How do I teach a centre court press?

Lee-annes NetballCoach, Australia

what do you mean "her explanations are terrible".  is she the coach?  or just a member of the team?  what is she trying to explain?  an example would be awesome.

Netball CoachCoach

she is a member of the team. So she doesnt know how to teach or explain. It press is when all five players move into the centre third to defend the ball coming down court. Its more about taking up space and intimidation but when I tried to explain it to the team they all thought i was a bit nuts.
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Mick SeagerCoach, Australia

Perhaps try to break it down first and then use progression techniques to build their understanding. For example you might set up a smaller area and use say 2 defenders initially. This way you can teach the idea of defending space and then moving the press simultaneously which I find the most difficult component of the tactic. Once you feel they are ready, progress it to a larger area with 3 defenders perhaps in a triangle formation and so on.
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Netball CoachCoach

Thank you Mick. Very helpful (:
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Janet Coach, Australia

The strategy of the "press" is to flood the centre third with all 5 defending teams players to take up space and force errors e.g. held ball, pass received in goal third, long pass over the press creating intercept opportunity.  Players fill the centre third evenly spaced, off their players, ready to close down leads and pick up intercepts. If a pass enters the edge of the third the nearest defender covers the next pass and remaining players adjust spacing to continue the press making sure they fill the remaining space.  If the pass is received mid or high in centre third press is broken and players revert to goal third zone or one on one defence.  We tell our players to stick to the opposition and then with a press or zone we are asking them not to which can take them a while to get used to when learning. If they are not all on the same page the press won't work so starting small and building on it as Mick has suggested is a great start.