D Team 24/10 Results/Comments

First off well done all for playing well and getting a result you can be pleased with of 3 wins and 1 draw

Ok so a breakdown of the evening as tonksie requested I post. Firstly I would like to say well done for simply arriving ahead of time with correct buoyancy aids, kit, money and bcu cards. This allowed you all to start the night smoothly and gave you chance for an invaluable warm up at the start so good

Game one was just as the team discussed pre-game a steady disciplined game aiming at two goals a half and taking time when attacking. This was carried out for the most part and I was very happy with this, there were a few hiccups during the game of a lack of cover and easy passes but this was addressed at both half time and the end of the game.
Result = win tigers (don't know score)

The second game was a bit of a walk through with tigers having a score line of 5-0 at halftime, this lead to this game being a great test of discipline when shooting i.e. not shooting through several paddles and no chanting "magic ball I choose you". On a whole this was done well with a few bad shots tried but this was soon rectified with the debrief at the end of the game.
Result = big goal difference boost and a win tigers (don’t know the score again)

Game three the disaster I am only joking but this game was perfect for showing where the D team players as a collective need some work which is attacking a zone but more on that first the game. this game was a steady 0-0 for the majority of the time with tiger struggling to break the defensive zone as the opposition were playing for a draw as that would be a good result for them, this meant they kept very defensive even in attack causing breaks to be in effective (D teams strongest attack) this lead to the D team automatically doing exactly what I would a try to draw men out of the zone by holding the ball further back. This had very little effect unfortunately but did lead to their defence becoming too relaxed and allowing the D team to score off their next break. Unfortunately a lucky backwards shot that Fern had no chance to seeing in my opinion went in to make it 1-1. The remaining time the D team fought on but struggled to work the zone effectively bringing me on to that point.

A close 2 and 2 was used against the D team in this match with the feedback being that they struggled to get into the zone without getting an obstruction due to the defenders being sat so close to the keeper making this a perfect point for training. And I am sure will be covered in the pool sessions on a Wednesday.
Result = draw 1 a piece

Game 4 was similar to the first two with time being taken on the attack, tigers scored early on and consistently scored off good attacks in the first half and early second half a few silly shots changed the possession over but did not risk the result, late in the second half tigers just held the ball up as the risk of a shot was not worth it and this won the game for them easy as that very good job guys.
Result = Tigers win

Overall results 3 wins 1 draw

Summary points for training:
Attacking a tight zone, drawing people out of a zone. I.e. drills in the pool
Confidence on the ball whilst being tackled. I.e. playing possession.


Well that’s all I have to say on this so well done D Team good tournament
Feel free to add anymore comments please.

Thanks,
Matt

Hey Matt,
Ive wrote a review too, but you appear to have beaten me to it. Posted it anyway for a slightly different perspective on things.

Results
White Rose (2-0 Win), Manchester B (7-0 Win), Ribble Relics (1-1 Draw), Wildcats (2-0 Win)

White Rose
Overall a comfortable game which we convincingly won, passing was good, as was possession. On the down side, the game was particularly slow and we weren’t especially aggressive at any point.

Manchester B
This was a particularly pleasing result, as Manchester was (according to the league table) the strongest opposition of the night.
Our defence was good as usual; the back two did a tremendous job, whilst TK and I were looking a little more co-ordinated when chasing.
We were also much more aggressive on the offense, passing/moving much better and working the zone more effectivelly than in previous games.
A slight criticism was that once it had become obvious that we had won comfortably, we taking too many risks whilst attacking in an attempt to gain further goals...and if the game had continued for a few more minutes, we would probably have conceded a goal.

Ribble Relics
This was a particularly frustrating game. The relics were obviously content to cut their losses and keep to game level at 0-0. So their back two sat right up against their keeper with their paddles raised for pretty much the whole game. At no point did they try to push out, despite us holding the ball for the entire first half. Tactically I think we didn’t know what to do with this (any suggestions from other teams would be helpful), any plans we could think of relayed on them pushing out if we held the ball and whenever we tried to split them we either ended up obstructing their keeper or weren’t co-ordinated enough to hold the split long enough to get a runner in.
By the second half we had succumbed to frustration and started shooting through paddles. This was obviously a bad thing but it actually led to us getting the first goal. Since them having a chance to go on the offensive, gave us a chance to break. And without their defence in place, we quickly scored. Unfortunately we then conceded a goal from a ridiculous shot (throwing it backwards over his head – surprising our keeper) and the game ended 1-1. Grrr!!

Wildcats
Final game was an easy, if very dull game. Initially the wildcats proved to be good opposition; however after a few min and a few goals, we just held possession. Since they weren’t comfortable pushing out, we just sat on the ball for about 7 min with only one shot.

