The latest edition of Teesra Talks : Play-Review-Play-Play…and Repeat — a Review takes a look at an alternative session plan I have been trying out with our u9 softball squad this autumn.
The original blog post, referenced in the audio, is here.
Teesra Talks are hosted on anchor.fm, and are also available as a subscription podcast from various distribution sites.
I had a couple of interesting conversations with parents over the weekend.
One, with the mother of a young player who really wasn’t seeing the connection between the skills we practice and the wider game of cricket.
Another, with a dad from another group, who commented on how the players were starting to show good game sense. We play a lot of games with the latter group — they have been the “guinea pigs” for the “play-review-play-review…” sessions, in fact.
Could it be that what we are assuming too much of young players who don’t actually know that much about the game, or their role in it? Very few play in the park; I doubt any of them ever play any street cricket, or backyard.
The only time they play cricket is during our coaching sessions.
Do we need to include (even) more gameplay in the “curriculum”?
And if we do, what is the smallest small-sided game that we could play to introduce more “game awareness”?
Continue reading Game awareness – how small is small enough in cricket SSGs?First session of winter practice with the u9s on Sunday; slightly disappointing turn-out (just 5), but possibly compounded by the soft-ball u9s being billed as “the level before you get to play proper cricket”! I can’t imagine this helped the numbers!
I went with a new session plan, making the most of the chance to play games — essentially, we mixed free-play with “directed” review (I asked leading questions) to allow the players to have a bat and a bowl, and to think about the tactics needed to be successful.
I deliberately avoided giving much technical input, but I do now have a couple of ideas for more formal “practice” later in the winter.
We spend a lot of time coaching skills & techniques, not enough time practicing on how to win games — play-review-play-review etc. might go some way to remedying this. Continue reading New close-season, new session format — play-review-play-review…& repeat
