I enjoyed yesterdays
game and thought the boys did really well.
We used the keeper in open play (which is an advanced way of playing) rather than just booting it out or turning back into the opposition. This was the highlight for me. The boys always looked for a pass, and started to show a bit more confidence on the ball. I thought Zac in the first half did some great moves to get into space when under pressure. In the second half Hunter and Owen were also very good when driving forward. Each week there is improvement from every player.
Moving forward Nothing changes much in regards to the development process;
All players still need lots and lots of work on their basic technique.
- The ability to open the foot for control and passing
- The ability to move the ball around their feet to evade pressure and open up passing lines
We are doing work on this in training but it will never be enough. There is a bit of resistance to it (because its practice and not a game and so not much fun ). There is also a little resistance to doing things that require a bit more thought - hopefully they will learn to understand the importance of extra technical and game based work. On this note, if your child does want more technical training, then i run a technical program on Saturdays afternoons (In hawthorn) which will help enormously. If you want more details or want to try a session then get back to me.
Last week at training i had to ask for better behaviour from a couple of players. Hopefully that wont be necessary this week.
In terms of the game -
- The defensive shuffle is still a big part of what i am looking at. I thought yesterday it was definitely better, and some players in particular did it really really well.
- Midfielders and forward hunt the ball - we only have maybe 3 or 4 natural midfielders (who can get get up and down) - again hopefully as the boys play more they the hard work midfield requires will become more natural.
I will start to add a few more game tasks, the next will be :
- to see if we can get the wider midfielders providing width when we have possession, and tuck in (hunting the ball) when we don't.