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City University London Volleyball Club Coaching Reflection 2015-16
Introduction
I have been the Head Volleyball Coach at City University London (CUL) since September 2013 and after two years, CUL finally entered a team into competition for September 2015. A women’s team was entered in British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) and a mixed team was entered into London Universities Sports League (LUSL). I have been waiting a long time for this because I really wanted to build a team from scratch. This blog is about reflecting on this experience.
Coaching Plan
I had the whole season ahead of me so I wanted a long-term plan for it. The men and women would have the same plan. I felt the priority was to organise the team first because I didn’t know who I would get and I didn’t know what they know. So by organising the team, it would get everybody playing the same way. I knew this would take a while to coach all the systems so I dedicated the first half of the season to it, i.e. until Christmas. The systems I wanted to coach, in order of importance, was reception (how to line up), defence (what zones to block and defend), free ball dig situations (how they should move, especially the setter, when there’s a free ball) and out-of-system play (who should take the second ball after the setter takes the first ball). The reception system is the most important and takes the longest to learn so this was practised first and throughout all ten weeks. I did go through all the reception and defence systems in a team meeting before the first practice (see link for the power point slide). The coaching plan looked like this:
Week 1-3: Reception system Week 4-5: Defence system Week 6-7: Free ball dig system Week 8: Out-of-system play (when setter takes the first ball) Week 9-10: Train on all systems
I would focus on technique for the second half of the season, i.e. after Christmas, but I didn’t specifically write anything down. This was because I did not know how fast the team would learn the systems and I didn’t know what our main weakness was. As it worked out, the weeks between the important women’s cup matches became natural training blocks. In week 11, I decided to have a refresher on all systems because we had a tough cup match against Westminster. It was six weeks since their last training session so I wanted everybody sharp again. Week 12-14 was about technique to tighten up their skills for the cup quarter-final match against Portsmouth. I focused on passing and attack because of its importance as a valid performance indicator, free-ball digging because how often it occurs in lower level volleyball and setting because it links the two skills. When we beat Portsmouth, we had two weeks until the cup semifinals and another week until the finals. In this three week block, I wanted to work on the middle hitting because we had good middle players that I wanted to utilise more. So we worked on making front middle hits quicker and adding reverse quick attacks (more like reverse metre balls) as a new wrinkle to our attack arsenal. We beat Portsmouth on tough serving so I decided to hone our serving technique to make it harder, flatter and cleaner as well as accurate. Since we were working on serving, it was the opportunity work on passing technique and accuracy. This naturally is linked to middle attacks (you need perfect passing for middle attacks). We had two easy matches for the last two weeks so I just worked on general drills. The coaching plan ended up looking like this:
Week 11: Refresher on all systems Week 12-13: Passing, free-ball digging and setting technique Week 14: Hitting technique Week 15-16: Serving and passing technique/ accuracy, middle hitting (quicks and reverse quicks) Week 17: Same as last week Week 18-19: General drills
Coaching Reflection
I was happy with the coaching plan for the first half of the season for both men and women. I felt I had to organise the team first and this experience did not persuade me otherwise. The only thing I would have added is a coverage system, where a team has to cover their hitters in case they got blocked.For the second half of the season, I felt it went very well for the women. This was unsurprising because it was really planned around them, or more specifically, around their Conference Cup matches. Since those matches was against higher level teams, there was a common goal and it was easy to motivate the ladies to come to training and work hard.For the men, it didn’t work out as well in the second half of the season. There was a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, I was told in December 2015 I was not required at LUSL matches because it was a “social” league. This made coaching difficult because I couldn’t apply what we did in training to the matches. Also, if I wasn’t there at the match, I couldn’t see the areas the team needed improvement in. The coaching process gets broken up. An example on the women’s side is if I wasn’t at the Portsmouth match, I wouldn’t have known to hone on the serving to make it a real weapon. It was a big asset that helped us win the cup. I did get feedback from the captains for the LUSL matches, who acted as the coach on match day, but it a three minute report isn’t the same as seeing it for yourself. It also didn’t help LUSL turned out to be a shambles league. Matches got postponed a lot, last minute walkovers and the league even inserted two teams two months into the season. These factors meant attendance for the men dropped drastically after Christmas. This was tough because I had to adjust my coaching session plan due to low numbers. I didn’t have a proper BUCS league, Conference Cup or Student Cup to galvanise the team towards a common goal.
Trials and Team Selection
Holding trials and team selection was something very unique to me. In all the teams I have ever coached, I was taking over an existing team. So I didn’t know what to expect at trials. I certainly didn’t expect to have 36 students turn up for the women’s trials and 34 for the men’s trials. In that one evening, we had more students turn up than all the students I had last year (which was 61). So what did I learn from this experience and what could I improve on for next year?
* . The women’s captains were very organised and did this for the women’s trials whereas the men didn’t do this. I didn’t think it was necessary at the time but it made a big difference when making notes on the players, i.e. I couldn’t take notes on the men because I couldn’t identify them! For next season, I would add position information on the stickers to help identify positions so I know how many players in what position I have. So rather than #1-36, it would be S1-S6, OH1-15 etc. This would also speed up the player registration process so rather than all players waiting to register on one list, we could have six lists for each position (setter, opposite, outside hitters, middles, liberos, universal).
