Wanted down under

[cookie]

First an apology to girls football. The situation is this that many girls dont wont to play mixed mini footy and only start playing when a girls team is available u12 which means you get u11 and u10 girls who have just started. The outcome of this is that me and the missues and few others have taken on board the task of developing girls football ( any ideas welcome). Still waiting for the grading committee to come back on no. 2 .
No 1 lasted only 2 minutes before being injured and i fear it is a bad ligament injury.
No 3 has got back into the season with his shooting boots on.
I have started coaching the u8 and had one good session and one merde , they have had 2 games and are scoring more than they concede.
The u12 lead coach has stood down ( he was a taken back by the discipline or lack of). The players expect you to provide all the answers and lack a love of the game and some are still playing to please their parents as the prime motivation. They have not done well results wise and are struggling to link this to how they train. Other coaches use laps for discipline. All this for elite football , so i dont think the 2018 world cup will be won by Aus.

It got down to 25 degress the other day so i had to wear a sweat shirt and its getting too cold to swim !

[cookie]

Top week on the football front, best u8 session consisting of robin hood, 1 v 1 shielding the ball, body part dribbling, numbers game followed 5 v 5 with 4 goals. One of the players came upto me afterwards and said it was fun.
U12 session had a state coach come down to have a look, did defending from the front , dribble and jockey warm up, then 60 x 20 with 3 defenders in each half and then ball released to defenders who have to pass to other half defenders while 3 attackers defend and then if poss score a goal. moved on to 6 v 8 which only lasted 20 mins , then finished off with 7 v 7 win the ball in the other half and score with 6 seconds to count double.
U8 matches have gone well with 3 wins, u9 played first game another club , 7 v 7 on 40 x 30 pitch , good individual football displayed. u14 b and g both drew so 3 games in day and became the lino in one and disallowed a goal for my own team. Sunday isnt a day of rest as the u12 play, Note to self must add GK session for girls on Monday after the other 2 sessions.

[Coops]

I love Cookies posts - he is like a missonary preaching the right way, Sadly his namesake never made it up the beach - bout Cookies has made it up the beach, over the road and onto the pitch. go get 'em!

[cookie]

have had a few ups and downs recently. The u8 went on 2 game losing spree and i was no longer flavour of the month. They have since gone a winning streak culminating in toughly fought 1-0 win over Portsmouth ( we are Chelsea). One of the u8 training sessions had to be stopped due to over eagerness on behalf of the players who mainly cant sit still for 2 seconds while you explain a game and have to chime in . The u12 is hard work as their prferred style of coaching is to be told to do everything , they cant problem solve and make good decsions and the sesions can disintergrate. I envy the elite schemes back home where you can jettison players after 6 weeks.

[cookie]

Anyone recognise these game:
1 big goal vs 2 small goals
gates scattered around pitch for passing game
2 big goals 20 yars apart for shooting game
line ball (with no pass forward)
3 teams of 4 with one team on the outside as passers

Looks like the TD of FFA has a copy coopermans learning through play. These were put on as demos
for game related exercises, pitch sizes were altered , goals bigger/smaller players added removed as well.
Told that is the basis of coaching to be used for elite players and we had to make our own up using the above as the source .

U12 were held by the team of the league who lumped it and legged whilst we outplayed them with football and let a soft goal in the last 2 mins. U8 has another tough game against a large sometimes skillful tottenham. u14 played like they trained on Tuesday and that was appalling but came back from 6-1 to 6-5 . U9 'smashed' another not skilful team fat and physical is a good description. The u9 games are done geographically and not seeded and the oppo level has been the equivalent of div 9 of the surrey primary league.

[JKC]

at least your technical directors thoughts are available to the masses, our 'equivilent' held a meeting in our area and the local development officer hand picked 2 'bum boys' to attend and the other 20 'elite' and 200 'comunity' coaches where not even told about the 'whole of football' plan or the meeting to discuss it.

keep giving to 'em cookie and if you think coaches in aussie are old skool jump over the tasman and cast your eyes on the goings on this.

all in all apart form the change to 7v7 + GKs the old dutchman seems spot on?

[coach03]

Hey Cookie, re your reference to Coops' book. I thought the Australian Institute of Sport have been promoting the use of 'Game Sense' practices for years and small sided, apparently 'chaotic' practices where the preferred method of developing players (in Rugby as well as soccer) from GrassRoots to Elite level?

Check out the AIS website and punch in Game Sense and you'll get a ready made set of references. It's a variation on the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) model.

[cookie]

Hey Cookie, re your reference to Coops' book. I thought the Australian Institute of Sport have been promoting the use of 'Game Sense' practices for years and small sided, apparently 'chaotic' practices where the preferred method of developing players (in Rugby as well as soccer) from GrassRoots to Elite level?

Check out the AIS website and punch in Game Sense and you'll get a ready made set of references. It's a variation on the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) model.

Cheers for that.As for the AIS and football , well they got alot of stick for the work they have done over the last few years as AUS sports that i have seen have totally ignored game sense and been down the run rabbit and isloated practice.

[cookie]

Just sarted again after the winter break,( 20 degress by day and 10 at night).
Good progress with the u12 as we played the top 3 teams that all the players go on about and came away with 3 credible draws and played good football to boot.
Have started girls only goalkeeping for u111 -15 and have a girls development day for u6-u11 comming up.
The leagues have been reorganised at both u14 b and g with a team dropping a level as they were being hammered, there is now a complicated table where the top 4 teams go thru to the finals based on percentages of points from games !!
Watched an aussie coach use the playground game at u14 and it went down well, earlier in the season the players would fanny around but they concentrate more.
watched the state u12 trials and guess what the big players get favoured.

[cookie]

did some girls only sessions, the feedback was very good such as "thoroughly enjoyed the session and felt she got more out of it than her normal training night." so have another planned in a few weeks.

The wheels came off the wagon for u12 , and the parents showed the real spirit of true aussie grit , which is is to find someone to blame . It was just coincidence that the 3 lost games were when i was doing other football.
The wheels came of the u14 and again the true aussie grit came to the fore this time from the manager , they havent won since winning all 3 grading games.

Are we the only place in the world that books players for wearing the wrong colur skins, even in the world cup you could see the under shorts were a different colour but sending a 10 year old off to change is a bit far.

The playing up rules for girls are a complete jobs worth farce, if an 13 div 2 girls is short it cant take a div 2 mixed player or a u12 girls div 1 player, the result an u11 plays up 2 years .