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City University London Coaching Reflection 2018/19
City University London
This would be my fourth season coaching the City University London (CUL) women’s volleyball team in British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) competition. You can read my first, second and third season reflections here.
Competition Report
This season was just incredible. We became BUCS South Eastern Division 1A Champions, reached the furthest ever in the BUCS Trophy Cup (semifinals) and had our best ever placing in the VE Student Cup (7th). I like to think it was all down to my coaching but I did have some great players in the team that I could work with.
* BUCS South Eastern Division 1A – ChampionsWe won the division with a 9-1 win-loss record. I was happy I shepherded the team to the top of the division. The critical match was our second match to Surrey. Whichever team won that match had it in their hands to win the league. Whichever team lost would have to hope the other team would slip up in another match. I had a game plan set out and the team executed perfectly. It was a satisfying 3-0 win and we won the next 4 matches to win the league (2 of those matches went to 5 sets so that was tense).
* BUCS Premier South Play-Offs – Knocked Out To gain promotion to Premier South, we had to beat Bristol and Southampton in a round robin. We had a weird lead-up due to several factors which meant we couldn’t prepare properly for it – playing in May when the season finished in March, stopping training for several weeks, players on holiday so not available for training anyway, missing our two best players for those matches. We had our first match against Bristol and they comfortably won 3-0. Bristol went on to beat Southampton so our match against Southampton didn’t go ahead. It was a new experience for me on of how promotion works so at least I will be prepared for it for next time.
* BUCS Trophy Cup – SemifinalistsWe also had a great run in the Trophy Cup. Swansea gave us a bye in the first round (we beat them in the Student Cup so that counts) and we cruised past Royal Holloway in the second round. We had a hotly contested win against Southampton in the quarter finals that ended us winning 16-14 in the fifth set! It could have went either way though. We then had a tough match against East Anglia in the semifinals. I did a bit of scouting and drew up a game plan. However, they were better than us (they got 2nd in the Student Cup) and we couldn’t get past them. It would have been nice to reach the finals because then we would have went to the BUCS Finals event and see all the big teams play.
* Volleyball England Student Cup – Seventh PlaceThis was our best placing ever. However, I did feel we could have done a tiny bit better. We had a small chance of being in the top 4 because we forced a final set against Cambridge. I felt we should have done much better against Kings College to play for 5th vs 6th place. We did managed to win our last match against Warwick to place 7th overall but we had to come back from 1 set down. I could have done something better that could have helped. Read below to see what it was.
* Varisty WinnersIt was good to win but Kingston was not on our level.
* Gold VolleyFirst Tournament + Bronze Little Giants TournamentIt was actually nice to win a tournament as we got two bronze last season.
Things I Learnt
There’s always little things I learn during the season that I should write up so I don’t forgot. Below are some of them.
* . The new captain took a photo of every trialist on her iPad. I could refer to it when rewatching the video of the trials so it was useful. It was also quite funny when we reposted those photos later in the season.
* . We were actually forced into this because we were banned from meeting at the sports centre before our training (we met in the corridor but it was considered a “fire hazard”). CUL had seminar rooms next door so we met in there. This turned out to be much better because I could link my laptop to the projector and I could do a proper performance analysis session (showing stats and match video), rather than doing it on my laptop when not everybody can see.
* . I statted 31 out of 35 matches played – I missed one friendly after the Christmas break and the last three matches of the season. This is the most I have ever done at CUL. It takes a lot of time to collect match stats so I usually stop at some point during the season if I feel I have enough data to understand where the team’s strengths and weaknesses lie. I’m not sure why I went so deep this season – it was probably a combination of the chance to achieve something great and that I had to show something for the video feedback/ team meeting.
* . As I said above, I felt the team could have done a bit better. One thing I could have done better was to play the bench more. Firstly, it would give them a chance to do something. Secondly, it would manage the fatigue levels in the starting players. I could see them falling apart by the second day. I remember I had the same experience in a previous Student Cup Finals.
* . You will always lose something with any defence system. This system worked for us only because we had a superwoman libero who was able to read plays and covered a lot of the court by putting her body on the line. It was her last season so I may have to change the system.
* . I did this a couple of times throughout the season where I switched to a 4-2 system because we were struggling to sideout. I made the change initially because the back row setter struggled to set the ball when the pass or dig was tight on the net. So I subbed in the second setter for the front row opposite so if it happened again, they could just tip the ball over. The ball got passed tight on the net twice and the second setter managed to get two kills from it. From there, I knew I always had this strategy as a back-up when we were struggling.
Things to Do Next Season
* Usually a third of all the players coming to trials are beginners. Requiring 2 years playing experience would at least set a standard of what type of players the team is looking for.
* I re-read my blog post recently that concluded it was NOT worth blocking in non-elite volleyball (see link). I used CUL data to back up this claim so it relates directly to this team. I should follow through because I see the same thing in this season stats. Only the middle blockers got double digit blocks kills while the rest are on 0 to 3 total block kills for the entire season. The wing players and setter are having almost zero effect on blocking so it would be better if they dropped back to defend tipped balls, enabling you to have an extra player on defence and thus covering more of the court. I will probably practice this and trial it out in friendly matches and tournaments to see if it is more effective.
* Linked to the above, it won’t be a major factor when selecting the team but it’ll be useful to know how far players can get their hands over the net.
* . I often ask the players to tip in matches but I don’t actually practice tipping in training. Like with any skill, you need reps to be good at it so it makes sense to practice it. It may go against the grain (players want to hit) but a kill is a kill, regardless of how you got it. I also suspect tipping is highly effective but underutilised.
Next Season
I am looking forward to next season. It’s always exciting to see what the next crop of players coming in are like. Next season will be unique too because I will have 12 players potentially coming back.
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