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Hi everyone, welcome to another Play Developer Project monthly wrap. My name is Dave Wright, and as always I'm joined by a PDP technical advisor Dan Wright. Dan, how are you mate? I'm good there, how you going mate?
I'm good looking forward to another discussion where we're going to review all of the published content from the month of June, and that's going to be in a variety of formats as per usual. To kick things off, we're going to give a brief review with a clip from our fantastic conversation from Sydney FC, Academy Director Kelly Cross. Kelly has also spent a lot of time working at Football Federation Australia in the past, where he was Assistant National Technical Director and has a wealth of experience. Let's check this one out.
If I were to play back the season, we made the World Cup final, lost to Brazil penalties in your country, so more people. It's the same as when we just took around the 17th of the tournament and answered that last week, and I asked PSG, or Elizabeth, and it's been able to prepare the guys for anything, because you can, it's national that we've come up with something you haven't faced before. And if you develop it, there's only been, at this place, in this case, this opposition, it's obviously going to be a challenge. And we do find, no, I don't think it's going to be also without seeing that, when we go to Europe, we've not played anybody like any of those things, so when we played I have to go to the weeks ago, I've never played anybody like that, never faced a competition.
And that's a challenge for me, so I like Australia, so what do you do to prepare them for anything? So it goes back, if you look at the scene you see now, a whole range of things that the players need to be successful, it needs to be adaptable. But fundamentally, what you're looking for is players who can read the game themselves. So you turn up on your bike, South Korea one day, and it's an animal, and they say you're playing Argentina, or two or three, they're playing Argentina.
Which again is different. If the players are looking at the bench saying, what do I do now? It's all over. How do you produce players are actually looking at the game and then looking at you saying, this is what I'm seeing, they're looking at the same, they've got two here, and I'm just going to dive here and get these guys going to play there.
And the coach might have got to go, yeah, good, but just watch out of the, yeah, instead of what tastes like, but you get the wait till half the time and these, you know, you tell it's apparently, the tip was happening on the two. So for me, it was learning from, I think it's a coach, I was learning from the vast range of different opposition, you come up against different souls, so that was a little bit more for me. You can turn that around to how you prepare the players to be able to play anyway, and go, and the players see other two minutes, all right, this is what they're trying to do, and they're all ready to do this, they're playing like this, so our opportunity is going to be on this side, or it's going to be quick transition. But then to see that game by game, quite half of them have come out in the second half, and the players are saying, ah, I'll see what's happening.
So we try some things that are trying, whether they work, and I don't know what we call it, game changes, where one team has this, um, this way of scoring, and the other team's got this way of scoring, and therefore, what's your strategy to catalyze on, you know, greatness and two goals, what are you going to do to it? You're going to go and go and score it, and think about what was our strategy, but at the same time, I don't know where, what the other teams trying to do, it might be something different, so we're doing it. So things like that, um, if you're looking, moving forward, as a learning moment, coach has been prepared for different conversations, but more importantly, that's something, that's something to point, because the players, yeah, go out and play, that's it. So, these are, you know, when I was able to say, well, let's, if I always fall forward, proper preparation, you know, if you wouldn't allow a team to go out and talk about what you've not been prepared, you know, so before we met the World Cup, we had three weeks in South America, being game-driven, by doing the World Cup games, and I'm going to know that's all before that, so the idea of preparation or, you know, the idea of cohesion, you know, the outcome, you've got more chance to success, we went away a lot together, we played a lot together, and that I think was a good tricking factor to do it quite a bit.
So Dan, a really interesting conversation with Kelly, obviously, it's been a wealth of experience. What were some of the takeaways from that masterclass for you? Yeah, I think this is somebody who's kind of been there and done it, hasn't it? I think the main things I took away, he talked a lot about his coaching journey, so obviously worked in a few different environments and experienced different things, and some of his influences on his coaching was quite interesting.
Another main takeaway for me was he talked about, as coaches, we're always looking for the next thing and the next best thing, and sometimes he talked about reflecting on things that have worked in the past, and maybe, you know, them still being useful. What about for you? Yeah, look, I think that idea of looking back on what some of the best things were, and also examining what worked and what didn't is key, and I know in the conversation he talked about sort of winding the dial up, if you will, on coach education when there was very little sort of framework in place, and his view now where he's sort of running a very trusting environment with his coaches was that perhaps it needs to be wound back. So it sort of speaks to the evolution of coaching and our own experiences.
