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Supreme Being
      
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 11/12/2008 15:27:11
Posts: 176,
Visits: 468
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Sounds like Allardyce is on the right track.
The serious point is that unless sports like rugby and football are played quite a lot in schools we have little chance of producing highly skilled young players. For many kids, 2 hrs on a Sunday morning at the rugby club is all they get. Even if they trained all year round, they would be 90 odd yrs old before they had done the 10,000 hrs! The clubs make huge efforts but without the facilities and manpower it is very hard to offer junior training after school a few nights a week as well as Sundays.
Within the private education sector sports are still a big thing. It is interesting to note how many English qualified Premiership players come from that background, especially when compared to the proportion of the population who are privately educated. It cannot be good that the potential player base is so small.
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Supreme Being
      
Group: Moderators
Last Login: 06/01/2009 10:43:29
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| Looking into the 10,000 hour idea, it is just an observation, not a "scientific" fact like Newton's Laws for instance. 10 years is a more realistic idea that comes from the observation. Also we must understand that the quality of practice is crucial. This is where we come in as coaches. The challenge is to make repetition fun and also the right repetition. I am going to try an experiment with my Under 8 team after Christmas. I am going to allow kicking in practices. Why not? They want to. I am going to let them discover the advantages and disadvantages. We already play games for all our "skills" practices. This is a challenge: to find new games for each skill, but so far so good. I am going to put together a pack at the end of the season with my co-coach of all the ideas that worked. It will include all the old favourites (Bulldog, netball, spiders), but we designed four or five more for footwork, defence, spacing, passing and communication. I am not saying I have developed the worlds best under 8's but we have had loads of fun.
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Forum Newbie
      
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 15/12/2007 07:31:57
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| I coached my son (9 years)this season Tuesdays and Thursday and then game day was Saturday each session was for around an hour each time . I did not get any complaints about over training. But you have to make training at that age enjoyable and game/skills orientated . You also have to be well organised .This season I will look at increasing it to an hour and a half . I found a good kicking game modeled on Aussie rules most useful , this taught spatial awareness and accuracy at kicking. Gordon
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