Overall some very pleasing results.

Good Point: Defence was strong throughout, passing, holding the ball, breaking was fairly good (just need to make sure we throw the ball in front of the guys sprinting, not directly to them).
Points for improvement: Moving people in the zone (we are working opportunities, but it needs to happen consistently), working closer to opponents zone if we’re pushing for a goal and discipline whilst attacking opponents we feel we should be beating (in fairness - mainly me).

Finally thanks to Matt and Scott for coming along to ref and coach us. The help was much appreciated.

Well done guys, sounds like it was a good night, does anyone have any comments that the c team could use towards their next tournament.

It would also be good to see a write up from them

Overall a good night, being still undefeated.

Three fairly convincing wins and one incredibly frustrating draw!

I must try those two handed, over the back of the head ,facing away from goal, 4 meter out shots more! Its one thing i'll work on in training!!

Cheers to the coaches who were very excitable on the side, (Gaining 2 seperate greens!), and the rest of the team for putting on a good show.

Simples!!

D TEAM, NATIONAL LEAGUE REVIEW – SAT 7TH NOV

Hey Guys,
Realise I’ve posted this under the last competitions review. But thought it would better to post all of them in one place so they can be compared.
Firstly thank you to Andrew and Matt for helping us out last minute.

Results (may be slightly wrong)
FOA W – 5:0? Win
Bangor X- 2:1 Win
Team Scotia – 3:2 Loss
Liverpool C.C- 2:2 Draw
Tees C – 10:0? Win

FOA W
This was a very promising game considering we hadn’t played with two of our players before. We worked to zone well and were disciplined in deciding which shots to take.

Bangor X
This was a much closer game which I felt we dealt with well. Both attack and defence were fairly strong, however there were a few opportunities where we had split there defence for a considerable amount of time before taking advantage of it. Stronger opposition wouldn’t have let the gap stay open that long.

Team Scotia
This game started well with us slowly working the opposition’s zone until we achieved a small split in their defence, passed a ball in and scored a goal. Unfortunately, a breakdown in communication between Andrew and I lead to us leaving the left side of our zone undefended and they equalised.
We then decided to push 5 out. This worked fairly well for our first real attempt but there were issues. Occasional confusion over who was marking who meant we were slow to pick up all of their men. They then scored (unrelated to the confusion..I think).
Some tight marking lead to us winning back the ball and equalising before they could re-establish their defence.
Unfortunately this success was short lived as they scored with a long short from the centre restart. Some speculated that this was actually an illegal shot, but regardless of the specifics, it highlights the need to pick up our men quickly at the centre restarts. Especially when we’ve identified on of the as having a very good long distance shot.

Liverpool C.C.
I was fairly disappointed with this result as we were clearly the stronger team. I can’t remember much about the game, but I do recall that we often had too many people in the zone, often static waiting for shot without a gap.
The general pattern of play went along the lines of; working the zone scoring and then conceding a goal from a long shot. Perhaps we need to work on pressuring our men as this seems to be becoming a re-occurring theme and it can’t just be blamed on the keeper.

General Comments
Overall I was very happy with how we played and feel it was definitely our strongest performance to date.
Watching Matt play it was apparent to me that his superior ability to move people in the zone allowed us to attack (send a runner in for a shot) much more frequently. This issue has been recognised in the past, however, it just highlighted to me how lucrative improvements in this area could be.
Other points we could work on include communication, knowledge about playing 5-out*, knowing when to leave the zone, respond quicker to gaps in an oppositions defence, and offering alternative passes if the first one can’t go straight into the zone.
Please feel to comment on this on make suggestions for improvement (especially the more experienced paddlers spectating).

*Phil mentioned that he was unsure whether you play five out against corners as they could easily shoot. And I left my man to guard the goal when my teammate lost his man (with the ball) close to the goal. Darren told me this was the wrong thing to do but I don’t understand why.

I think the frist game was pretty good, we should maybe have won the second by a more convincing margin but a win is a win. We dominated the zone attacking and held splits for what seemed like an eternity so should maybe be disapionted with the one goal win.

Loosing to scotland was a crushing blow, and on reflection after getting back on terms with only a minute or so to go, after for the most part doing well on 5-out, we should have dropped back to a more defensive 2&2 and taken the draw off the league leaders. I know shots from halfway are 50/50 at best, but having worked our nuts off for 5 1/2 mins to get back on terms to conced within 10 seconds really gutted me.