So a really good conversation and somebody with such a wealth of experience and different experiences at different levels that he's very much doing a great job up there at Sydney FC. Our next clip is going to be from Danny Newcomb. Now this was a fantastic interview with somebody who's a real expert in the area of Constraint Slee Coaching. He's a coach developer and researcher at Oxford Books University and was also an assistant with a Welsh means hockey team at the Commonwealth Games this year in Australia.
So a really interesting conversation with Danny and we'll check out that clip now. A bit of jargon busting and myth busting is kind of what I enjoy the most. So on the phrase, you've always been using a constraint on the approach you just didn't know it. So a constraint on the approach captures how human beings organise movement solutions.
That's not a magic bullet, you need to use these practices or not. It just helps us understand how a human being organises its body to solve the problem. And that that organisation is a product of the task of walking upstairs, the human, so the anatomy that biomechanics, the muscles, the psychology, the mood, the fatigue state, so everything that kind of fits into that human and then the environment. And all the constraints and approaches is saying is that when one of those changes, the movement solution changes.
And as long as coaches we know that, we can then start to change some of the things to cause the movement solutions we want to happen. It's almost an awareness or a consciousness of these ideas and then trying to think how does that relevant for that individual environment I guess, right? Yeah, it's right. Two people might be very different in shape and size, of course.
So that then movement solutions to solve the problem will look and be potentially different. It doesn't mean one's right or wrong, but that's what will happen. And there's all bit on this premise of two things, really, dynamical systems theory, which I'm really excited about. But basically, the system's always searching for stability.
That's the answer. So we'll try and self-organise as a big phrase, which basically means we'll solve, work it out, we'll call it what you want. But the body will try and stuff all the human will still organise against the instability in the system, always looking for that stability. So as a human, we start to send our centre mass moves off to the base, we'll correct.
The body's in stable position to the end is upright, like our centre mass over our feet. We're in defence in rugby, for example, and transition, we will organise ourselves to be stable. So we're set, we're in position, we're covered, and that's the stable solution to the problem. So the key is, there's coaches to provide instability.
You provide instability, the learners will self-organise against it and come up with solutions. So that's the first thing, if we know our job to provide instability, now how much, what type of instability that those are the types of questions that we might get into. So often I say, if you put cones down on the floor and ask your player to dribble around them in, which is common practise and still, in the hockey, in ice hockey, in foot, in soccer, they will create a movement solution that solves that problem. Are you looking at the floor?
And then you always say the big problem with players when they dribble the ball is they don't look up. So we'll say, well, who put the cones on the floor? 100%. So Dan, obviously an extensive and in depth and at times complex and challenging conversation with Danny and one that I really, really enjoyed facilitating.
What were some of the highlights for you? Yeah, I think Danny is just someone who's super passionate about what he does. I saw him talk loud and I thought he'd be a great contributor to the PVP. So for me, it was all about practise design and he talked about the intention of the practise and how transferable the skill was.
And although he's a hockey coach, there was lots of tech away from anybody working in any sports. What about for you, mate? Certainly those principles of invasion games, whether it's football, rugby, hockey basketball, they all sort of cross over. But I think just breaking down some of the, not myths as such, but breaking down some of the language that goes with constraints and approach.
And often, you and I have had conversations where we talk about sometimes some antics getting in the way of what people are actually trying to say or communicate. And I think Danny's really clever at just taking these concepts, which could be somewhat intimidating for a young coach perhaps or somebody that hasn't heard of it. And I know through PDP, I've learned a massive amount about what constraints lead coaching actually means. And he kind of simplifies that.
So it's a really nice conversation in terms of getting an understanding of that, but also again, around those areas of task design you mentioned. So worth a look and highly recommend it. We've also got some content on the podcast from that particular interview. So next up, we've got a couple of blogs.
So I'll throw to you first because one of them was yours from June and that was, he doesn't look like a footballer. So can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration for this and a bit about the blog? Yeah, the inspiration was, I was fortunate to go to NES's last game, the new camp. Kind of by accident, so we'd be chosen that game because it was the end of the season, we thought we had a good chance of winning the league.
And then obviously kind of two or three months before the end of the season, the announcement he was retiring. So it became a more valuable ticket than perhaps it was already. And then just to kind of all the hype and all the presentation was all around in the yes, and all the kind of the TV and the newspapers. And it wasn't until perhaps that you saw him retire that we kind of reflected how good he was.
So my success was Spanish player ever. You wanted to know basically everything apart from the ball and ball. And to look at him, he doesn't look like a super athlete. He doesn't look like someone's going to sprint or someone's going to overpower people, but so good technically and so intelligent and to manage that sort of time and space.
