Coaching Yourself in a Game  x6
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| Peter Milkovich in Control |
June 6, 2000 
Peter D'Cruz
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Developing Your Field Hockey Skills
Peter D'Cruz
Off The Crossbar Article Series
Even if you play on the national team for a major field hockey country, you probably do not have the luxury of a personal coach who solely watches your performance during a game. And, even if you had such an extravagance, this coach wouldn’t be able to provide you with feedback during the game, the time when critical advice on how you are performing can make a meaningful difference. Therefore, you have to personally coach yourself during a game if you want to perform at, or close to, your best.
To successfully coach yourself in a game, you must logically measure your performance during a game by critically analyzing your actions and their results. Review the following examples that consider both success and failure:
Passing
Why did I choose a through pass, e.g., the ball goes off the field?
Why was my pass intercepted?
After a successful pass, is my team in a better situation, i.e., was there a better choice, or did I put a teammate into difficulty?
Why didn’t a teammate, who was square, or backward of square, communicate that they were open? You can share this information with them right away.
Am I looking off the ball when I am not the receiver of a pass?
Hitting or pushing
Always measure whether a hit would’ve been a better choice than a push and vice versa.
Judge your technique each time, not just when your technique fails. It is important to remember what you did right, so you can repeat it.
Trapping
Did I move towards the ball or were my feet glued to the turf?
Was my stick too flat to receive the ball on the run?
Did I focus on the ball all the way onto my stick? What distracted me?
Why didn’t I have time to move to trap on the forehand instead of the reverse stick?
Carrying the ball
Always ask why you ran with the ball instead of undertaking a pass?
Why I am carrying the ball way over on the right side of my body or on the reverse side?
Why did I get tackled?
Positioning in attack
Did I move up with the play immediately to support the attack?
If I was the primary person to receive the pass, did I run off the ball into a place where I could receive the ball easily from the person in possession, or did I make it more difficult for them to pass the ball to me?
Where should I, the non-primary person, run to get open after the primary person receives the pass successfully?
Did I communicate my lead with the person who made the pass?
Am I making space for a teammate who is receiving a pass or am I crowding the space?
Did I call sensibly to let a teammate know that I am available for a pass?
Marking
As soon as we lose possession, or in anticipation of a loss of possession, which player is my responsibility?
Are you closer to your goal than the player you are marking? Being square to the player is not good enough.
Always measure the distance between you and the player you must mark.
Tackling
Am I positioning myself to tackle on my strong side or am I going to be caught tackling on my reverse side?
Why did I lunge forward to tackle?
Where did the ball end up after I made the tackle? Did it bounce back to the opposition? Does my team have control? Why did I push the ball off the field after making the tackle?
Did my pressure lead to a loss of possession by the other team?
Did I breakdown the opposition’s attacking play?
Covering
Am I in a position to cover in the space behind the player who is trying to tackle an opponent?
What space should I be covering when the ball is on the other side of the field?
Am I looking off the ball to be aware of the positioning of other players?
Positioning in defence
As soon as we lose possession, or in anticipation of a loss of possession, did I run back immediately to be in my defensive position?
Am I calling the right advice to my teammates?
Almost every action undertaken by a team in attack fails otherwise teams would score a goal every time they had possession of the ball. On other side, most of the actions undertaken by a team in defence aren’t successful, but through the failure of the opposition to attack successfully, we don’t pay the price of giving up a goal each time.
If players measured their own actions logically and critically, the team will immediately start to perform more effectively. The players will be focused on correcting their collective mistakes as the game proceeds.
(Authors note: I developed this approach of measuring my performance in a game during a time when I had the misfortune to play for bad coaches, coaches who berated us unfairly and/or praised us nonsensically).
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