Part 1 – Introduction
Part 2 – Warm Up / Kick Development / Defense
At this point we’re about 30 – 35mins into the session and it’s time to break into groups.
Grouping your players into their specific lines that they’ll most likley play in is all part of the stream lining approach as well as making training ore specific to each player.
So break your players up into backs, midfielders and forwards but there might be a little bit of switching of players depending on the drill as I’ll outline below.
MIDFIELD DRILL – STOPPAGE QUARTERBACK
Players Required: Depends on your total training numbers but you want to set up 4 groups of 4 – 6 players if possible which might mean you include all players in this drill or pull some half forwards and half backs from the other groups to make up the numbers but only if it allows you to still run the forwards and backs drills at the same time, otherwise use the entire squad for this one.
Balls Required: 4
Space Required: 35 x 35m
Drill Level: Moderate
Our home ground is literally a postage stamp (125 x 80m I reckon) so to be able to create room to play into we like to play out the back of the contest instead of simply running into congestion that’s simply there because they have nowhere else to go!
So this is my game model specific but you might have other tactics and strategies you’d rather focus on.
Level 1 – Outnumber game + quarterback waiting on the outside for the whistle who kicks to a lateral/or 45 degree lead coming from the next box
Level 2 – Outnumber game but the quarterback is 1 of the offensive players from the outnumber game so you can either nominate the player or nominate the side you play the ball out of and the closest player pulls out and the others get it to them for again hitting upa lead from the next box. This is probably your best option if training numbers are low but it’s will decrease the chance of success a fair bit from level 1.
Level 3 – Outnumber game + quarterback waiting on the outside hitting up the kick into the middle of the playing area which will require a kick into some congestion.
Level 4 – Outnumber game but the quarterback is 1 of the offensive players and you are to hit up the kick into the middle of the playing area again requiring a kick into congestion.
Level 5 – If you’re feeling extra spicy then introduce both leading options to the outside of the box and to the middle of the playing area but have the defender go with 1 of those options so the kicker must find the open option. With 1 defender success might come easy for the kicker as the defender might be too tired to actually get to 1 of the leading players but multiple defenders they’ll nominate between themselves who will defend the lead and it’ll be much harder as they’ll be less fatigued and the kicker won’t be aware of which defender to kick away from.
BACKS DRILL – SCAN AND KICK
Players Required: 10/group
Balls Required: 1/group
Space Required: 20m x 2om
Drill Level: Easy to Moderate
In most cases I would start with some game model rehearsal based activities such as the quarterback drill like above and the forward line drill below but for the backs that first kick has to be safe and it has to hit the target so as not to put the defense under repeat pressure on top of other backline players pushing forward to provide options up the ground leaving the defensive 50 vulnerable if there’s a turnover.
Level 1 – 1 side leading but have the kicker have to kick outside and inside their body
Level 2 – both sides leading but 1 side only leads every 2nd kick so it’s half the decision making requirement
Level 3 – both sides leading each time and the kicker can kick inside or outside their body depending on where the open target is
On top of these levels you could also challenge your better kickers by allowing them to attempt kicks with a defender but 2 misses in a single training session and they lose that privilege for the remainder of the drill.
Player 1 receives 20 passes from player 2 and see’s how many targets they can hit up and do each player 2 – 3 times each.
FORWARDS DRILL – GAME MODEL REHEARSAL
Players Required: 8/group
Balls Required: 1/group
Space Required: Forward Half of the Ground
Drill Level: Easy
Level 1 – As above
Level 2 – Add 1 defender to play against the player 2 in board kickor the player 3 and 4 fat side leads. The sole defender will start with each group in the congestion and can decide to go with whichever forward they like so there’s some decision making to be made by the other players there.
Level 2 – Add 2 defenders who can choose who they go with but also decreases the forward outnumber advantage
Level 3 – Add 3 defenders which brings the numbers to evens but defenders must man the mark of marked kicks
Level 4 – Add more players to the scenario
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