Using Video to Reinforce Learning

As the Ottawa weather hasn’t been as helpful as last year when the snow was gone by now, and because our school has plenty of teams vying for the little practice space we have, the head of the Jr team (U16s) I assist asked if I could run a video session today.  I have significant experience running video analysis sessions for experienced players, but the challenge with this group was to keep the ‘veterans’ (of two or three years) interested but also not to alienate the kids who are relatively, if not completely, new to rugby.

I decided to pick a clip that could reinforce all of the good ball-in-hand, passing, support, and simple defensive lessons we’ve been giving over the past two weeks.  In choosing an appropriate video, I avoid the classics – highlights and full games.  I don’t like highlights as they tend to show that which is beyond the ability of many amateur players, especially kids.  They also don’t often show the build up to the try – just the final act(s).  There’s so much more that can be learned from a try by analysing how it unfolded from start to finish.  Full game clips will show these, but there’s also a lot of ‘down time’ – such as ball into touch, jogging to set pieces, etc. – that can cause the attention of even die-hard rugby fans to wander.  The ‘useless’ bits also run the risk of detracting from the messages you want to convey.

Simple guideline for selecting video:  find something that’s appropriate for your level and that fully displays the lesson(s) you want the players to learn.  Ideally, the clip will be wide-angled to show what most of the players are doing at any given time and from a high (side on to show depth; end on to show width) vantage point.

Given the relative ‘newness’ of our players, and the fact that most of the experienced ones don’t watch a lot of rugby, I chose a clip that not only exhibits the aforementioned ideal conditions but which also demonstrates the lessons clearly.  If I were training advanced players, I’d probably go for clips with more subtlety that would add to their years of experience with the game.  With relatively inexperienced U16s, I wanted the consequences of the actions they see to be fairly obvious to reinforce what they (should) already know or hammer home the message that the game can be successful when simple concepts are applied.

For that, I chose a recent clip from YouTube, courtesy of the English RFU, featuring their U18s against Portugal.  I split the classroom into two halves and said very simply:  “One group watch and write down the things England do which allow them to score tries; the other take note of things which cause Portugal to fail.”  Simple elements of attack and defence.  No help from me.  No commentating on the video.  Just watch, discuss in pairs or small groups, and take notes.

Here’s the clip:

There was lots of chatter as the clip was played and everyone was engaged – even the newbies (some of whom were paired with each other).  I was tempted to ensure a vet was with them, but also didn’t want the vet to do all the analysis, so let it go.  Upon stopping the video, I took answers from one side at a time, making sure not to give any suggestions, only clarifying and combining where appropriate.  I then asked open-ended questions to get them to decide upon what were the most important factors.

These are the notes I made with their input.

My main purpose was to teach them that successful attack is based on very simple conepts.  I congratulated them on some fabulous answers, and was actually impressed by a few from unexpected contributors (like the Mexican boarder who’s never really seen a game before!).  I said to them that when I first watched the clip, I only wrote down three common things that led to England’s tries and challenged them to think what they were.  This prompted an engaging and intelligent discussion where I turned down several answers which could have been spot on with another coach, and were certainly accurate.  I took care not to downplay that input, but suggested that I wanted the three simplest facets.

When individuals finally explained their reasons for two of the three, I circled them (quick, accurate passing and support).  Someone had mentioned ‘space’ at the start of the discussion – which was close – but prompting and open questions from me couldn’t get the answer I was looking for, so I told them to hold off and we came back to it at the end.  Great answers from the previous two weeks’ training sessions about width and depth kept coming up, but I added that we can still be successful with narrow channels and even if playing a bit too flat.  Finally, someone said “Just using the space!” and I pointed at him and shouted “That’s it!  At your level, the space is always there!  Take or find the space!”  Defences our boys face aren’t as well organised as pros.  We need to take the space or find it with quick and accurate passes, and support those runs.  The game is as simple as that!  In addition, I stressed that the ball carrier isn’t always the ideal person to spot and make those decisions (esp. with their lack of experience), so encouraged them to call out those opportunities, which allows the ball carrier to make informed decisions.

