Coaching questions

thanks lads. OK, started 5 years ago helping out with me young one but witha few other things going on, mainly coaching a mens soccer club, wasnt able to commit fully until late last year when I gave up the soccer (should ahve done it years ago). Theres 5 of us for an u11 side. got about 25 in the squad.

I'm pretty happy I carry out the basics mentioned above, every player is important, its not about how good any of them are, its about progress, make every child feel they did something good. Ive read everything Philip kerr has written, genius as far as Im concerned, not that he seems to know so much but he's made it freely available, gave me great starting points. Ive watched every totalgaa coaching video. Ive read everything on the ulster gaa site. (why doesnt the GAA itself have this?). Ive been putting into practice for a while now. Ive done foundation 1 and waiting for suitable time for next level.

Heres the questions.

With such a big squad, every child has to play, we've about a spine of strong 10 players, 6-7 mediocre, and 7-8 weak. u11 games are non-competitive but become competitive in the spring. With such a large squad, do you play the spine and rotate the weak or Do you go with a half of strong and a half of weak players or try and balance?

Some players are weak due to inexperience. Some of these try hard and this is the biggest driving factor for me, seeing improvement in these players. these will come on. Im not worried about these. Its the potential that we work on.

Some players are weak due to athletic ability, nutrition comes into play, maybe overweight, poor range of movement. This is home life. How do you sensitively address this, do you talk to parents or do you just keep encouraging and hope they come on, do you hand out nutrition sheets, what to eat to become athletes? Id have no problems doing this with adults or older teens but 10-11 yr olds, Im not sure what to do.

Some players are weak due to commitment. Mams or dads drop them off as something to do. You know the type. We may have only a select few of these but they are there, do these get same game time when we get competitive? GAA says they do, we try and encourage but only so much we can do and find ourselves concentrating on those that try hardest (level not withstanding).
Do we speak with parents if theyre not getting same or any game time as other kids?

Anyway, thanks for any thoughts on above. I'll probably have more later as season wears on.

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Is the season not winding down now?

You can only do so much.
Get the basics right.
Have a stable environment for the kids each week.
Praise them.
Set targets for them, test them - skills tests are reward them.

thats all being done, we're working on core skills as per development stages. Im happy we've got basics right. My questions are outside the "what should I be coaching" type.
you are right, the season is in the non-competiive stage but my questions are pointed at that if you go through them

farmerval wrote: »

Is it possible to enter two teams for next year? The last two years we have managed to field an A and D team at under 12. This way the weaker kids get plenty of games and usually at a standard where they are able to compete. We tend to have quite a few girls and some if them prefer the D grade as it's less intense and they enjoy it more. Both teams train together and if we need a few younger players to fill a team parents seem less perturbed if they are on the D team.
Don't know your circumstances but this has worked well for us.

What were your numbers? We're finding that we only get 20 out for the non-competive games from a pool of about 25-26 which is to be expected. As you probably know if a player plays for the higher team they cant go back down so we're a bit stuck in that after we go competitive the second team wouldnt have enough to field a squad after the first 3 games if that trend continued.

If we had 30-32 then that would make the decision of a second team very do-able. We're toying with the idea of putting the second team in and fill out with a lower age group.

for anyone else, thanks for replying, Im happy enough with coaching methods and maxxing the potential of the players, making it enjoyable etc, my questions are not about that.

farmerval wrote: »

we had 25 altogether, plus we could get a few U10's as needed. Here in Tipperary U8, U10 and U12 is 11 a side for A,B, and C grade and D is 9 a side.
I know we are lucky as a rural parish, we get a high constant turn out for games, apart from holidays almost all the kids are always there.
The second team in the D competition has been great, it gives plenty of matches for the younger/weaker players and eases the pressure on the coaches as regard to getting/giving games to all. Here in South Tipp virtually all the D teams are second teams, generally made up of younger players and girls. We always have 4/5 girls at under 12, some want to play in the first team but most want to play in the second team so it works put fine. A few girls would not play in the first team, in hurling we only have one team and a few of the girls will train but not play matches.
Hop it helps

Exact same scenario here. Im fairly sure A, B grade for those ages is min 9 max 13 dictated by whose got what numbers on any given match day.

I didnt know the D league was 9 players only, sounds like that could be a runner, I'll check that out. Thanks for that, appreciate time to respond.