coaching advise pls?

[wen]

Hi all,

I am part of a cp team that has just been newly formed for 1 years. Through the past year, we started from completely nothing to now, we are able to play abit of decent polo. We took part in our local competition, got whacked real bad, but we are not giving up. Even thou we are having difficulty finding pool, getting equipment, support from our school, we are still hanging on and the passion just grows stronger.
Our team is made up of 10 over people, jus enuff for 2-a-side games and we dun even have a coach. We just try to try and work on from books and videos we get.
As we prepare to enter another comptition, I hope the many experts here will be willing to give some inputs on how to overcome the problems I have identified in our team.

1) We take really long to come back and defend. This is because, we are usually playing among ourselves and basically we are not that fast, so it is difficult to grain in the mentality to get back and defend the moment the ball is lost. This usually cost us when we play against the more established and faster teams. Is there any way I can try 2 drill that into our team? I was thinking of giving some kind of advantage to the other team, so we have to rush back and defend, but no clear idea yet. Any suggestions?

2) Man marking. The technically superior teams like to play that against us, and we cannot even get out of our half. One way to work on this is that now we give the other team extra 2 person to play manmark against us. I was wondering if this really helps.

3) Any other suggestions/help is much much appreciated.

Thanks and sorry for the long winded post.

Regards,
wenimages/smilies/wavey.gif

[ErikV]

practise:) .

Maybe you can use the links beneath:

tactics
http://website.lineone.net/~clapham...o%20Tactics.htm (http://website.lineone.net/~claphamcc/Canoe%20Polo%20Tactics.htm)
training
http://www.rapwebsolutions.nl/rob/e...ses.php?lang=en (http://www.rapwebsolutions.nl/rob/exercises/exercises.php?lang=en)

and just use the search function of this forum

[geebs]

Stamina building is important as well as tactics, perhaps you could try some paddle out's outside of pool time, weight training using free weights or medicine balls and aerobic work out's either as warm-up exercises prior to training sessions or as part of a personal development plan.


More importantly is to try and recruit a coach, if there is not a polo coach available see if you can find a slalom coach as they will be able to train you in stamina and boat skills which are important.

It is very difficult to train against your own team mates, perhaps if you could find another team of the same or higher ability locally to train against it would bring you on a lot quicker.

Most of our younger team members started off playing for a school team and now some of them are playing for the national squads just a few years later.

What ever you do, do not give up enjoy what you are doing and you will get there in the end:)

[Dreeke]

Dear Wen,

Some remarks from my side:
1. When you have enough people, you can easily drill the exercise of ball loss. Just playing the game and let someone give a signal. With the signal you have to sprint back to your own goal. One major remark on this: there is an important area in between attack and defense. Stop the attack of the competitor and don't all rush back to your own goal. Attacking the ball can be the best defense.. When you're not that fast, try to be half a boat length ahead of your competitor then he will have to win 3 meters before he is even..
2. Playing men to men is also gaining confidence. Show the guys there's nothing to worry about when you have the ball:cool: .
Enjoy!

[wen]

Hi pple,

1st of all thanks to Erikv, geebs, dreeke for their advise.

Regarding stamina and fitness wise, most of the people in my team are also in the sprint canoeing team too, so that's not really an issue.

Regarding returning of defence, I have an idea and hope you guys can give some comments. I was thinking of telling them to get 4 boat to form the defence the moment the ball is lost. They will just sprint back and set up the zone, not attempting to do anything else.. Then, the remaining guy nearest to the ball will attempt to delay them. good?

many of us are also accomplised sprint canoeist, only that we lack the experience in canoepolo. Hoever, there's not many canoe polo coach in my region, and the experienced player are all too busy with their commitment.
So, we can only really depend on ourself.

Thanks again to all and hey, we wun give up this awesome game!

reagards,
wen
P.S. Looking forward from more advice from all the pros here.