I left out one specific element and had the boys watch the clip again to apply the concepts the group decided were most important.  The final piece of the puzzle came from one of the outside backs part way through and I stopped the video, asking him to tell that to the group.  (I’d have questioned them about timing soon enough.)  He said, “They always pass before or from contact as well!” … which is the other key bit we’ve been teaching them.  That the game is best played on your feet, with as many potential attackers in play as possible, so the timing of the pass has to be considered.  The problem with the smash-em-up rugby all-too-common in Canada is that for every ruck, you take out four or five of your own attackers to secure and re-start possession.  More and more, the teams we face are committing just one or two to the ruck (as we tend to do), leaving more defenders standing than attackers.  This prompts slow play to allow those in the previous ruck to catch up – if attacking teams don’t charge blindly into the wall of defenders that is!  Played in the spaces, before contact, and with quickness and support, teams can cause disarray among the defenders as England did Portugal.  We then continue to teach that through the drills which develop skill and games which apply skills and allow them the chance to spot for / create and exploit spaces.

We can tell players this until we’re blue in the face, but to what degree of success?  I know not every player contributed to the visual, written, and discussion aspects of this lesson, but the photo of the board above and this collection of notes below let me know that the boys are quite knowledgeable already and are well on their way to being ‘rugby smart’.  It also can give me a sense of where we are with our lessons and allow us to re-visit missed concepts or push on to new ones.

Simple how to on using video as a teaching / learning tool:

1. Select an appropriate clip which clearly demonstrates the lesson you want the team to learn
2. Show the clip with no sound (one less distraction) and give the athletes clear guidelines on what to watch for.  Run it slower than normal, if possible.
3. Insist players write down their thoughts on what they see, specific to the learning objectives or beyond.  (Can be split many different ways – sections watching just one element each; players sat in their units focusing on their position(s); etc.)
4. Have them tell you the answers to your open-ended questions.  If they stumble, lead them with more open-ended questions.  Resist giving answers at all costs.  This allows players to take ownership for their learning.
5. Write their answers on the board for all to see and clarify any confusion.  Condense answers into simplistic / standardised terms and concepts.
6. Remind them of the simplified / standardised concepts and show the video again.  Listen for those ‘aha’ moments as players “get it”!
7. Collect their notes.  Condense the answers and have them and the clip available for review on a shared drive / site / device.

Update:

I collected all the sheets, standardised or simplified the language of some, and created a little word cloud using wordle.net.  Found the results very interesting!

Lessons from the England Coaching Team

I read an insightful and educational article which interviewed the England coaches on their habits and philosophy regarding game-day.  I’ve been paying attention to Stuart Lancaster ever since he named his first England side, suggesting his reign would be more positive than that of the two previous coaches. Since then, I’ve become a huge fan despite a few losses that some would criticise, feel the win over the All Blacks and England’s dominant start to the Six Nations is proving that he and his team are doing great work.  As his stock has risen, I realised I’d been influenced by him years ago and I didn’t put two-and-two together.  Lancaster had contributed articles to the RFU Technical Journal that really got me thinking about being an introspective and athlete-centred coach.

You can find the whole BBC article featuring Lancaster, Graham Rowntree, Andy Farrell, and Mike Catt here.  Below, I outline some of the ‘take away’ messages I picked up on.

1. Keep the message simple, and make sure that simple message is heard.  They talk about the ‘white noise’ of too much information, and Rowntree hits the message home with wanting to focus on just a few things.  Catt makes a very important point – one that I need to be better at – in making sure that simple message is actually received.  It’s important to make eye contact and get an acknowledgement – or an honest response that the message isn’t understood – from the player in question.  I’ve got better at not spouting out too much white noise, but need to be better at making sure the message is received.  It got me thinking that usually my situation doesn’t allow for the best analysis / critiquing as I’m a solo coach.  I might look into getting players to take turns ‘running’ the drill so I can focus purely on analysis and pulling aside players when the situation demands.

