Coaching Tips from the Elite: Phil Gyemore

Touch Football drills have a focus on both individual and team skills, and familiar plays and training that are foundational – meaning they’re relevant from the grassroots for someone putting on their boots for the first time, to the elite level as an Athelite Australian Emu.

Phil Gyemore, Men’s Opens Coach for the Athelite Australian Emus, provides tips from an elite perspective that can be used to develop the next Touch Football generation on the training field.

 

INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM SKILLS

It’s very important to focus on the basics including foundation passing and catching skills which form the basis of understanding and enjoying our fantastic sport. There are various drills that build upon these foundation skills and cover several nuances of Touch Football including ball grip, passing on the run, and passing from acting half.

Click below to read more about each skill from the Foundation Level coaching course.

Acting Half Pass

Catching Drill – Basic

Passing and Catching Drill

Passing Drills – Ball Grip

Passing Drills – Long Pass Drill (On the Run)

Passing Drills – Line Passing Drill (On the Run)

Passing Drills – Stationary

Rollball – Dynamic

Rollball – Static

 

COMMON STATIC PLAYS FROM 7M LINE

Quickie Out

This play is normally performed by the two attacking middles. 

First, identify the middle defender that you want to target.

The attacking player dumps the ball and ensures that the touch is affected on the defender and split towards the defender’s short side (where they have less players).

The acting half then takes a step forward and passes off the ground to the roll ball player who is running out at pace.

Attack the space between the defending middle and the link.

 

Quickie In

This play is similar to the Quickie Out, however, the attacking middle with the ball will instead look to step back in between the defending middles – rather than attacking the space between the defending middle and link.

 

Ninja/Shotty

Following some conditioning with the defending middles, and success with Quickie Out and Quickie In, this play can be very rewarding and effective.

Like the Quickie plays, the acting half takes a step forward and throws a dummy to the attacking player who performed the roll ball and attacks the space between the defending middle and link who are not affecting the touch and looks to pass back to the middle who initially dumped the ball.

The player who dumped the ball takes a step or two towards the short side of the defender at the touch and runs the same line as acting half and will target the space between the middles. 

The middle who initially dumped the ball is beating the defender off the ball.

 

PROVIDING FEEDBACK

When providing feedback to your players at training or during a game – remember that the game of Touch Football can be broken down into four parts: rucking, line attack, ruck defence, and line defence.  Whilst we all want to fix everything, keep your feedback to a maximum of three points and always outline what needs to be improved and how this can be achieved.

During a game, it is always important to speak with the player/s that are around the try that is scored against you to get their feedback on what happened to check for their understanding and identify a few areas that can be worked on if that situation takes place again – don’t wait for half time to fix any potential issues.