Kids hurling coaching

Kitchen Expert

Hi, I am coaching U7's hurling in my local club and was just wondering what other people coaching similar age group did to keep the kids engaged during training? What games you played, drills/skills you did, how many drills in the hour etc?

Sometimes find the kids get board easily if you don't make it fun and interesting.

Thanks in advance

dzer2

It's not all about hurling, try different types of stuff like bull dog, leap frog bridges, and wheel barrow races. Get a couple of tyres and let them beat the bjasus out of them. Drill should only b 4 minutes, 5 drills per session. Do little competitions per line to see who is the fastest. Do sprints from the 20 metre line in groups or 3 split into 3 and then go again. I take it you have a few with you. Give a little homework as well. Like rising the ball into the hand. Some will be able to do this already but you need to get the average up.

Kitchen Expert

Completely agree its not all about hurling. The 4 minute rule for drills is something I will definitely use. I was probably doing each drill for too long.

Thanks

KevIRL

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058240488/kids-hurling-coaching

Its more about entertaining kids than coaching and drills at that age imo. Main priority is to ensure they are having fun and keep coming back each week. A couple of good twitter accounts

https://twitter.com/GAAmeCoaching

https://twitter.com/ShaneSmith197

My club was part of a pilot for a program for 4-6 year olds here in Waterford last year called Well!Kids. Its been rolled out across the county now with what is an excellent booklet of activites. If you follow them on twitter and like a post recently posted they will share a pdf of it with you

https://twitter.com/wellkidsgaa

carq

Develop that winning mentality by prioritising the physically larger children as team starters.

Incentivise winning matches - mcdonalds for instance.

Any slackers should be put on improvement programs.

Encourage parental involvement especially during matches - sometimes hurling advice is better coming from a loved one during a stressful game.

Also parental involvement can be useful to develop a siege mentality during home games to get the rub of the green on 50:50 calls.

NedsNotDead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118888148#Comment_118888148

Guessing that this post should not be taken seriously

gucci

Following this with great interest! I am in same boat here....!

dzer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118888401#Comment_118888401

An come on sure if ya can't win an All Ireland at 6 you never will

glennhysen

https://learning.gaa.ie/planner

GAA Activity Planner is very useful for age appropriate games

ChippingSodbury

Here is the Well Kids programme:

WellKids-Coaches-Resources.pdf

I only got that today so at a quick glance, there's loads of stuff in it.

I'd second the tyres. It's a great way to get them to develop a good strike. A few lines of tyres and get them to hit them on the run. Get them to focus on getting their feet right and get a good "smack" sound from the tyre.

I start every session with "Hold up your writing hand". "Pick up your hurley with your writing hand". "Wave your other hand in the air. That's your catching hand"

ChippingSodbury

And I nearly forgot, rounders (with very loose rules!) is a great fun game that they'll all enjoy. You (coach) throw the ball to them really easy, most of them will make some sort of contact after two or three efforts.