2. Coach stress transfers to players.  Lancaster and Catt make great points about not wanting his own stress to filter down to the players.  I know the stakes are higher for the England team, but I feel we probably all do this to our own players and while the stakes aren’t as high, our players mental fortitude isn’t as strong as international players.  I’m never one to even yell at a player, let alone belittle one in front of the team, but I wonder if sometimes I relay too strongly my worries about the opposition or the state of our success at performing a certain skill, etc.  Lancaster makes a great point about coaches using rants to make only themselves feel better and the uselessness of messages being passed on that are common sense.  In recent years, I’ve thought more about my early days as a coach and am a bit embarrassed by the things I used to say on the touch lines to players in games – never accusatory or offensive but many of which pointless  (and I know many of the lads would now tell me they either didn’t notice, or didn’t take offence to if it was a critique of a decision they made, but that I still know didn’t help them one bit).  I think even at youth level we need to give players credit for what they know and let them figure things out on the field, using the calmness of a post-match sit-down to go over what we (stress WE, because what happens on the field is reflective of what we’ve been teaching them!) need to work on.

3. Know your players.  Farrell makes a great point that I recently heard Lancaster talk about in an interview and that’s about knowing how to motivate players as individuals.  Farrell talks about knowing what works for individuals with regard to addressing needs, reinforcing the positives and establishing focus for the second half.  Like my pre-game talks, I prefer to keep these simple and either focused on very real, achievable goals, whether they be strategic, tactical, or technical.  Telling players they need to make their tackles doesn’t help as much as saying they need to get their feet in closer, get lower, and get a shoulder on the body first.  Farrell, as well as Lancaster in an interview, state that it’s important to know which players need ‘an arm around the shoulder’ and which need ‘a kick up the backside’.  I learned this quite early on in working with a new, but talented fly half who’d go into his shell when the pressure was on, but keep the ship steady and do some brilliant things when given calm instructions and a lot of encouragement.  I’ve had other players – usually forwards! – who say they want to be barked at a bit – which is tough for me, but if it works for them, I still focus on the positive but use my diaphragm to fire the instructions at them.

4. Pre-match chats.  In relation to the above point, Rowntree touches upon letting the moment do the ‘ramping’ up, and  Lancaster talks about leaving players alone, citing that every player has a routine and ways in which they get prepared for games.  I’ve heard the same from Graham Henry, who admits he used to do the big speech until the captain told him it was useless and that no one really paid attention to them.  Now it might be different for younger / amateur players who haven’t had mental training, but why not ask?  A simple survey might lead you to understand your players’ motivations more.  One of the teams I’ve helped in recent years has one of those rah-rah yelling things that all the boys do before the game.  They all seem to love it and it is a sight to behold, but as someone who used to keep classical music on his headphones until we left the changing room and never yelled the team cheer louder than conversation level, I wonder how many of those boys are actually pumped up by it but instead are more anxious / nervous because it’s disrupted the calm and relaxed state they prefer?  (I’m often seen pitchside with headphones on so I can block out distractions and focus on analysing my team!)  Being just that sort of person, I banned loud music from being played on team buses and in changing rooms not just because we all have different tastes and some people are negatively affected by it.  Those who need it will have their headphones with them any way.

5. Half time chats.  Farrell’s philosophy on what to say is covered in point three, and I think good ones are the same as good pre-match chats.  Simple and to the point, focused on positive things players can achieve, and without white noise of any sort.  Here’s a sample of what I do at half time:

1. Physical status.  Everyone okay?  Anyone need treatment?
2. Water.  Even if they don’t feel like it.
3. How did things go?  Positives only, we’ll deal with the ‘work ons’.
4. Chats with units, individuals on key things to focus on.
5. Final wrap up with simple objectives for the entire team.
6. Captain to have final say.

More detailed version in this previous post.

