Field Hockey: defence skills

How do you compete against a team that is superior in ball handleing skills? Our season is packed with teams like this. What my girls end up doing is chasing the ball, which of course, is not working. What drills would benefit this problem?

I have an assessment and the task is "Working the ball out of the back left hand corner of defence" - I have a mixed ability group of male and female players including a goalkeeper and have to train them for a one hour session including warm up skills sessions and game related play including progression. Does anyone have any ideas? At presnt I am thinking about focusing on positional play and perhaps doing a bit on possessional play/posting up before the game play situation...any thoughts?

Hello all, im coaching a ladies first team and im trying to motivate them to take it a lot more seriously then they currently do. They want to train hard but are afraid of making mistakes defensively. Instead of getting back behind the ball when they make a mistake they almost seem embarrassed and stand there with their arm up. I give them as much encouragement as possible without following them round with a pillow!! Also only 2/3 of the squad come to training which is frustrating as both forwards never attend training but the captain wont drop them and come saturday, they have no clue as to what we have been working on. So im having to take 15 minutes out of my pre-game warm up with the rest of the ladies to explain whats going to happen. I get paid to coach them on Tuesday nights but i do saturdays for free. It is frustrating to say the least and i would love any help you can give pleeeaaasseee!!! Mike

My son has been given the role of sweeper in a team that has only won  twice in two years.  He is probably the weakest player in the team.  What advice can I give him to think about when playing, so that he can improve and enjoy a personal sense of achievement. In training sessions I have never seen any drills designed to organise the defence which is amazing since the teams ambition is usually to keep the goals against to single figures! Are there standard apporoaches as to how close to be  to the player you are marking or which side to stand to stop the attacker getting free with the ball on his open stick?.

What's the best way to break ball hogging habits

My U13 Girls play really well in the first half but drop of badly in the second half - this has caused us too many draws. How do I get consistency for the whole game?

What is a good warm up for a professional hockey team?

hi allI'm currently coaching 12 and 13 yr olds and the team has a massive problem with shape and being disciplined positionally.Any tips, ideas, drills etc for helping with / teaching this?many thanks,Gary

A player beats their defender. Do I leave my player to defend as I am nearest to the ball, or should I stay and hold my position?

Getting 6-7 year olds to "spread out" and use the pitch size they playing on is proving to be difficult. Does anyone have any good drills to stop them from bunching together and look like a team?

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

Hi, last season after asking here, we played the 4-3-3 formation. We took the field in this formation and played the whole game this way. This worked really well for us last season, we got promoted and finished 3rd in our new grade. However we came unstuck in the semi finals where the team we were playing identified what we were doing and played the same formation against us in the second half, leaving us unable to make any inroads for the remainder of the game.Our team is from a small school, made up of year 7-13 boys playing against larger schools of year 9-13 boys, though i would guess we played against teams at the older end of the range. We can't match others teams in age & size or depth of experience yet, so we must play smarter.What are possible alternative formations and how would the team identify the need to switch between formations?David Smith

What is your best suggestions for how to improve the back players skills to defend the goal?

Hi! Im Martina, I am 25 years old and I am in charge of a weekly training session for a Mens Seniors team. They are a mixed group, from 17-60 years old. Im finding it a bit hard to find a balance for all the players as there are young but also experienced ones. I want to make the trainings fun and dynamic, so any help with drills is appreciated!Thank you