This week I have moved from the classroom onto the training pitch to coach a team for the Kanga Cup. It has been a great experience to get back into coaching and something that I have thoroughly enjoyed.
The best thing so far has been looking at the development of the players that I coached at the same time last year, mentally comparing individuals from the way they played last year to the way they play now. The physical differences are obvious as the boys have grown from 13/14 year olds into larger 15/16 year olds – it is the less obvious technical and social developments that have been really impressive.
It is obvious that the coaching staff and the boys have been putting in a huge effort on the pitch to get where they are. The college often talks about students and staff being ‘the best they can be’ and that can come in many shapes and forms. Today’s photo is a great example of what that actually looks like.
With the pitches closed due to wet weather the easy option would have been to have a rest session and not get much done. Instead Matt O’Neil created a great session run by Matt, myself and Will Vasquez inside the classroom, to test players passing accuracy under pressure – the benchmark for the test was set fairly high by the first participant- Daniel McBreen.
The technical skills of the players shown was great but more importantly for me was their eagerness to participate. No one wanted to take it easy, everyone wanted to prove themselves.
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