6. Let training determine what happens on the field.  This one’s more subtle, but having read a lot from Lancaster I know this is part of his philosophy, and that of probably all top coaches.  Even if you’re on the touchline, you’re still so far away from the action and so shouldn’t be trying to direct things like a basketball coach.  And unlike sports like football, rugby is a continuous game so it’s not like there are many breaks in the game to pass on messages.  Lancaster talks about trying to limit these to important ones despite being mic’ed to Catt who is pitch-side, and Catt even says he will choose not to send in some messages that come from the other guys up above! (I hope he still has a job after admitting that! )  The point is that we need to be giving our athletes, regardless of level, the knowledge and tools to be able to manage the game themselves.  Much of rugby’s history, believe it or not, was played WITHOUT COACHES!!!  The captains ran the show, and I still largely believe in this, feeling it’s my role to guide them rather than tell them, and to be the eyes of experience who can help all players become smarter and more analytical so they can do what they need to do on the pitch.  It’s also the reason why I’m more about teaching the game in training via small-sided games and realistic scenarios, using small box stuff significantly less.  While some might argue that lesser experienced players need guidance, I’d counter by saying that how are they ever to learn if the coach spoon feeds them all the answers?  There’s a lot of research out there regarding the power of experiential learning, yet I don’t know that we do this as much as we should in a game that demands so much more from the players than the coach.

For anyone interested in more of what Stuart Lancaster’s thoughts are, here are some great resources:

Player Development (five parts)

Changing Coaching Behaviour 1

Changing Coaching Behaviour 2

Positional Changes

There was a great question on The Huddle coaching forum recently asking how willing we are to allow players to swap positions.  The author suggested most responders said they allow changes, but given the questions / answers usually given on the forum, I think most – if not all of them will be coaches of pre-teen athletes.

I’m a bit on the fence on this issue, but because I coach teens and adults.  When I coached U14s, we really didn’t focus too much on positions specification, except at set-piece time.  And even then we’d have kids propping and hooking who’ll probably never do it again in their later years.  I was also trying to get everyone confident with passing, receiving, and spotting opportunities that I’d be happy for most to play the ball as a ‘scrum half’ or ‘fly half’.

With the U16s, however, we typically select players where they’re best suited by size, strength, ability, etc. but I have what I think is a reasonable policy on players swapping positions. I always tell the boys that they can tell us what position they want to play, but they have to prove their ability and / or commit to learning and developing abilities for that position. I’m about player development and fostering a love for the game first, so am all too happy to help a player get more out of the game – but feel that at teenage levels of play they can’t be just gifted such a swap. (If for no other reason, than for safety’s sake!) One great success story was helping a kid who’d been a hooker at U16 with his school become a scrum half and then fly half at U18 with my club team. He asked realising he was proving to be too small for hooker and having a love for open field attacking.  I was more than willing to help (maybe with a bit of frustrated-front-rower, wannabe-halfback mindset myself!), and we spent countless extra hours before and after training working on passing, receiving, positioning, kicking, timing, etc. In addition to doing a great job for my club team, he ended up playing fly half and full back at U21 club and university level as well!

For teens, I don’t think letting them make such drastic positional changes is even good for the fun of it unless they’re willing to be serious about being able to meet the demands of the position. We play so few games at the high school level in Canada as well that to do so would be denying game time to a kid who’s already been playing that position and deserves as much time as possible in it. I wouldn’t therefore want to drop those kids to the bench or move them where they weren’t happy to accommodate another kid who just wanted to try out his position on a whim.  As mentioned earlier, there’s also the safety factor to consider, especially if a smaller or relatively weaker player has a desire to become a forward. I feel that if they truly want to make the swap, they’ll be more than happy to put in the work to make it a reality. Coaches should be willing to support those efforts as our first priority should be to foster a life-long love of the game in our athletes.

If a teenaged (or older) player wants to swap, and is willing to put in the work, this has to be a post-season or early pre-season declaration so we can work toward getting him up to speed.

Coaching Philosophy and Goal Setting

I’ve recently joined the Twitter-verse and despite being sceptical before about its value, a friend encouraged me to try it out and just look to ‘follow’ people who I might find ‘in the know’ on subjects important to me.  I’ve been trying to find stuff to do with coaching and some have already paid off, with some offering interesting thoughts and others links to articles, etc. I’d not have found on my own.

One such person is a coach from Australia called Damon Emtage ( @damonemtage ) who seems to post regularly articles, videos, etc. to do with coaching across many sports.  I find this extremely useful, because sometimes I feel that rugby’s a bit behind other sports with regard to introspection and examination of the finer points of what we do.  (My first sports were American football and basketball and even at the high school level I feel I was taught more about tactics and techniques than I even see in elite rugby programs.)

