levels of junior footy, this tactic should be taught to your players. One way to try and get your players to do this is to set some KPI’s for the amount of hand-ball receive from stationary. Obviously, with the younger ages you would not be as harsh on the results of them trying the tactics, but as the ages and abilities progress, you should make your players aware of the way it changes the game.
Set a reasonable KPI for your team and remind them during the quarter and half time breaks. When there is a successful passage remind your players and use the resulting KPI’s to justify the results.
Your KPI numbers should be around the following
Tackers – 10’s 5 per game
10 -12’s 2 per quarter
12′-14’s 2-4 per quarter
14 and up 5 per quarter
Advantages of Play
Some of the advantages of the play are:
- Ability to move the ball forwards fast
- Get the opposition out of position
- Take advantage of fast players
- Clear different zones of the field
- Rebound fast out of defence
- Teach your players to ability to look for different options
by teamvida | Oct 7, 2019 | Coach Development, General Footy, Player Development
These diagrams can assist with your set ups for boundary throw ins at almost all levels and age groups. Making your players aware of tactical differences in the game contributes significantly to their overall development.
Take a look through the diagrams below
Mid Wrap
With this boundary throw in set-up, we want to have all your players in front of their opponents on the ruck side of the opposition. This set-up would predominantly be used in the attacking half of the ground. The nominated on-baller would attack the ball whilst their team-mates would block for him/her. The wing would be behind the ruck and could be used as an outlet to transition the ball forward. It’s still important to keep distance amongst team-mates as to not clog up the contest.
Set-ups For Younger Players.
Again, like most of our other tactical set-ups, younger players should start thinking about their position on the field. Please remember to explain to your players the “why” of the set-ups so they understand the purpose.
A suggestion for a boundary throw in set-up is to have your players standing around the contest with at least two meters between them on the closest team-mate. Then you could make a team rule that the closest player to the ball goes for it, whilst the other players either block or receive the ball.
These skills can be worked on in simulated contests at training in two or three small groups with assistant coaches helping. Moreover, small and medium handball grids would also work well in working on creating space, blocking, handballing on 45’s and working as a team.
by teamvida | Oct 1, 2019 | Player Development
There are many ways in which a captain can influence a game on a weekend at any level. A captain can lead by example by doing the things on the ground that inspire others. They can lead by voice and organisation. As the older age groups have more involved captains as they make their way through to senior footy, it is also important to help develop young players in their leadership skills which can assist them with whatever they do in life.
Leadership Roles and Captain
Teaching young players the importance of responsibility and leadership is a life skill that goes beyond footy. Therefore, introducing leadership roles from an early age can be beneficial to their personal development. If you have a tackers team up to about under 11’s, there are ways in which to do this. Instead of picking captains, you could give roles to players on a rotating basis to ensure everyone gets a go. Some of the duties or responsibilities that a young player can be given are:
– Thanking helpers on the day
– Saying congratulations to all the players in front of the group
– Some players are in charge of putting rubbish away
– Thanking umpires
– Help put equipment away
These are some of the things you can do with young players to start making them understand responsibility. This can help their captaincy skills in the future.
Picking a captain in juniors…
This can be a tough task. Some players are born leaders and will pick themselves. Some leaders are not so obvious and may need some inspiration or opportunity to try the role before they realise they are a natural and talented leader. Therefore, in the junior age groups where the focus is on development, fun and education; captains can be rotated so that everyone gets a go. Each week two captains can be named and they can decide who wants to give the a pre games address, or who gets to flip the coin and choose which end. It is important to let all your players experience captaincy. It just might make a player feel more confident and included, which will help them develop better and stay in the sport for a lot longer.
by teamvida | Sep 30, 2019 | General Footy, Player Development
Defensive running is something that is often looked over in junior footy. Everyone loves kicking goals, however we need to teach our players to stop goals in order to win games. This becomes identified as a deficiency when many players come into senior footy. As junior coaches, we want to develop a player as a whole, therefore teaching players to run defensively is really important.
Running defensively is to run as hard and as intense to the correct positions to influence the game. The running has to be just as intense and as fast as if they are trying to kick a goal.
Even though training has been done for the week, below is a great activity to work on the defensive side of the game.
A sound defensive strategy significantly helps winning games, especially in the finals. So take some time this week to set up for the finals series if your team is playing. You can still have a defensive goal if your team is not playing finals.
Young Players
Without going into too much detail, younger players need to understand to keep running defensively as much as they can. Even though some levels have zones, it’s important to teach players to move defensively until they are no longer needed in the contest.
Teach your players to to always be watching the ball, plus trying to read where the ball is going to go. If your team has the ball, teach your players to always be thinking of positioning. If the ball is turned over, they will be able to better position themselves defensively.
One of the biggest selling points to defensive running in the younger age groups is communicating to the players the purpose of the technique. Every player wants to kick goals, however, you only win games if you score more than your opponent. Explaining all the ways in which players on a team can help win a game of footy will help your players understand the aspects of the game where they don’t need to have the ball to influence the game.
