Some initial thoughts from our new Vice Captain and one of our coaches, Matthew Ball:
Following on from previous VC's here's my first training report of the season. Firstly, I'd like to say thank you to those who were able to attend training, its great to see the numbers we are seeing and I have no doubt that we will see increased numbers as the start of the seasons draws closer.
In our close knit team we are lucky enough to have two qualified coaches in myself and Andy and Pete also in the process of getting the qualification. I know teams that don't have the joy of having a single coach let alone two or three in their ranks.
Last weeks first session (1/4/10) was a friendly game of hit and run pairs cricket which was a great success we saw good numbers and all to my knowledge enjoyed the session, once again Mr. Howard and Mr. Phillips the younger were our pair’s cricket winners, for a second successive season. During that session Neil and I wanted to put emphasis on calling when batting and backing up at the non strikers end. This was taken in by the guys and by the end of session every batsman there was buying into that and we saw more runs coming thick and fast through singles rather than the designated boundaries. All in all the first session was a success from a coaching point of view and a personal point of view it was good to get back with you all and play some cricket.
Last night (8/4/10) we held our first joint coaching session between Andy H and I, we spoke midweek about what we felt we should work on and agreed on close in fielding and getting the ball either over the stumps or throwing the stumps down, singles can cost games and if we can put the pressure on opposition teams and have them thinking in the back of there minds "these guys can hit the stumps I'm not risking it" then we can stop them getting runs reducing totals for us to chase or defend. We set up some training exercises to emphasise the exact message we were trying to get across and I must say it was great to see all the guys take to it and we saw some great performances, we then went into a similar practise using the underarm throw but off both hands, again this was completed by everyone and we all worked really well. We finished with a quick twenty minute game which was great to see from a coaching prospectus as everyone took in what we had been doing through the session and the session prior, we had good calling and good fielding.
We have one more session in glam uni then it will be on to the nets in Cardiff for two weeks, I plan to utilise the next uni session for fielding and have a good two weeks at batting and bowling. So I'm incredibly happy with the way we've started and its great to see how everyone has taken to us our ideas as coaches it makes the daunting job that much easier.
If any of you motley crew want work on anything in particular or if you have any ideas then please do not hesitate to give me or Andy a shout and we will happily look at ways of getting them into the session.
Cheers
Matt B