One article he’s posted that’s got me thinking about the new season is entitled “Coaching Behaviours: Working towards a Greater Coaching Philosophy – An Interview with Ben Bartlett” which featured in Soccer Coaching, vol. 54 (2011).  A pdf of that article can be found HERE.  Bartlett is a regional coach development manager for the Football Association in England.  I met a couple people in this role with the RFU at a clinic a few years ago and they blew me away with their knowledge of the game and the coaching practice.  The interview with Bartlett highlights a few areas that all coaches should implement as part of their coaching philosophy and team structure regardless of level.

The highlights for me are:

1. Developing an actual philosophy and outlining a set of personal values which is shared with your team (and parents of your athletes if you’re working with teens or younger, in my opinion) so they know what to expect from you.

2. Maintaining a strong, if not total, athlete-centred focus.  In my opinion, only at the university, provincial or international level should ‘winning’ be at the forefront of one’s focus.  At all other levels, we should be encouraging athletes to enjoy the sport, learn more about it and themselves, and to grow as both athletes and people.  With my teams, we treat winning games and the league as the bonus on top of all those other good things (our ‘Dream Goals’).

3. Encouraging athletes, in the framework outlined in point 2, to take ownership for their learning and development.  Establish expectations for both athletes and coaches.  Do this with their input, if not actually demanding they create them as a team, with you there to clarify / re-direct unrealistic expectations.  These can be as simple as attendance expectations and go as far as keeping a diary to track progress.

4. Establish a professional relationship with all players to be able to track their progress and hear their concerns.  It might also be useful to bring team captains into this so that players know they’ve got several people to turn to if one is preferred over another.  This will allow coaches to know how things are going and to be able to better support / adapt / alter as needed.  Even knowing something simple as ‘For what reasons are you playing?’ and ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’ can allow a coach to know how to plan the season and training sessions to meet players’ needs.

One that wasn’t covered directly, but is a way to establish and measure the above, is to hold a goal setting session with the team.  Again, I encourage players to come up with these themselves and I’ll be on hand to help clarify, but not direct.  If they’re not used to the process, the language will be quite vague so the coach’s best role can be to chose the best wording for their input and check if all agree on it.  Their goals should be SMART – specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-referenced.  I like them to set a few team goals related to performance, and then encourage units and/or individuals to set one or two (maybe an attack and defence) personal goals.

Some won’t be interested in the individual goals, and I think for club or school athletes, that’s fine.  The team goals, for example, can be measured on points scored / limited (on defence), or by tactical criteria – esp. if you’re not scoring or being scored on a lot! – such as line breaks made or tackle completion percentage.  These are difficult to keep track of, but video cameras are relatively cheap these days and there are often volunteers available among injured players, students needing volunteer hours, or parents who’re willing to operate it!

Finally, it’s important to have some meetings to check how things are going and see if goals need altering, and then the entire team should re-visit these at the end of the season to gauge success and see where to go next season.

Goals should:

1. Have a clear definition
2. Have justification for importance
3. Have a clearly outlined pathway for achievement
4. List possible obstacles and strategies to overcome those obstacles
5. Include a declaration, preferably signed by a witness (as I feel it establishes accountability)

Attached is a sample of the goal setting tracking sheet I used with a high school team.  I’d probably simplify this next time I use it as there’s some repetition and the purpose, at this level, should be to provide some focus and accountability, not necessarily establish a professional approach (unless you have athletes who are already in provincial or national sides!)  As mentioned above, not all of my players were interested but for those who were, it allowed me to support their progress and even to incorporate their goals (as most were so general they’d be shared by others, whether they told me or not) into my practice planning.

Goal Setting Sheet

Knowing the Laws – Touch and Quick Lineouts

I recently saw this great clip featuring French player Francois Trinh-Duc’s doubly-clever move to set up a try for his team mates.  What’s on play here is a sound knowledge of the laws of the game not just by Trinh-Duc, but by his team mates as well.

1. The player in white kicks the ball out ‘on the full’, meaning that the lineout will go to the blue team back from a line where the ball was kicked because the player doing the kicking was in front of his 22m line.  (This also is true if the ball kicked was passed back to a player inside the 22m by someone outside of it.)