12/13’s and Up
This is where a real progression can take place each year from now. Players need to understand defensive running needs to be just as hard as running to try and get a goal. If this message gets communicated, then a lot of players will understand. Players also need to be taught to take pride in their defensive efforts to help the team’s overall performance.
Things to think about when trying to develop defensive running
– Teach players to turn and sprint to the next available player when the ball gets turned over
– Make sure players are always in the correct position even if in possession of the ball
– Get players to understand two-way running should be the same high intensity
– Teach players to take pride in being defensive
– Teach your taller players to run deep to the goal line on set shots
– Get your players to run into defensive 50 to plug up holes in the defence.
– Teach players to zone off in their defensive running, and if they need to take their non-direct player for a while, that’s fine.
by teamvida | Sep 23, 2019 | General Footy, Player Development
Kicking needs to be worked on throughout all levels of Junior Footy. Even when watching some local senior footy on the weekends, it is surprising to see so many adults kicking with bad technique. The main problems we notice are;
– Two hand ball drop
– High Ball Drop
– Tossing the ball up slightly to kick
– Kicking across the line of the ball
– Ball not spinning properly
These issues can all be fixed throughout the junior development stage, and as coaches, one of your goals should be to leave players with better skills than what they came into the year with.
Main things to Work on.
The biggest thing we need to work on with our players in the ball drop. The ball drop accounts for most players ability to be a good kick or not. The ball drop is made up of
– The grip
– Alignment
– Ball drop height
– Ball drop position
Holding the ball correctly is important as it assists in getting the rest of the kick right. Players want to make sure they hold the ball with their hands on the outside of the ball. Then you want to tell your players to point the end of the ball to the ground (a lot of players will point it to where they want to kick it).
From there, you want to try and align the ball predominantly on their preferred kick side, trying to avoid swaying from left to right.
Then we want the ball drop to be below the players hips, with their fingers pointing to the ground. The opposite arm then goes out to the side to assist in balancing. Getting your players to really understand the ball drop with significantly help their kicking.
How to add technique work into a session.
During the warm-up phase of the session you can add some simple kicking (2 players one ball) to ensure plenty of volume. You can then go around to every player and asses their kick. Get players to try and hit a particular goal of kicking and marking 10 in a row, or count how many kicks they have had.
Additionally, before the session starts, players must do 100 kicks to themselves on each footy before training starts.
Throughout the training session, you can separate the group into smaller groups, and have one of those be a technique group. Remember, this is not limited to really young players, as a lot of players even up to the age of colts need to work on kicking technique.
How to add technique work into a session.
During the warm-up phase of the session you can add some simple kicking (2 players one ball) to ensure plenty of volume. You can then go around to every player and asses their kick. Get players to try and hit a particular goal of kicking and marking 10 in a row, or count how many kicks they have had.
Additionally, before the session starts, players must do 100 kicks to themselves on each footy before training starts.
Throughout the training session, you can separate the group into smaller groups, and have one of those be a technique group. Remember, this is not limited to really young players, as a lot of players even up to the age of colts need to work on kicking technique.
Suggested activities available for Vida members:
One Step Five point Kicking – Click here
Kicking Square – Click here
Kick slide and handball – Click Here
Small Kicking Grid
Kicking Technique with Anth
Forty Five Gates – Click here
Again, there are plenty more on the website. Simply tick kicking in the search options and go from there.
by teamvida | Aug 19, 2019 | General Footy, Player Development
This article will go through various technical focuses that are important to incorporate from the start of the season so that players can start working on their opposite side.
We have noticed a large number of players who could kick really well of their preferred side; but kicked substantially worse on their opposite foot.
It’s important to incorporate some technical development for your players at the start of the season. Making sure players try and use their opposite foot during a game is crucial to their development as a player. Even at the AFL level, players are entering the system not being able to adequately kick on their non-preferred side.
Throughout the week you should be encouraging your players to kick on their opposite side throughout your activities, especially when pushed to that non-preferred side. Developing this tool will make that player so much better as a whole.
Think about player such as Sam Mitchel, who can get out of trouble from either side. They can also attack from either side of his body, making him a great player even if he may give away some six and speed than some other AFL Footballers.
During a Game
You may not necessarily want to set KPI’s for this as the occurrence may vary. However, you would want to let your players know that they should keep their own tally of opposite foot or even opposite hands handballs. Your players will know when they should be using their non-preferred side, so therefore try to get them to tell you after the game how many times they did so when they had the chance.
After the game, have a discussion about why it is important to develop this skill and therefore try to get your players to understand the “why”. You can then use this feedback to take into your training sessions throughout the week, and reiterate the importance of the opposite side.
Some great activities available for Vida members that are usually just done with the preferred side but can be modified for the opposite side are;
Kicking Square – CLICK HERE
Warm-up Details (Do with opposite Side) – CLICK HERE
45 Gates – CLICK HERE
