Junior Coaching Seminar

The second monthly Women's Football Coaching Seminar was held at Burton last night and was well attended by around 14 Club Coaches. This seminar focussed on Junior Club Coaching and was led by FFA Skill Acquisition Trainer, Richie Alagich.

FFA in their National Curriculum talk of the building blocks of football development, with Skill Acquisition a key building block for the 9-13 year olds. The Skill Acquisition phase is described as;
- Providing the necessary technical ‘tools’to be able to play the game on the highest possible level
- Focus on FUNCTIONAL GAME SKILL S (as opposed to ‘tricks’)
- This is the decisive age group for acquiring the perfect technical foundation (the ‘Golden Age’ of motor learning)

The Skill Acquisition Phase focusses on 4 Key Skills; 1 v 1, Striking the Ball, Running with the Ball and First Touch. Sessions should be challenging and game related, with specific football resistances, such as space, opposition etc rather than trying to 'beat a cone'.

The session Richie demostrated was a 'Running with the Ball' session as this is a particular area where I would like to see female players encouraged and coached to excel. Players like Katrina Gorry (Melbourne Victory), Lisa De Vanna (Newcastle Jets), Marta (Brazil), Mana Iwabuchi (Japan) and our own Racheal Quigley (Adelaide United) when they run with the ball and run at defenders, they are exciting to watch and they can turn games in an instant. This ability to run with the ball is something we should be encouraging and promoting in our young players.

Richie's session was well received and showed how a session can be fun and interesting for the players whilst focussing on Skill Acquisition and in this instance Running with the Ball. A number of coaches requested that Richie demostrate another session at a later date, which we will look into and try to arrange.

Thanks to Richie for providing his expertise in the area of Skill Acquisition and thank you to the coaches who showed their commitment to furthering their own coaching education and their commitment to the development of their players by attending the seminar.