2. To ensure this happens, as it’s probably unclear to Trinh-Duc if the ball is truly going to go out, he straddles the touch line BEFORE making his catch.  Simply put, he did not carry or knock the ball out.  By having at least one foot in touch when he caught the ball, he was already out, and as such made the ball that was kicked by his opponent out.

There are a lot of situations like this that can be very confusing even to veterans of the game, largely because we rarely see them.  There’s a great document from Australia that outlines pretty much every possibility, including both feet in, one in and one out, and while jumping in the air.  It can be found by clicking THIS LINK.

3. Knowing that a quick throw is possible before the lineout is set, Trinh-Duc runs forward to where the assistant ref marks the spot that the lineout will occur.  Up until this season, the quick throw could only take place from the spot the ball crossed the touchline or further back toward one’s own goal line.  This year, as can be seen in this video, the quick throw can take place at the ‘line of touch’ – or where the lineout will occur when kicked out on the full.  Explanations and further examples from the IRB Laws site can be found HERE and HERE.

4. He makes a quick throw – which must go 5m – to a team mate, who sets up another for the score.  Trinh-Duc could have taken the quick throw from where the ball went out.  But knowing that it’s now possible to take the throw from where the lineout will occur, he took the opportunity to run it forward and gain some free metres (as well as get behind most of the opposing players who’d chased the kick).  This can be a bit confusing if you’re new to quick throw-ins, but the new Law trial actually makes more sense than the way it was before because the options then were take a quick throw down field or wait and have a proper lineout upfield.  Now players have the option of making a quick throw anywhere from where the lineout should occur all the way back to one’s own goal line.

Quick throw can occur anywhere from kicker in blue back to the goal line.

This is entirely possible at any level, but players wanting to make a quick throw must use the same ball and it has to be taken by the person who fetches the ball (not chucked to someone else who takes the quick throw).  Catching the ball cleanly before this happens makes setting up quick throws that much easier.  Hopefully refs at your level are aware of these things as well!

Tips on Coaching Kids

I don’t have a lot of experience coaching pre-teens, but fully respect those who do as I think it requires a lot more patience than I probably have.  It’s an important time in the development of young players – one not so well developed here in Canada, where most people don’t start until they enter secondary school (Grade 9, typically aged 14).  The one year I did coach a team at this level, I worked with a group of U13s in a full-contact school sevens league.  It was a rewarding experience as the kids were all very eager – as they tend to be at that age – and early-on I learned about some of the differences coaching at this level than at the older teens / adult level where I’ve done most of my coaching.

Today, I discovered this great article by Australia-based coach Scott Allen, who does the wonderful video analysis posts for the Green and Gold Rugby Blog.  Like me, he’s not had a lot of experience at youth level, but I think he outlines some very important things to remember here:  http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/coaching-teenagers/

For my Canadian followers, I think there are a lot of transferable lessons in the article that can be used for your beginning Grade 9/10 teams.  That said, my season with the U13s reminded me that at the heart of the game at any level is doing the basics very well.  With that in mind, I think we should consider most of what Scott outlines in the article, in addition to some lessons that we DEFINITELY need to adhere to at all levels:

• Progressing drills to show purpose and allow for them to be practised in game like situations
• Keeping drills short and sharp so as not to bore athletes, but also to move the focus from in the box, to more challenging activities
• Being focused on addressing what needs fixing, not over-doing areas that are going well (Fess up: are you one of those coaches who has scrum / lineout sessions every practice despite their success in games?)
• Being prepared to alter or adapt a drill to address a need or when it’s really not working for your players

One thing I’d add that didn’t feature is that I think pre-teens (and even the early teenage years for boys) is too soon to pigeon hole athletes into a position.  Boys still have a lot of growing to do and it might so happen that the biggest boy in Grade 7 who you play as a lock might have got the tallest he’s going to be, and there aren’t many 5’11″ locks even at amateur levels these days.  As with most levels I’ve coached at, the focus shouldn’t be about winning, but fostering a passion for the game and developing your athletes’ abilities as complete rugby players who can pass, catch, run, tackle, contest, communicate, and begin to develop their game sense.  If you’ve got 15 players on the pitch who can do all that as well as the next, then you’re surely going to be successful!

