Coaching (Under 7)

paulocon

Hi all,

Doing a bit of coaching this year. Officially under 7's but think we will have some as young as 5 and 6. Have got my hands on a few drills and understand that I should be using small tasks/games to include bending/picking up, catching, evasion and kicking..

Just a quick question. At what point of the year would you look at introducing games to such a young group and how would you go about doing so - I'm guessing that initial games would be based on tag-rugby or something along those lines?

Smartly Dressed

I thought that u8s was the youngest underage group there was.

Most of the things I learned when I was at underage level were:

• Pick up
• Solo
• Catch
• Kick
• Hand passing

Personally, I would introduce a 6-8 minute game at the end of the training session once I felt that the players had a sufficient grasp of the basics. I would just do a normal game but without being to strict when it comes to rules - just encourage them to follow them.

Perhaps they are a little too young now but getting them to use their weaker foot more often will be a huge help to them in the long run.

Balfey1972

Paul,

Get your hands on the new Fun Do Learning Resource Pack.
link to it here.http://gamesdevelopment.gaa.ie/page/fun_do_learning_resource_pack.html

It's excellant, with drills and an interactive dvd. Great from Nursery to U12's.
Very good for preparing training sessions.

thirdmantackle

start off simple - picking up ball, kicking, catching. Do not teach handpassing. Its not a skill.

refresh your ideas every 3 weeks with new warm up games, skills etc

policy of one ball for every two players - cuts down on waiting for their 'turn'. more contacts with the ball.

kids love playing any sort of game. if you can work in few ball skills at the same time then you're laughing. lots of games. adapt Go Games principle - stop kids running around pitch after the ball and lets them play in different positions.

Oh, and make sure ye've loads of adult helpers. the more adults the more help can be given to the kids

that resource pack is the business as well. but the ideas have to be used!

paulocon

cheers all,

i will get myself one of those resource packs.

i suppose like anyone else, one of the problems will be the lack of help/volunteers - i would imagine ideally 1 adult per 5 or 6 children especially given that the children will range in age and ability initially..

Thanks again for the sound advice. Will concentrate on the basics initially and not worry about games until these are in place..