Playing aginst liverpool and agian getting the lead with 30 seconds left and still drawing to a shot from halfway is another bitter pill. I'm not sure playing a defensiveish 2&2 we should be chasing players that far out anyway but maybe i'm wrong? I have video of this one if anyone wants a look and tell us what you think.

Playing the C Team was less of a proper match and more like disorganised training on our part (kind of playing a chasing 4 with a keeper), (no disrespect guys but we got to play you at the end of a long night and you looked like you'd had enough!) although mark and matt did everything in their power to maintain a clean sheet (both destroying callum) and Mr Phillip Dean had to resort to unsportsman like conduct at the end and was lucky to escape with just a green card for his behaviour! Shame on you sir!!


All in a slightly disappionting night which we could have left with 4 wins and a draw but actually left with 3 wins a draw and a defeat.

which puts our record at 6 wins 2 draws and 1 loss

one more point, perhaps we should work on shots from just inside halfway in training as everyone else seems to be able to score from there and we don't /can't. and we may be able to defend against t a bit better too?

doesn't sound like a very good night for tt when bothe teams (if they turned up should be chasing promotion) WIth regard to the two questions, from a corner, i see no real issue with staying five out, but if you're gonna do it you can't afford to leave people facing your goal with the expectation of blocking the shot. They need smashing up properly and should be turned away from goal. With regard to whether to go back to goal, each circumstance is different and it depends on who is where. We can chat about various situations at the pool on Wednesday, but I don't think that there is a hard and fast rule, just whatever you do you need to properly commit to it. Any dilly dallying is definately wrong!

With regard to shooting from half way, we did practice this on Wednesday, the pass and shoot which everyone was terrible at was a shooting exercise from just inside halfway. We need to make more use of the first hour to practice long passing. The majority of players in our club can't throw the ball that far let alone shoot accurately, so lets focus on that.

When it come to long shots, we shouldn't just do them randomly, this is very much a bottom end tactic. Shots being scored from long range should only be done in a few circumstances.

(i) a centre restart when their keeper is not in properly
(ii) a last ditch attempt on the final/half time bell
(iii) open goal when we're down and need goals desperately

To stop the first happening against us, we need to make sure that the shooter is under pressure off the start (the a-team is good at this) making sure after each goal, there is a player on the taker who can immediately pressure the potential shooter before dropping back to the usual defensive position. You are correct that the front two shouldn't chase that far, but they don't need to retreat that far back after scoring a goal. The only person who needs to sprint back is the keeper.

During normal game play, if shots are scored from outside this is for one of two reasons:

(i) keeper error (any decent keeper should be able to block a shot that is in the air for 5+ seconds)

but if you don't have a decent keeper, as was the situation in the a-team last year. It is the fault of the chasers who:

(ii) haven't pressured the ball enough.

We will not get into the habit of shooting at random. These shots are easily countered as by no means all players can do them, so the ones who can need roughing up. Our club is full of good canoeists, so we need to use this, not dumbing down to their poor tactics.

Give me a shout if you have any questions, or give me a shout at the pool if you want me to go through anything.

Nicky

Liverpool 1st half (part 1)



Liverpool 1st half (part 2)



Liverpool 2nd half



C v's D 1st half



C v's D 2nd half

Didn't think it was an issue on the night, but watching the videos back I think we need to be carefull that we don't have too many people in the zone.

(p.s - Thanks for putting the videos up tonks)

and it is apparent that the zone men don't really work as a pair!

Why's Phil Dean got a white Hat on?

National League Division 4 North 2009/2010
Leader Board after Tournament 2

Team...............Played....Win...Draw...Loss....Goals For...Goals Against...Goal Difference...Points
Liverpool CC........9..........8.......1........0...........35.................10....................25...............26
Team Scotia.........9..........8.......0........1...........44.................5......................39...............25
Tees D.................9..........6.......2........1...........29.................7......................22...............23
Ribble Relics.........9..........5.......1........3...........15.................17....................-2...............20
White Rose C........9..........5.......0........4...........19.................13.....................6...............19
Manchester B........9..........5.......0........4...........17.................21....................-4...............19
FOA W..................9..........3.......0........6...........16.................27....................-11..............15
Wildcatz B............9..........1.......1........7...........6...................34....................-28...............12
Bangor X..............9..........1.......0........8...........15.................25....................-10...............11
Tees C.................9..........0.......1........8...........4...................41....................-37...............10

Having watched the videos i think there are a couple of main things to work on and I know this may sound a little bit like a broken record...

1. Passing- need to make the right decision and make sure the pass gets there, not bounces off the side of the boat, not 3ft above someone's head.