I thought it was just really inspiring. So to see that kind of live with all the hype that was in all the press, it just inspired me to think about what does that player look like at kind of 10, 11, 12, 13? And we are as coaches probably sometimes picking the strongest or quickest players. Perhaps the best player in the group that we don't know about will be the one that emerges later in that pathway.
So kind of that non-linear journey, but also recognizing that footballers don't always look like the best athletes and they might be the most intelligent. So kind of some of that kind of pulls goals message as well. Any thoughts on any other for you? Yeah, look, I mean, it was a great blog.
It went very, very well on social media in terms of feedback and a lot of reads. And I said, well, going on that I think it's just one of those where it's about a patience game. It's about the long term view and obviously he was in an environment where that view was taken. And we all work with players from time to time who either surprise us.
I know a lot of coaches have been involved in the release of players and then they popped up somewhere else. And I think that's a great thing where adversity is faced by players and they can overcome it. And whether it's physical size or whether it's some other disappointment or challenge that goes on, it really is about that sort of up and down journey, as you mentioned there. That sort of actually ties nicely into the next blog, which was provided by Dr.
Martin Turner, who's a researcher up there at Staffordshire University. And Martin provided a great read around using sport to help forge resiliency, provided some fantastic examples across different codes from golf to football and so on. And really the key message was about getting athletes or encouraging athletes to understand that going through different challenges or failures and building resilience is a way to actually overcome and succeed in the end. And I think he gave some great examples around Roy McElroy's fame as a meltdown at the Open, I believe it was.
And the sort of key point was around getting athletes to recognize that failure isn't terrible. And if you can actually develop that skill, and I think it is a skill, Renaldo's free kick, I think was a great example in the World Cup early on where he sort of used mindfulness and took his deep breaths and really focused to get the result that he did. Getting over those hurdles actually reduces burn out in their jobs and demonstrates more resilience in the face of adversity going forward. So a really nice read from Martin.
Any thoughts on that one from you or? Yeah, I think maybe as adults in the role of coach, that's something we've got a model as well. We can reflect on our failures or we can explain to kids situations that we found challenging and now they're not so challenging or we learn from them. Because I think when you're in the moment as a teenager, that can be really, really difficult.
So if you've got something, you know, real life case that is whether they are at the elite end or whether they're just personal, you know, I used to not do this or use to find it's really challenging and now it's really easy. I think that can be quite powerful. And the idea that success is built on failure, you know, you're going to have to fail or fail and get better, not just you try something and you're super duper at it. Yeah, absolutely.
I think looking back on a personal example, I mean, you and I sat on the A license together and used it to me. It's about time you got digital with your session planning. I can thank you when I had my notepad D and I can thank you for that. So something I've got better at is logging my sessions.
I've got a record of them. But that's sort of ties to the session plans. And we had a couple of those, one of which was on switching and building play, which as I sort of say quite a lot, that's sort of did what it says on the 10. And it was one of those was really about working in positions through the middle third and finding the right moment.
So highly recommend that one. The small side game on combination play was a very simple task constraint about final third entries, again looking to build and release in the right moment and try and break in behind a sort of mid to deep block. So one that can be adapted for all ages and from anywhere from four before is right through to sort of a living aside if you want to use those constraints. And one of you is recently with a group of players I'm working with at the moment.
We also had a Q&A, which we sort of covered off. Do you want to recap that one for us then? Yeah. So the Q&A was kind of around the biggest strongest player in the group.
So quite often we've talked about bio-banding or relative age effect or kind of looking after maybe those players that are late and maturing. And this was the opposite of that. So this was a player, I think the example was with a 12 year old that was basically nearly complete in terms of maturation. So how do we challenge and how do we look after and how do we prepare that player for the next step of their journey?
So we talked a bit about trying to maybe work out what that would look like at the end. So he's going to be the biggest and strongest and maybe that's okay or maybe he's going to be just kind of five for eight. We referenced your height. I'd say five for nine.
Thank you. He's not going to be the biggest and strongest kind of adult football. So there was a whole kind of melting pot and mixing of ideas there but quite an enjoyable one. Yeah.
It was a good discussion and one that I think can be neglected and Lukaku I think was the example we used at the highest level of a player that was just always big but did manage to develop those technical skills. So a good conversation. Dan that sort of takes us to the end of another monthly wrap. Thank you very much for your time.
Some great content published in June and we will look forward to another PDP monthly wrap very soon.