Passing Drills – Wayne Smith

I was in a bit of a discussion about passing and fundamental skills last night and stumbled upon a great free resource from All Blacks coach Wayne Smith.  If you click [this link] you’ll find a link to a video from The Rugby Site, where content is generally something you have to pay for.  You still have to sign up before you can access the video, but trust me it’s worth it!

Wayne Smith, image from The Rugby Site

The recent clinic I attended gave us a free membership to The Rugby Site, and on first glance it looks good.  I’ll give it a proper review later, but regarding this video I appreciate hearing – again from an All Black coach! – that there are some very simple elements of the game which they regard as crucial.  It was interesting hear Smith say in the video that when Henry took over the team and brought he and Hansen in they were determined to enhance their players’ fundamental skills.  I think sometimes the temptation is there to try the higher-ordered stuff done by the top teams at our level without ensuring that our kids / amateur adults can adequately perform basic tasks such as passing.

I’ll leave Smith to transfer his knowledge and lessons on passing via the video, but will add a few comments of my own in case some areas are unclear.

1. Passing off the ‘wrong foot’.  What he means is being able to pass, say, to the right with the right foot forward.  To be able to put more power behind a pass, one gets the ‘back foot’ forward – in our case, the left foot – so the hip and torso can rotate into the pass and deliver more power.  With the right foot forward, passing to the right is somewhat inhibited without this rotation, but he focuses on developing the wrists and triceps to account for this.  Focusing on this is important because the pressures of the game often means players need to be able to pass effectively off either foot and in either direction.

2.  I like that he uses progressions, giving the athletes a ‘warm-up’ to the activities later on.  He starts with wrist flicks and focuses then on the ‘punch pass’, emphasising keeping the ball on the hip, snapping the ball out with the triceps and keeping the hands together through the follow-through which, combined, allow the ball to get to the target quickly and accurately.  These are things which can eat up a lot of your practice time, but should be drilled into players’ minds as passing the ball is probably the most common thing done in the game aside from running.  Once these ‘rules’ are established in the players’ minds, they are the sorts of exercises I ask the players to do in their own time, or do it before training starts while the coaches are getting set-up.

3. The use of questioning.  If you check out Lynn Kidman’s Athlete Centred Coaching, Smith features quite heavily as someone who favours genuine learning via ‘teachable moments’ rather than by always ‘coaching’ atheletes with specific directions and solutions.  If you notice during most of his “Whoa, whoa, whoa…” moments, he doesn’t: a) Yell at the kids, b) Tell them what they did wrong, or c) Give them the answer.  Instead, he’s probably let little things go that weren’t seen in the video, giving the boys a chance to try the drill a few times and giving them the benefit of the doubt as mistakes will always happen.  He remains positive by not criticising their decisions or abilities abilities.  Most importantly, and this is where even the nicest of us can miss an opportunity, he gets the boys to come up with their own answers by asking leading questions, like “What was the most difficult thing about that?  Why does that matter?  Where were you going?”  He’ll present some options and let the boys truly learn which is the best option.  Too often, we give them answers and it takes time – if it sinks in at all – for the players to truly understand why that’s the best option or why it’s important.

I’d add that it’s important to stress to your players that they should be aiming for perfection, especially if they’re doing some of these exercises on their own time.  I’ve seen players get it in just a handful of passes with helpful guiding and their own determination to follow guidelines and find what’s comfortable for them.  Here are some suggestions:

• Partners should challenge themselves with regard to distance, but not stretch beyond a comfortable range until sufficient strength is developed.  Too far away and the passes will be less accurate and lose ideal form.
• Passes should be flat, with no lob so they’re delivered quickly.  Push passes should not wobble.  Spin passes should have an even rotation and not be tilted upward as such passes tend to carry on flying upward, above the intended target (think of a rifle bullet flying straight flat).
• The hands of the receiver should be up and out, ready to pass on, but also giving the passer a clear target.
• Passers who aren’t quite getting the spin pass should be encouraged to alter their hand positioning ever so slightly to find what works best for them (move positioning of hand to middle / rear of the ball, check firmness of grip, use more finger tips than palm, alter positioning of the guide hand, etc.)