TRAINING | 6 July 2010

Thanks to Louise, Bronte, Kali, Leila, Meisha and Alice for coming out to training tonight. It was a great session!

There are two clear areas of our game which we need to improve on; we don't mark tight enough and we don't kick long and cleanly enough. We addressed both tonight.

In our matches, every single one of our players must focus on manning-up hard. Defenders, your primary goal is to stop opposition forwards from touching the ball, and if they do get a touch, you must pressure them into making mistakes. Frustrate them and intimidate them. Keep your bodies as close to them as you can, but remember, keep your elbows in and don't tackle from behind. The latter won't be a problem if you stay in front of your opposition player.

Attackers, when our opposition holds the ball up at their end, particularly at goal kicks, you must intimidate and frustrate their defenders. Remember to always edge your way goal-side, because one of the easiest opportunities you'll have to score is to intercept a misguided or badly struck goal kick. If they hit it OK, our mids must be ready to cut it off and push it back to you.

Our kicking out from back needs to be longer, lofted and more direct. We've been relying way too heavily on our goalie to get the ball mid-field. Our strikers are out of the game if we can't get the ball up there for them, so our mids need to step up if we're not clearing cleanly from defence. Make space for your defenders, mids, by moving out wide and calling hard.

Thanks so much to Kali's Mum, Sally, for giving us a hand at training tonight. Thanks also to Alice's Mum, Liz, for sticking around to collect wayward balls. We need to work on your kicking, Liz! Finally, thanks to you all for making sure that all our gear was put away when we finished our session.

We'll be training next Tuesday 13 July at 5:00pm - 6:30pm. Please do all you can to attend, because this will be an important preparatory skills/strategy session for our next match.