U10 Go Games

Lex Luthor

A few of us are mentoring a U9 football team but we have entered them in the bottom division of the Autumn U10 league. First match tomorrow.

The recommended no. of players goes from 9 to 11 so instead of having 3 at the back & front, we now play 4 in those zones.

Is there a recommended way to position them for 4 in those zones?

I was told yesterday that last years U10's played 2 full backs right beside eachother and then 2 half backs. I don't see the advantage of bunching full backs together.

My thinking would be to play LCB/FB/RCB/CHB or LCB/RCB/LHB/RHB

The only problem with the 2nd formation is you have no backs in the middle or forwards in the middle...

premierstone

Lex Luthor wrote: »

A few of us are mentoring a U9 football team but we have entered them in the bottom division of the Autumn U10 league. First match tomorrow.

The recommended no. of players goes from 9 to 11 so instead of having 3 at the back & front, we now play 4 in those zones.

Is there a recommended way to position them for 4 in those zones?

I was told yesterday that last years U10's played 2 full backs right beside eachother and then 2 half backs. I don't see the advantage of bunching full backs together.

My thinking would be to play LCB/FB/RCB/CHB or LCB/RCB/LHB/RHB

The only problem with the 2nd formation is you have no backs in the middle or forwards in the middle...

Seriously its u-10's they will all just follow the ball and positions will mean zilch!

Lex Luthor

so any useful comments please? :rolleyes:

and no our group don't just follow the ball...probably the reason why the won 6 out of 6 games last season and in those games scored a total of 71 scores and conceded 24

KnowsHisStuff

TBH I don't like the idea of leagues at u-10 level, or even u-12 for that matter but anyway. Yes the 2 full backs and 2 half backs is the best way to go, makes more space for the full forwards and will make scoring higher. After all, it's not about winning at that level.

Orizio

premierstone wrote: »

Seriously its u-10's they will all just follow the ball and positions will mean zilch!

No. Watching my 8 year old niece play, and this usually isn't true. Three sectors are seperated on the 'pitch', you don't leave your sector.

Orizio

KnowsHisStuff wrote: »

TBH I don't like the idea of leagues at u-10 level, or even u-12 for that matter but anyway. Yes the 2 full backs and 2 half backs is the best way to go, makes more space for the full forwards and will make scoring higher. After all, it's not about winning at that level.

Go Games is an excellent inititiave imo.

Grudaire

Orizio wrote: »

Go Games is an excellent inititiave imo.

It is, but having refereed the Go Games there is a disorganisation to the whole thing. Have they chosen a set of rules yet, or is the ref still informed of the latest set when he arives at the pitch. (I had great fun arriving and picking what rules we liked best with the managers!)

Lex Luthor wrote: »

and no our group don't just follow the ball...probably the reason why the won 6 out of 6 games last season and in those games scored a total of 71 scores and conceded 24

Lex, I hope you don't turn people off the game with such a compeditive attitude at such a young age. Try and focus on fun more than the score. If the players get too into winning at that stage losing can come as a big blow.

Lex Luthor

Cliste wrote: »

Lex, I hope you don't turn people off the game with such a compeditive attitude at such a young age. Try and focus on fun more than the score. If the players get too into winning at that stage losing can come as a big blow.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of competitiveness, even at that age. I know they try and dampen it down but all we are trying to do is give the team a bit of structure. The kids still come down to training twice a week at their age and we have parents from the other team at the same age level asking us will we take their kids as they see the difference in training. We started off last year with 16 players and by the end of the year we had 23, most of those coming from the other team..

The worst thing for the kids is to just throw them out to their zone and say play wherever you want. Keeping them in a rough position helps the weaker players come on as you don't have the strong players in each zone taking the ball from them. We have a philosophy of playing every player in the squad, no matter what their level is for the same amount of time throughout each game. And it has paid off as the weaker players last year have come on through getting more match time.

The parents that have come to us from the other team have mentioned that their mentors just play their own kids and the rest just get 5 mins here & there which is totally against the ethos of the GO games.

cruiserweight

A bit late for you I guess, but I can understand the strategy behind having two full backs. At that age most of the score will come from close in and in front of the goals, also I guess that goals are as likely as points. Having two full backs helps cutting out the chances of the other team scoring.

