Workshops and Other Support
Tayside and Fife Coaching Festival - Improve Your Coaching & Share Your Skills
A number of development opportunities are available for hockey coaches in the region. The Coaching Festival will also offer a variety of generic workshops to give coaches new ideas and skills. The hockey opportunities confirmed for the Coaching Festival are:
Coaching Goalkeepers Workshop
Monday 30th August, 7-9pm, Riverside Playing Fields, Dundee
Do you ever find that your goalkeepers are just the end-point for a shooting drill? This workshop will show coaches how to give goalkeepers the specific training drills that they deserve. It will also give coaches the confidence to be able to develop their keepers’ skills.
Core Skills Workshop – Defending Skills
Monday 6th September, 7-9pm, Riverside Playing Fields, Dundee
This workshop will give participants the chance to observe and discuss the core skills involved in aspects of defending, which players need to have to give themselves the best chance of being selected for a team in school, club or District.
Coaches Forum – Planning a Programme
Monday 20th September, 7-8.30pm, Mayfield Sports Centre, Dundee
This is the first of intended regular forums for coaches of all levels and experience to come together and share knowledge and learn from each other. The first forum will focus on planning a programme over the course of the season with a presentation from Iain Strachan (TFIS Coach) and subsequent discussion.
The forum is open to all coaches, regardless of experience and views will be sought at this event as to the direction any such future forums should take.
To Register
Workshops are free to coaches who are members/coaches of Midland Hockey Union affiliated clubs/schools. Coaches from non-affiliated groups are welcome to attend, following payment of £10 per workshop.
To register for either the workshops or the forum please follow the link below:
For further details please contact Elanor Cormack on elanor.cormack@dundeecity.gov.uk or 01382 431852.
Grampian
Coaching Festival
GK Workshop –
This will be held on 1st September from 7-9pm at Aberdeen Sports Village and will be £20 to attend.
The session is open to all Teachers and Coaches who would like to gain knowledge on how to incorporate GK practices into a coaching session and focus on aspects such as clearing and diving. Graham Stuart will deliver this session and he is currently assisting Jimi Lewis, National Squad GK Coach.
Coaches Forum - Mentoring
This will be held on 3rd November from 7-9pm at Aberdeen Sports Village and is free to attend.
The session is open to all coaches and will provide the opportunity to discuss how they currently work with other coaches, advise on session planning and evaluation for personal development within a Club, School or District
Core Skills Workshop -
This will be held on 24th November from 7-9pm at Aberdeen Sports Village and is free to attend.
This session is open to teachers and coaches to observe and discuss the core skills involved in aspects of defending, which players need to have to give themselves the best chance of being selected for a team in school, club or District.
If you wish more information or want to book a place on these workshops, please contact Kevin McNab on Kevin.mcnab@aberdeenshire.gov.uk or coaching@scottish-hockey.org.uk
Team Defence Tactical Workshop Summary
On June 10th at Hughenden Sports Ground in Glasgow Markus Weise, the German Men’s National Coach, delivered a theory workshop on team defence to 25 coaches from across Scotland. A wide variety of coaches were represented, from both club and national level, who work with senior and youth players.
Weise began by describing individual tackling priorities, illustrating his points using video clips, with primary focus being put on the importance of requiring good timing to tackle. An example of this given by Weise was when a player is channelling an opponent and they show too much of the ball, providing space for the tackle to be made in order to take possession. This requires timing, body positioning and footwork to execute correctly. Secondary importance was given to keeping pressure on an opponent, maintaining sufficient distance from them while channelling and then during the tackle. The significant advantage of knowing an individual opponent’s strengths and weaknesses was also discussed, with the need to provide players with knowledge on how to deal with these opponents.
Team defence was examined next, with the need to have an overall strategy, and everyone understanding it, being stressed. Weise discussed the need for specific tactics in order to implement such a strategy successfully in actual play, with a team’s ability to adapt as the game’s circumstances dictate also being crucial. Similarly, he discussed the ability of top-level teams to switch smoothly between multiple tactics in order to keep opponents on the back-foot.
Different ways that a team can set up against opponents’ set piece play was examined. Initially, discussion was through using a full press, with Australia being cited as an example of effective full and dynamic pressing. This involves the whole team moving forward and across the pitch to limit the space used by opponents. A static press was discussed where players would set up and stay still while allowing space for opposition to play into and then react to open play. Coming back to individual players, the need was stressed for every player to know not only his own specific role, but the role of every other player in the team when executing these tactics.
Lastly the issue of defending penalty corners was discussed in detail and examples were shown from the Germans at the World Cup. Like knowing an individual player’s strengths in the game, the advantage of knowing an opposing team’s typical tactics for executing a penalty corner was highlighted.
Scottish Borders Council
An Athlete Support Programme is now available for hockey players and coaches, please see further details by clicking the Scottish Borders link.
Contact Scottish Borders for further information on coach scholarship funding from local sports councils.
Coaching Edinburgh
New workshop calendar http://www.coachingedinburgh.co.uk/event_list.asp
Coaching Edinburgh has a coach scholarship programme to support individuals with funding and a variety of generic development opportunities, workshops and courses.
External Support
Scottish Hockey work in partnership with many other agencies to support coaches and some Local Authorities have scholarship programmes and courses, which will support your individual development.