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Defensive 16yrd hits

Do you have some examples of player placements and drills for clearing the ball from defensive 16 yrd hits Thanks Mark

mark beardCoach, England

Coaching beginners

This is my first year coaching field hockey and I am coaching beginners, a U8 team. Any drills geared towards beginners?

Hockey CoachCoach

What should I do? Team Captain's stepping on my toes with these emails?

I have taken over a club as head coach this year and inherited a captain. She is a good player but is not my ideal captain and is used to communicating almost exclusively by email. I had a successful meeting setting objectives for the 1st team last weekend and following that meeting received lots of feedback for how well it was received. My captain yesterday sent a long email about her thoughts on the meeting and where we are and what the players should be doing in order to progress from her perspective. It is a long rambling email that I think has no objective or point to it that I think is completely inappropriate, now I know her heart is in the right place but this is really stepping on my toes as a coach as it is my place to do these type of emails. I am looking for advice on how I should be dealing with this, I am happy to pull her up but as she is very unconfident about herself I feel this might push her back into her shell even more and then she might do something daft like send another email apologising to the team! I am not sure if I should just ignore it as I wonder if it undermines me? Thoughts?

Ian HardinghamPlayer, England

Rule clarification: If a player's 5 yards from the free hit is it obstruction?

player is getting ready to hit free hit. other player on same team is 5 yards away waiting if pass is needed it. defender is right behind her. is tha obstruction?

Ed kolnaskiTeacher, United States of America

How can I stop my team from diving in and over-committing in defence?

I am coaching my first season as head coach. I am confident that my team has improved on alot of skills (mostly due to sportplan.net, thank you!). The only thing that is driving me crazy that my team has not improved on is the over committing block tackle. When an opponent is coming down the field on a breakway, my defense runs up and block tackles, and the opponent shoots right past them. This will happen two or three times in a row, one defender after the other. I've told them to keep their feet moving and to keep off their toes, keeping their momentum with the opponent. I don't know how to practice this with them. We only have 9 players (this is a high school varsity team) so we can't scrimmage full field during practice. Please help! I'm desperate for a solution.

Hockey CoachCoach

Why can't I share my drill? The system seems to hang?

Why can't I share my drill? The system seems to hang when I click on the share button? I also don't seem to be able to create a pdf?

v wheeldonCoach, England

Mixed ability PE group - any suggestions?

I'm really struggling with teaching a really big mixed ability group at school. 35 girls ranging from county level to struggling to hold the stick correctly. i've done mixed ability tournaments and splitting them, but its getting a bit stale. any ideas? Pretty basic I know, but hey, we've got to start somewhere!

Jennifer theeditorTeacher, United Kingdom

Defeating the screen?

I notice the screen is hard for a weaker teams backs to get the ball through. What are some methods of defeating the screen for juniors? The Olympics dont seem to use screens, they seem to instead retreat first to fill holes in the middle? while the team with the ball does back and around in front of their goal for a while before sending it down the wing. Would the umpire notice if you put one of your players amongst their screen to provide a path past that player to another player deeper? Your player in the screen blocking the path of the defender from getting a stick to the passing ball. Is it just that senior players are able to do effective lateral cross turf hits, so the screen is unrealistically player intensive, leaving holes in the middle risky? Whereas entirely logical to use a screen against a weak team?

Hockey CoachCoach

Identify when the PC shot is a drag or a hit

When the PC shot is identified as a drag, it seems the defenders should veer away, else suffer the penalty shot if they get a body hit high? Whereas if it is instead identified as a hit, run straight, then if it hits feet, another PC, or if it is higher then it is turnover and maybe pain? If so, I guess the expert defenders are used to quickly deciding whether it is a drag or a hit, so whether to veer off for the drag, or to stay on track for the hit, protect feet, or if the hit is higher then take some pain for the benefit of the team? I am coaching young girls at present, where the penalty shot is not used yet. I dont play hockey myself, but the Olympics shows these events. Although the replays, sunlight reflection and the angles were a bit dissapointing.

Hockey CoachCoach

When is blocking not blocking?

After coaching my team to spin with the ball we started getting the whistle for blocking. Yet during the olympics when running down the clock the experts take the ball into a corner, contain the ball there, and there is no whistle. What is the detail?

Hockey CoachCoach

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