2. Smashing people up- Need to be more aggressive and work harder moving people in the zone. Ledger/Tonksie I have seen you in training with your game face on driving in hard to muller me when i have been defending why aren't you doing it to these muppets?!? Our strength is in boat skills lets use them and start putting the opposition zones under real pressure. Also, in open play this applies just as much, there is WAY too much paddle waving at people and not enough smashing them up when they have the ball. When have you ever been told to sit and wave hello with your paddles, while someone holds the ball?

Sort these two out and you will do well.

28th Nov - D Team Review

Overview
Overall I felt the standard of play tonight was an improvement on previous tournaments, however this was let down badly by some truly appalling passing and peoples unwillingness to hold the ball and settle for a 1-0 win.

Tees D (3) – FOA (0)
Tees D (3) – Bangor X (1)
Tees D (0) – Team Scotia (2)
Tees D (1) – LCC (1)
Tees D (?) – Tees C (0)

FOA
The team got of to a very good start in the first game.
Positive attacking points included everyone working the zone much more effectively than in pervious tournaments (rather than relaying on Tonks and Fern to do it for us) and much more restrained passes into the zone (not through paddles).
Good defensive points included the back 2 communicating better and Matt & I being far more organised when chasing.
Overall a convincing win.

Bangor X
This game followed a similar format to the first with us dominating the possession, and working the zone consistently well. However this was slightly let down by some silly decisions and mistakes due to inexperience.

Firstly we need to chat about when, and who, should stay back after we loose possession in order to slow the oppositions break. My understanding of it is that generally speaking, unless they break fast and the runners need to be picked up by whoever can, the two front men should slow the opposing team’s progress whilst the keeper and defenders sprint for goal. Obviously there are plenty of exceptions to that (assuming that’s even right – I’m sure someone will correct me if its not), but we seemed to end up with three players chasing the ball and two waiting statically at the halfway line to see if they’d win the ball back or not far to often. This confusion allowed Bangor to score, however since it was already 3-0 at that point it wasn't a costly mistake.

Secondly, I can’t remember who said it but why were people calling to go five out as soon as we went 1-0 up against a reasonable standard team? Yet in a later game (Tees v Scotia) when we were 1-0 down with 2min left the same people weren’t willing to push out for fear of going another goal down.
A - 5-out is an aggressive tactic to be used when we're needing goals, we need to use it in those circumstances. Not solely as a way of trashing the weekest teams.
B - We need to be cautious about trying to hump teams that actualy arn't that bad, as this will eventually cost us a match.

Scotia
Despite losing, I actually enjoyed this game. We dominated the possession, however unlike any other team in the league, Team Scotia have fast aggressive players who are good at 2-2 chasing. This forced us to move ourselves and the ball really well.
Eventually, during one of their rare chances to attack, we were forced to play with some-else in goal, myself on the back (not exactly my favourite position) and Tonksie chasing. After several attempts to get a runner through our defence, our unfamiliarity with these roles let them score. However no major mistakes were made
We kicked things up a level and generally worked harder to create opportunities, unfortunately another goal was conceded from a break in the remaining moments of the game.
This was an extremely tight and well played game which the score line just doesn’t reflect.

LCC
This game ruined the night for me. We played well initially and quickly went 1-0 up. From there things went quickly down hill as our performance degraded and LCC gradually began to bend the rules more and more.
Despite us being ahead, only one of their players chased the ball while they were defending... and he wasn’t particularly quick or aggressive. Yet, the three players on the back were unable to cope with him!
Most of the time they were completely static. Even when their last man back (the man closest to their own goal) was getting done in and was screaming for a pass, no-one thought to give them any help. Just because we’re trying to slow the game down doesn’t mean the work-rate can stop completely.
Then there was the passing which beggared belief. Unpressured passes to unmarked men, regularly (eight in total I think) went 3 to 4 meters over the recipients head (literally!). Giving the opposition countless breaks which simply shouldn’t have happened.
Finally, the team still seemed to be taking risks and pushing for goals rather than accepting a 1-0 win against a team which are undefeated in the tournament to-date.
To add to these problems the other team were being less than sporting. Tonksie was being repeatedly fouled, while I had free run to score in an open goal (which would have secured our win) when one of their players reached over and pulled me back by my BA...and somehow managed to avoid a card.
Eventually the inevitable happened and a bad pass led to a break and an easy open goal for LCC.
Game ended 1-1.

Tees C
The result of this game is fairly irrelevant since a convincing win was almost inevitable. Individual performances were generally good, with some aggressive chasing (when people felt like it) and plenty of courteous passing (ie not shooting yourself). However, for practice certain members of the team requested we played 5 out, not and issue in itself, however once this decision had been made there were constantly two people unmarked proving either some people weren’t pulling their weight or communication was inadequate. Better teams would have taken advantage of this.