Lex Luthor wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with a bit of competitiveness, even at that age. I know they try and dampen it down but all we are trying to do is give the team a bit of structure. The kids still come down to training twice a week at their age and we have parents from the other team at the same age level asking us will we take their kids as they see the difference in training. We started off last year with 16 players and by the end of the year we had 23, most of those coming from the other team..

The worst thing for the kids is to just throw them out to their zone and say play wherever you want. Keeping them in a rough position helps the weaker players come on as you don't have the strong players in each zone taking the ball from them. We have a philosophy of playing every player in the squad, no matter what their level is for the same amount of time throughout each game. And it has paid off as the weaker players last year have come on through getting more match time.

The parents that have come to us from the other team have mentioned that their mentors just play their own kids and the rest just get 5 mins here & there which is totally against the ethos of the GO games.

Unfortunately these sort of things happen all to often. Fair play for doing the right thing, IMO at that age especially the emphasis should be on developing skills and having fun, not on winning, but of course everybody loves to win though

LeoB

Cliste wrote: »

It is, but having refereed the Go Games there is a disorganisation to the whole thing. Have they chosen a set of rules yet, or is the ref still informed of the latest set when he arives at the pitch. (I had great fun arriving and picking what rules we liked best with the managers!).

That was a mistake on your part. If your board did not have the decency to inform you you should have stuck by the last rules you got.

It is vital that we present these games in a correct manner and step 1 as I tell my kids is "The Referee is in charge".

The only problem I have in Dublin is you have a few big clubs with thick people on the sideline who seem to only want to win. They dont use numbers on their jerseys and this causes mayhem. Here you are trying to tell a kid to mark No6 and all of a sudden No 6 is off and you have a confused child left wondering what to do. (My club have been guilty of this also but not now) They end up half way out on pitch intimidating kids (not always intentionally) and they ruin what the games are really about.

I would say to the O.P forget about the games they are not important. Think 6 years ahead. Have your competition at your coaching and give the kids marks for their skills. The aim must be to produce kids who are competent at Gaelic Games and enjoy what they are playing. Rotate all your players at half time and during the game.

Grudaire

It is good to hear that you rotate the players, that is the most impotrant thing at that age.

Out of curiousity is this other team within your club!?

LeoB wrote: »

That was a mistake on your part. If your board did not have the decency to inform you you should have stuck by the last rules you got.

They really didin't. I make it seem worse than it is there, but the system becomes unworkable unless managers and referee's are at least on the same level. It was less a pick and chose than a confirmation with both managers on the day's variation. Given that i wasn't given a new set of rules over such a long period I'll stand by what I did.

LeoB

Cliste wrote: »

It is good to hear that you rotate the players, that is the most impotrant thing at that age.

Out of curiousity is this other team within your club!?

Not sure if that quote is for me??
My club dont put up with crap from mentors. We have guidelines for anyone who wants to get involved with a team and these are fairly well adheared to by all mentors. We do have the odd blip but nothing like the way it was years ago. We sat down and discussed what our real aims were and it was amazing to see the difference in what mentors were thinking. We have targets for each year, a level of competence we need to achieve. Players and Parents are made aware of what we expect and while it has taken time it is working well for us now.

We have been involved in a few spats with clubs over the years. I am not proud to say I was one of the biggest culprits and was a regular visitor to Belvedere Place and Donnycarney to explain my actions. I spend more time coaching than going to games now. I dont like losing .

COACHING AND MENTORING NEED TO BE SEPERATED. I am a fairly good coach even if I say so myself. I get on well with people and am able to get things across when coaching but when it comes to being on a sideline its best I take a backseat.

As for the disorganisation in GO GAMES, this can only be corrected if clubs work with the board to provide what it says in the rules. Some "big" clubs dont give a toss about boards or rules because they get away with it.

Lex Luthor

Cliste wrote: »

Out of curiousity is this other team within your club!?

yes. Same age group.

Grudaire

LeoB wrote: »

Not sure if that quote is for me??

Not at all.

Lex Luthor wrote: »

yes. Same age group.

It's funny how some clubs have competition between the teams within the club. This is often the product of bad managers it must be admitted, but when I played minor both teams trained together, this lead to a much better training session. I've seen this happen quite often.
Another time I saw two managers have a full blown shouting argument over some sub one of them made (U13). Myself and the third manager stood there bemused!

Lex Luthor

Cliste wrote: »

It's funny how some clubs have competition between the teams within the club.

there isn't any competition that we know of. It started off about 2yrs ago with about 30 players.

