Justafan wrote:Rod Tilbrook wrote:I am no great fan of the FFA, but I believe the NC provides a reasonable blueprint for youth coaching and development, as long as the coaches involved in implementing the system are half decent. The idea of a National skills test has merit, but you still need coaches with the capacity to encourage kids to apply these skills in game scenarios.
This is the big problem at grassroots level the things getting taught (if they are at all) are not being applied in game scenarios at your every day Sunday morning grass roots games. It is still about winning at sub U12 level even though there is no table kept. It is great running the drills and following the NC though I doubt this is being done to any great level but the boys need to play it during a game. From my experiences this is not happening.
There has to be a better way to manage and assess the SAP stage.
I agree, but in a way, game day should just be the icing on the cake. It should be about replicating game situations in training, so the kids train at the same (preferably higher) intensity, speed, and physical contest level as they would on game day. Sure, do the drills, but then encourage the kids to implement theses skills at training in game situations.
From what I've heard, too many coaching sessions seems to be either about giving the kids a ball and letting them run around randomly like chickens with their heads cut off, or conversely, endless drills where kids play brilliantly at half pace against cones but strangely fail to replicate this on game day.