Western Pride are taking the initiative in developing Queensland’s stars of the future by making full use of the latest technology to further assist with their training and coaching methods.

The process is being led by Pride’s Under 15 Boy’s coach Stuart Denigan, who utilises a football statistics program to provide analysis to his team every week as they go about implementing Football Federation Australia’s National Coaching Curriculum.

In addition to training three nights a week, his charges view a multimedia presentation that offers constructive and quantitative feedback on their performances in the previous round’s match.

Charting the statistics over successive weeks gives the team a visual understanding of their development as footballers and takes the emphasis away from the one-dimensional story provided by the scoreboard.

Dinnegan said the app, called SoccerMeter, is proving to be a popular method of not only engaging players in the development process, but their parents as well.

“Through the stats, we can see the goal scoring opportunities and the possession and the amount of passes we have. That proves the development of the kids and the progression following the National Curriculum.”

He explained how the program works to deliver the stats, a process which requires him to review each game at least twice on video, meaning he gives several additional hours of his time per week.

“On the iPad, every time any player touches the ball I press it and the app reads the first touches.”

“If I press it once it doesn’t register a pass, the second time I press it is when the second man touches and that will register two first touches and one pass.”

“I do that for every single pass of the game, whether it’s our team or their team, and the app works out percentages and the number of passes we had and it reads the passing strings, which is how many times we passed it three times or more.”

“The stat based on the passing strings is the most important to me because it means we are playing football well.”

He said that the bank of information he collects allows his side to identify areas of improvement and implement them on the training paddock.

“The National Curriculum is about keeping the ball, but in a proactive manner. The Football Queensland Technical Director (David Abela) came down and watched our game, gave us a review and said we weren’t pro-active enough,” Denigan further explained.

“The times we went back (in that game) was 13 or 14 per cent of our passes. In the next game, after we worked on it at training during the week, the next game the stats showed we only went back six per cent.”

“The statistics show what I’ve done with the players development in taking the feedback from the Technical Director into account because we don’t want that criticism again.”

England-born Denigan, who was previously involved with Fulham’s academy and community programmes, has a head for numbers and accuracy due to his day-job as a graphics and design teacher at West Moreton Anglican College.

As an educator, he said he was aware of not overloading the players with too much information, and instead delivered it like a lesson, focusing on one important area per week.

“Being a teacher does aide me in setting objectives every training session and setting objectives for the week.”

“The way I do it is I don’t just throw out statistics, I break it down into small chunks. Today the focus was on reducing long balls, but I didn’t mention the missed chances, for example.”

“The whole thing is that hopefully they will leave tonight’s session saying ‘we played too many long balls and if we play long balls we give possession up.’”

Denigan said, as with schooling, the role of parents in their children’s football education couldn’t be understated, and that inviting the parents to sit in on the review sessions ensures the same message is delivered both at training and in the home.

“Involving the parents in the statistics – and I don’t involve them in the actual training sessions – they can see the progression the team does from week one.”

“There’s three parties involved in the parents, the coach and the players. So if we’re all talking from the same dimension and we’re all looking at the same product, then the success is going to be greater.”

Tim Stokes, father to Pride junior Dane, enthusiastically endorsed Denigan’s approach. He said, “The parents always run commentary on the game and say, ‘why didn’t you do this or why didn’t you do this?’”

“When the coach is saying one thing and the parents are saying another then it leaves the child in the middle.”

“You’ve got to get the parents involved in the discussion. Getting them on side and educated is, I think, an important part of the process.”

Other coaches at Western Pride are taking a keen interest in Denigan’s efforts, including Technical Director and Senior Men's Head Coach Kasey Wehrman.

 

Words & Image: Michael Flynn (Football Queensland)