* . This would also speed up the registration process at trials if the information is logged in already. This means you can just give students a numbered sticker when they turn up for trials because you already have their information. At the sports fair, we can also ask for more information such as number of years playing, previous clubs they played for and what level they played at.
* . I planned the basic drill where you volley and then you follow through to join the back of the opposite queue, in groups of five. Then you do the same drill but for digs. This was enough to identify those who had good ball control and those who didn’t. As it turned out in the trials, about half of the students were beginners. What I would do differently is to group the players. So I would have OH1 to OH5 in one group, OH6 to OH10 in the next group etc. This would enable me to make notes a lot more easier. For the hitting drill, I will probably have three setters on one side of the net to set OH, M and OP, rotate them so they set all three positions and then sub them out for the other setters. For the game play, this would require more thought because I cannot expect players to know the reception system but I cannot simplify it too much where I can’t see each individual position in game play.
* . I didn’t make notes on all of the players. For most of them, it was because they were beginners so I left it blank. However, when I reviewed my notes I couldn’t remember who was the beginners and who I just didn’t make a judgement on. What would also help is to take photos of every player with their numbered stickers to remind me who they were.
* . This is so we can have a better look at all the players and those who missed the first trials can have another chance to trial (only 7 players out of 13 chosen for the women’s squad actually came to the first trials, excluding the 3 players who were already selected due to their captaincy).
* . I was quite comfortable in how the team was selected. The captains had their input but you can tell immediate who is good enough for the team. The only discussion needed was the last 4-6 spots on the team. This is where better notes, player photos and possibly a second trials will help in that process.
Competition Reports
BUCS South Eastern Division 3B Women There were four teams in the league (two teams dropped out by the start) and I soon found out that the level was not very high. We had the much stronger team in general and the organisation of the team made the wins much more clinical. We won all six matches where we only dropped one set (when I started the bench).
Volleyball England Student Cup – Men and Women The men and women was entered into Volleyball England’s Student Cup in November 2015. This would be a good test to see where the team’s level is really at. It was great coaching the women against higher level teams. Only eight women were able to make it (from a squad of 15). This made the coaching trickier because it limited my options for substitutions. I had to use other strategies to make the team play better. We finished with a 3-1 win-loss record, along with two other teams (both in BUCS Division 1). Due to a lower sets won-loss ratio, we placed third, out of qualification for the Last 16 Finals. This was a shame because if we had won our very last set of the day, in which we were leading, we would have placed in the top two for Last 16 qualification.
This was the only competition where the men played as a team. I find coaching men’s teams is different to coaching women’s teams. It’s all about height and power. They placed third in their pool with a 2-2 win-loss record. We beat the two teams, both Division 2, that I felt we could win. We did lose to the two teams, both Division 1, that would have been hard to win (it included one team that finished fourth overall).
BUCS South Eastern Conference Cup WomenThis cup is where all the South Eastern Division 2 and 3 teams are entered into. It so happened that all the teams we played against were Division 2 teams, all with winning records at the time, and it got progressively harder according to their league placings. In the semifinals, we played against Essex 2nd. They were second in Division 2 and they had only lost one match all season. I was happy the tough serving and accuracy practice in training worked well because that had a big impact where we won 3-0 (25-22, 25-18, 25-14).
In the Finals, we played against Queen Mary 1st, who were the team that handed Essex 2nd their sole loss in the league. They were undefeated the whole season at that point. We narrowly lost the first set 25-27. This was the only other set we dropped in BUCS. The second set was close too. There were two coaching moments in that set I thought I did well in. The first moment was I had two tough calls to make on two players to sub in/ out that I could possibly have made in set 1. I made the two changes and it worked out perfectly because they played amazingly. The second moment was one of those times where you give one coaching instruction that makes you look like a genius. Queen Mary called a time-out on set-point for us. I told the opposite player to block line because their outsider hitter was killing it down the line. The opposite, one of the two players I subbed in, then preceded to block line for the block kill to win the set 27-25. Genius! Tough serving, worked on in training, made the third set easier where we won 25-20. Queen Mary was demoralised by this point and we built up such a commanding lead in the fourth set that I subbed on a few of the bench players so they got a game. They got a few points back but we won 25-15 for the match and Conference Cup. It was a shame we didn’t end our season with that match because we still had another two more league matches.
London Universities Sports League (LUSL) PremierThis was a social league where mixed London university teams are entered. Although the coaching didn’t go as well as I wanted it to, we still placed third in the league with a 7-2 win-loss record. In our two losses, feedback from the captains suggested (although biased on my part) I could have made a vital difference if I was there.
Achievements
* BUCS South Eastern Division 3B Women’s Champions * BUCS South Eastern Conference Cup Women’s Champions * Undefeated BUCS 11-0 win-loss record with only two sets dropped * 36 individual students at the women’s trials * Third place in Student Cup Qualifiers Pool D with a 3-1 win-loss record (did not qualifiy for the Last 16 Finals due to a lower sets won/ loss ratio * Overall 14-1 win-loss record
* Third place in LUSL Premier * 7-2 win-loss record * Third place in Student Cup Qualifiers Pool D with a 2-2 win-loss record * 34 individual students at the men’s trials * Overall club win-loss record of 23-5 * Over 130 individual students attended the social training * Average attendance of 23 students per session * Peak attendance of 47 students
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