The mentors that were 'more' established within the club stuck together and took what they thought were the best 15 and called them Team 1. The rest of the mentors tokk the remaining 15 of which I am part of and were called team 2.
Team 1 was entered into Div 2 last year and Team 2 entered in Div 3.

Whats happened since is that Team 1 finished mid table and Team 2 won div 3 but didn't get promoted due to a re-structuring of the divisions from 4 div to 5 divisions.

New playes came into the club since then and these kids found most of their friends were in Team 2, so we took them on our team and we grew to 23 players while the Team 1 mentors said they didn't want any more new players.

But in the last campaign, word got out that we played every player for equal time in every match parents have now asked can we take their kids from Team 1 as they are not getting a fair chance to play during their matches.

Its getting a bit political now as the T1 mentors said they don't mind if we take these players as long as they can pick our best players to come over to their team which is not happening as parents are reluctant for them to move to T1.

Both teams train together at the same time, training matches & drills are mixed but its nearly always the T2 mentors running the training sessions as the T1 mentors rarely show & when they do, just stand around shouting like headless chickens.

LeoB

I like the idea of teams training togeather, well at least doing some coaching together. If numbers are tight it can make for abetter session.

Cliste. It would be common in my club for teams from U/13 to do some work together. Its good for general morale if you have strong discipilne within your club. Looking at our minor team this morning they had a great mix of lads. This spreads back through teams and is vital to us as we are struggling at some age groups but we feel when our U/16s train with minors they are getting quality football and its starting to show. Some competition within clubs can be negative and we have had this in the past also.

Lex Luthor. You are giving this team you have a good start and I would say keep doing what you are doing for the kids, work as hard as you can on the basics and the kids will also bring each other on if they see you as being as fair as you are

However what If you pass the other team out this year? If you have an "A" and "B" team who will manage who? It needs to be carefully managed if 4 or 5 of your lads went to team 1 and didnt like the set up they could walk away. The kids are lucky to have you as a mentor. Keep it up

If my had the luxury of 2 teams at 1 age group I think we would stream them until we needed to have seperate panels.

Lex Luthor

LeoB wrote: »

However what If you pass the other team out this year? If you have an "A" and "B" team who will manage who? It needs to be carefully managed if 4 or 5 of your lads went to team 1 and didnt like the set up they could walk away. The kids are lucky to have you as a mentor. Keep it up

If my had the luxury of 2 teams at 1 age group I think we would stream them until we needed to have seperate panels.

It could happen if we get promoted and they get relegated as they are ranked bottom of Div 2 for this campaign. Not sure what would happen really...I guess we would still be called T2 and them T1 but the T2 would be in a div above and we would continue to mentor our own teams. To be honest there is no difference between both teams....in fact if I was to be honest I would say on their day T2 would beat T1 but we haven't ever gone down that road, but we are due to meet eachother in the U10 league this year as both teams were registered to play in the bottom division to some experience playing with the added 2 players. Should make for an interesting game...

When you say 'stream' them...how fo you mean? We have about 38 players to choose from so we needed to split them for the games

LeoB

Lex Luthor wrote: »

When you say 'stream' them...how fo you mean? We have about 38 players to choose from so we needed to split them for the games

We split the teams into equal strengths. So if we have team 1 and 2 the top 2 players are split to different teams. Some lads mess about a bit and put an extra strong player on 1 team. In theory its very good but some mentors just want to win win win win.

Lex Luthor

LeoB wrote: »

We split the teams into equal strengths. So if we have team 1 and 2 the top 2 players are split to different teams. Some lads mess about a bit and put an extra strong player on 1 team. In theory its very good but some mentors just want to win win win win.

didn't work that way for us at the start...all the "supposed" best players were taken for Team 1 but they have since balanced out....

LeoB

quote didn't work that way for us at the start...all the "supposed" best players were taken for Team 1 but they have since balanced out.... quote

But you had 2 teams in different leagues/divisions. Our teams play in 1, 2 or 3 team groups so if we have 2 U/9 teams they should be split equally.

They have balanced out because of the way you and your fellow mentors have done things.

2 things I have learned over the years are You cant "cod" kids they know when you are being honest and fair and they respond in a positive manner.

They enjoy a good structure to the coaching and again respond in a positive manner. Oh and they will not forget what you do for them. I have had a 24 year old come up to me after a championship final and thank me for getting him into football when he was only a kid. That will be the reward down the road.