Field Hockey: clearing

Last season we played a couple of teams with a Star player in a key position who ran the game for their side. Any tips on how to stop this sort of team. Especially with many teams these days having a player/coach who is ex-national league this is happening more and more. We played 3 teams last season, 2 with a Star sweeper and another with a Star centre-half. How can we stop them playing and still play our game?

Do you have some examples of player placements and drills for clearing the ball from defensive 16 yrd hits Thanks Mark

need some help with preparing a lesson plan for an assessment

Can someone suggests some drills for goal keepers to work on alone?

could someone comment on the 5 yard rule when entering the scoring area? There always seams to be a lot of wrong information regarding this rule.

I'm in the U.S., coaching a team of 11-12 year olds, with 1-2 years of experience. Defending the circle, when the ball is loose, my players are not getting control of the ball to hit out of the circle. It's congested with opponent and my team's players. If my players get control, they lose it quickly. If the opponent has control, my players aren't very good at taking the ball or stopping the opponent from taking a shot. Luckily we have a good goalie but she can only do so much. (Full disclosure: I didn't play FH but have a decent understanding of the game. No one else in my community would step up to coach so it's fallen to me.)

Does anybody have Field Hockey Goal Keeping drills to share. Thank You.

I have taken over a club as head coach this year and inherited a captain. She is a good player but is not my ideal captain and is used to communicating almost exclusively by email. I had a successful meeting setting objectives for the 1st team last weekend and following that meeting received lots of feedback for how well it was received. My captain yesterday sent a long email about her thoughts on the meeting and where we are and what the players should be doing in order to progress from her perspective. It is a long rambling email that I think has no objective or point to it that I think is completely inappropriate, now I know her heart is in the right place but this is really stepping on my toes as a coach as it is my place to do these type of emails. I am looking for advice on how I should be dealing with this, I am happy to pull her up but as she is very unconfident about herself I feel this might push her back into her shell even more and then she might do something daft like send another email apologising to the team! I am not sure if I should just ignore it as I wonder if it undermines me? Thoughts?

Hi,I perhaps naively, expected to have most of our team from last year carry over and only have a few new comers to integrate and get up to speed with the rest. However meeting the team at our first practice last night i find I have five players still at school from last year and the rest all new comers, most of whom had not held a hockey stick at all till practice.This being only my second season coaching (year 9 to year 13 boys) has left me feeling a little blindsided, and feeling quite unsure how to prepare practices that target both groups of boys. Do i lump them both groups together, keep them separate? What drills/exercises to best bring the new comers up to speed.I don't want to neglect either group, keep practice worthwhile for the experienced boys, but also bringing the new comers up to a level were they can mix in with the others and learn organically from them while practicing as a team. David

I really struggle to make practice fun and useful for the GKs. My attention is naturally focussed on the outfield players, meaning most of the time I simply have drills finishing with a shot on goal to keep the GK involved. Pretty boring for them. Any ideas how I can involve them more? Thanks, Charlie

My Girls team I coach get caught a lot between man marking and zonal marking in the 23 yard area and sometimes end up with half the team doing one and the rest the other. Suggestions on the ideal defensive set up inside the 23?

if a player in possession of the ball intentionally hits the ball at the foot of the opposing player in order to slow down the game or for any other advantage is it permissible,what if the same scenario occurs in the shooting circle.

My team have asked for drills to help them at 16s, can anyone help me

im twelve, i play for my school team and i am going for a trial at southgate hockey. I  play up front, and i can shoot pretty well but i cant lift it over the keeper. any tips would be much appreiciated

What is the best formation and game play for 7 sides tournament in defending and attacking?

Please can you explain the difference in the full court press press and the half court press