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Monday, January 15, 2018

PRE-SEASON TRAINING DO'S #21 - IMPROVING KICKING VARIABILITY DRILL

All things being equal, the most skillful team will win.

Every.

Single.

Time.

In fact the most skillful teams do far less work then other teams due to less chasing and less extra running from chasing loose balls, cleaning up errors etc.

With a huge focus on fitness during th pre-season improving specific skill level often gets neglected and IT SHOULD NOT.

It should be far ahead of fitness in terms of focus.

Fitness can improved rather quickly with the correct program where skills is always a work in progress but because you can't "see" skill improvements like a time trial result, then we just let skill level stay where it is.

Players end up making the same mistakes year in and year out because at training they are set drills that don't address specific skill deficiencies and don't use enough skill variation in regards to distance, depth and accuracy of skills to dynamic and static targets.

There is also zero built in accountability where if you "get over and help" after a bad kick, it magically makes everything alright but on a Saturday that could mean winning and losing or even worse, a Grand Final win or loss.

At most levels training skill work usually looks like this:

#1 - Lane work straight up and down to stationary targets or with players running directly straight to you

#2 - All skill drills being performed at speeds that most players can't produce effective disposal under.

#3 - Limited to zero drills that involve chaos/decision making

#4 - Drills without instruction of how the ball should ideally get to the destination

Here's how to make these points more specific to game situations plus trains players to perform the type of skills they'll need in a game.

#1 - Vary up lane work with angled leads and different kicks (on the run and go back and kick)

#2 - Organise the drills to match the speed of play that allows the highest efficiency of disposal which you might make player specific for some or all of your players if needed. You might also need to adapt your playing style to the skill level of your players.

#3 - Give freedom to your players to make the ball carrier make different decisions in a split second as a lot of skill training drills are going forward at speed unimpeded, which is how we would love it to be, but unfortunately on a Saturday you'll have 37 other players in front of you which cuts off all of these "plays" that we train for before they even begin. But now our players are pigeonholed into doing what they did at training so they either get caught with the ball while they think of a plan B that isn't happening because the players up-field have also had their "training drill routes" cut off, or they just end up bombing the ball down the line which is the easiest ball to defend in footy.

#4 - Practice all types of kicks in your drills - stab kicks, kick to space, kick to advantage, long kicks, short kicks, kicks to all type of leads in regards to distance, speed and opposition pressure.

Below is a full ground, team based drill that touches on all of the above aspects at the same time.

This is just a sample and you can set this up in a million different ways but you essentially break the ground up into 3 parts (back, mid, forward) with position specific players in each section.

You would pre-organise a little "game map" to follow initially but use position specific kicks so players practice the same types of kicks they'll often do in a game.

How the players leads to the ball is up to you as well which you would probably like to match up to your game plan bit by bit as you progress closer to the practice games.

I would also strongly suggest that you literally tell your players to go at a moderate tempo at best as skill level, and target hitting efficiency is the focus of this drill, not how fast you can do it.

As your players get better hitting targets st moderate speeds can they stat training to hit them at high speeds.

Don't skip steps in the hope it will just magically come together because it won't.

You can also use this as aerobic capacity training by repeating the drill for 15 - 20mins at a time that "hides" running volume that bores players so much.

After 5 - 7mins switch the backs with the mids as the mids will often be performing the same kicks as backman when getting back to defend and help out - or at least some of them but maybe keep your permanent backman in the same section to perfect backline kicks.

After another 5 - 7mins you might then switch forwards and mids who interchange between those positions during a game to expose the players to midfield and forward specific kicks, again maybe leaving your permanent forwards in there the entire drill.

So kick 1 goes to group 2 to group 3 and so.

Player 1 goes to group 2 then group 3 but once the ball laves the backline section, they then go back to group 1 and off thy go again so just run all your balls through then reset.

If you have 10 balls and run through them all 50 times, each player should receive ample opportunities to get plenty of position specific touches in a short amount of time.

If possible keep track of how many targets each section hits and let the group know of the results after each 5 - 7min period.

B sure that I haven't ever used this drill so feel fee to give it a go and let me know how it runs.

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