Women's Football Tips

I went to watch a local VAFA women's game last Sunday and granted it was pissing rain and most of the girls would have been playing their first game ever, this is what I saw.

KICKING

When we have kids do Auskick what do we do? We teach them the skills of the game and that's it. We don't worry about running, tactics etc and I think that a similar tact should be taken with a thousands of beginner women footballers right now.

Now I'm under no illusions that skill level won't be great initially but few tactical aspects will work with poor skill level.

From holding the ball, to ball drop, to driving momentum through your kick, a huge focus on kicking technique should be at the forefront of your training.

There also needs to be a great focus on stationary and kicking on the run as well.

A 2 handed ball drop is very hard when kicking on the run so it's plain to see that they are 2 very different skills.

GET TO THE BALL WITH SPEED

A lot of girls would chase the ball but slow right down when they get near it - yes it was wet Sunday, but it looked a lot more of habit then the actual conditions.

A lot of the would also come to a complete stop, turn away from the oncoming player to complete the ball then try and bend down and pick it up, giving valuable time to the chaser who wouldn't have a chance if they could hit the ball at relative speed, pick it up and go.

I would encourage players to hit the ball as fast as they can at training to at least build this skill.

GET LOW

Backing off the last point, the ability to get low, which the better girls did, enables you to be able to dispose of the ball and gather some momentum in pack situations.

Standing straight up with the ball makes you easy to tackle and "weaker" when standing - by dropping the hips you have more stability and you have far more options once you get the ball.

INTENT

Heaps of these girls have come from Netball where you're goal is to avoid contact and play "around" your opposition which resulted in a lot of easy ball even in a wet and heavily contested game.

One girl was all about contact and every time she was in a pack she heavily influenced what happened - regardless of the numbers around the ball.

As with all of these points, they are very much a work in progress and will take time to develop and become habit, but those who can nail these the fastest, the better players they'll be in 2017.