PART TIME JOB, FULL PASSION
COACHING a GFL side goes far and beyond the 120 minutes — and two nights on the training track — a week.
Some people don’t realise or recognise just how professional GFL football now is.
At VFL or AFL level, coaches get time during the day to review their prior match and plan ahead to the upcoming weekend.
But at a local level we all have jobs or run businesses so a lot of our planning is impacting on business time or we’re doing it at nights, the result of this is sacrifice with family, friends and social life.
Sometimes coaching can be a very lonely place, and I take my hat off to all coaches at all levels who make the sacrifices.
You take the good with the bad. Often we measure success based on wins and losses and it’s great to have the wins like we did on Saturday, but as a coach, you have times where you have the losses and lows that you’ve got to deal with, and ultimately the way you respond to this as a coach can shape and mould your season and yourself as an individual — having a high level of resilience is a must.
It’s a really big balancing act and you’ve got to be good with time management.
I’ve got myself into a routine now, that sees me “coaching” Leopold six nights a week.
Of course, Saturday from 2pm until 5pm is a given. But it’s from the final siren to the first bounce next week where coaches make the most sacrifice.
Post-match, we’ll have our debrief with the players straight away and organise for the players to be at recovery on Sunday morning.
All of our players will generally meet at Eastern Beach, while I’ll get a tape handed to me on Sunday morning of the prior day’s game of footy.
Generally I will spend three to four hours on a Sunday going through our footage, looking at our stoppages, our inside-50s, our contested possessions and tackle counts, our direct turnovers, how we were moving the football — it’s quite an in-depth review.
This time also includes sending emails to line coaches, getting their feedback and their review on the game.
I’ll cut that footage up for the players — and our line coaches will also have their own footage — so we can then review that together on Tuesday night.
If I can, I’ll try and watch one of my kids play junior football on a Sunday. Family time is very important with coaching GFL football, and my wife makes huge sacrifices to allow me to do this.
Monday night after work, I’m preparing the next night’s training session. Every training session I prepare a template and send it out to the assistant coaches so they know 24 hours before what we’re going to be doing. I’ll also start looking at selection, and start some opposition analysis via video.
Tuesday training starts with 15-20 minutes of video review, before a conditioning and skill session on the track.
After training, all the coaches will meet for a preliminary match committee meeting and get selection prepared for Thursday night.
Wednesday night I prepare a PowerPoint presentation looking ahead to the upcoming match, after watching the tape of our opponent’s most recent hitout on Monday night. This will generally include specific match-ups, how the opposition moves the ball, how they set up around stoppages and identifying any patterns in their game style. It’s important that we provide as much clarity to our players for that week and give them time to understand our focus points and ask for feedback.
We then present this to the players at the main session on a Thursday night, before they hit the track for a lighter skills session. That’s followed by our match committee meeting and team selection.
Friday is generally the only evening I get off. I usually like to kick back and watch some AFL or just chill out on the couch with the kids — I normally try to switch off because I know we have prepared adequately and it is then all about implementation on game day.
Of course, on Saturday we’re up and going, ready to watch the reserves — and even a quarter of the under-19s if we can — before we start the process of game day preparation.
My biggest message to coaches at all levels is “be prepared”. If your preparation is adequate — your players can carry out the plan, when you’re not prepared the players will pick up on it.
For me personally, coaching is not a job, it’s my