Summary
Despite being so critical of the team performance I feel I should mention that everyone seems to have made personal improvements and the team for the most part worked together and communicated far better than in the past. However this is all meaningless if we forget the basics.

I think that during training we could try practicing possession, with more defenders than attackers (i.e 4/5v2 moving on to 3v2). This should hopefully replicate the pressures we’ll face holding the ball against chasing 2 & 2 defences. I feel that except for the passing which was uncharacteristically bad, this was main area of weakness. As people were holding the ball for to long and generally being very static. What do people think?

Review – 6th March

First of all well done too everyone, 4 wins out of 4, can’t ask for much more than that. Secondly thanks again Rachel, TK and Bailey for helping us out.

Since we won all our games this review will be a little shorter than usual, but there were still a few things I think we can work on.

Tees D vs White Rose (1:0 Win)
Great start to the night. We dominated the possession (our first attack lasted four and a half min), we passed/moved much better under pressure (our previous weakness) and waited for good opportunities to shoot. However we still lacked aggression in the zone, which meant we had to wait a considerable amount of time between shots...the reason it was only 1:0.

Tees D vs Man B (1:0 Win) Cards
Similar to first game, however the game highlighted the need for practicing chasing back after losing possession and getting back quickly for centre restarts.

Tees D vs Ribble Relics (1:0 Win)
We dominated this game primarily due to our superior paddling ability. However, the tactics went out the window a bit, with people chasing too far out and several shots through paddles. This limited the score line to 1:0. Paul also commented that we weren’t co-ordinating properly when defending corners (but 4 of the 6 weren’t at that training session).

Tees D vs Wildcats B (3:0 Win)
Some poor passing from the opposition and some good chasing quickly brought the score line to 1:0. The opposition then began to pressure our zone, some good defensive work from Tonksie and Rachel allowed us to withstand this and wait for a mistake, when we broke and scored a second. We held the ball well for the rest of the game before scoring via an overload in the dying seconds.

Summary
Some very calm and collected polo especially since we were missing some of our key players. We improved our confidence holding the ball and passing under pressure. Major point to improve on were attaching the zone, chasing back after losing possession and setting up quickly from centre restarts and set pieces.

This sounds excellent D team, just the sort of feedback we want to hear.

although again who are Tees D?

are they something to do with the rockets or are they something to do with Tees Kayak club?

Just as a last note from me on this tournement.

In general i felt we played well.

We were never really in danger of buckling under what little pressure we were put under for the ball in any of our matches. It was simply a case of passing it around until we decided to shoot. I think this was mainly due to not overcommitting in the zone and constantly having options of easy passes. Also we mainly kept our experienced players out of the zone after we were goals up to keep control.

I'll be the first to admit this must have been very very boring to watch, and to be honest the bordom kicked in during the last match, when after going 2-0 up i started reaching for one or two balls of the magic variety!! I did appologise for this at the time but we were able to chase down the ball very quickly and regain possession.

All in all a good tournement in which everyone on the team learned from. Bailey and Rachel made impressive and composed debut performences, whilst TK backed up his initial early season selection with another well grounded display. Mark somwhat let the team down with his constant fouling reciving the only green card of the entire tournement! Phil had very little to do in nets as not a single shot was on target against us all night, and i think there were only a handful in total anyway! As for me i began to let the side down with my over zealous magic ball choices but not a bad night all in!

On the season as a whole we were probably the best side at playing polo but just conceded too many soft goals in the big matches. Ah well next year is another year!

Thanks to all who played their part over the season and we hope to make an assault on the title next year!

Cheers

JT

One card?...more like three.

First for wasting time to allow our keeper and deffence to get back after centre restart

Second for the accidental paddle foul.

The third was a team green for three people paddle fouling in a row (nothing to do with me, I was just closest to ref so he explained it to me)

Hey, League table for the season


......Team.........Win....Draw....Loss...Goals For..Against..Difference..Points


Liverpool CC.......15......2........1..........61...........18............43..........50
Team Scotia........15......1........2..........73...........12............61..........49
Tees D................13......3........2..........46...........12............34..........47
Manchester B.......11......1........6..........43...........33............10..........41
White Rose C.......11......0........7..........39...........23............16..........40
Ribble Relics..........8......2........8..........26...........31............-5...........36
FOA W..................4.......1.......13.........29...........56............-27.........27
Wildcatz B.............2.......3.......13.........15...........65............-50.........25
Bangor X..............3.......0.......15.........26...........52............-26..........24
Tees C..................0......3.......15.........10...........66............-56..........21