Effective Goalkeeper Training Techniques

Now, so what we're trying to do here is at the start, there's no ball involved at the start of this. And a lot of what we've been doing this morning is kind of over-exaggerating all the moves. The reason is that when we stand in the goals, we have a set stance which is like this maybe, how we normally do, muscle memory kicks in, right? What I'd like our set stance to be is maybe an inch or two wider. Okay, so you over-exaggerate all that you're doing, your footwork drills, your goalie, so that eventually muscle memory will bring it back from being like this. To be like this, to be like this. I don't expect any goalie going into goals to be like that. But during some of the drills they will be over exaggerating so that their body will compensate on the day of the game then and get into a more comfortable wider stance. So what we're doing here is we're coming out, we're stopping here, feet shoulder width apart off the balls of your toes, left foot drive, feet, feet, feet, feet, feet, right foot. And out. Okay, so girls, off you go. Hurley up, that's it. Go around the cone, that's it. Forward, out that one, across, and forward again. That's it, off you go. Go back around, we go again. We don't want our... feet that close are crossing. If you think about it inside in the goals, when the ball is in the danger area, alright thanks you can hold up a minute, when the ball is in that danger area the last thing we want is our feet off the ground for too long. Why? Because we need to plant our foot too. to go someplace. Alright? So you need to just hover over the top of the ground when you're a goalkeeper, like that. Because it gives you a stand instead of the ball goes this way, you're here. If your feet are like this, if I had to jump out there, it's as good as it gets. If I had to jump out there, see the difference. So it's really important, and even for outfield players, if you tell players go across like that, you're not going to cross like this. If they're clicking their feet, they've no control over their feet. You're talking about players playing the fastest game in the world. If your feet are like this, feel her off the ground for a millisecond too long you can't turn, you can't change direction, you can't react to what's happening around you. So that part of your feet low across the ground like that is really important, so it's like a crab. So let's go again, off you go. Well done, better, feet shoulder width apart, better and forward out, that's it, you're alright, keep going now. Push off the left foot, that's it. That was done for like outfield players, but the hurley is down here like this and we're moving all the time. but as goalkeepers, we need to hurl it up. So you come out and it's important as well that your knee drive. If you're looking to take off, you flex your knee and push. Sometimes you say to goalies, God how did they get off their line so fast? There's two things going on. One, they're in a good position which comes with experience. But two, they had to drive off their knee like that. They didn't start by going this way. They had a knee bend. So that's why we're teaching our goalies to get off the mark quickly on the outside. So there's no path to the drill that's wasted. you come here you push off right foot, slightly bend left foot, up like that, right foot and push off. Now girls I'll bring a ball into the equation there. So all I'm going to do when you come out the far side here, you'll push off your right foot, you'll come forward and I'll just pop the ball off you to catch it. Off we go. Feet shoulder width apart, that's it, forward, shoulder width apart, forward, look up, catch, that's it. Thank you. Off we go. Hardly off, stop position, that's it. That's it. Head up. Very good. Okay, stop up for a sec. And the next thing that we'll do is we'll go with one along the ground. And then normally I go back another 10 yards. And then I'm striking the ball at the goalkeeper. And to go all the time when we're striking the ball all morning, I'm hitting the ball, the goalie can say it. We'll bring in live ammo later on, which is our forwards and outfield players. And they have an opportunity to take the head off the goalie with the odds stacked in the goalie's favour. But initially we are all the time in here telling the goalie. goalkeeper, how well they're going, how good their body shape is, how this is going to make them play better on Sunday, how what you're doing here is going to help us win the match. Don't worry about playing the games, don't worry about your footwork in this section, then we move on to the shot stopping. Okay, so we'll go once more guys, off you go. That's it. And up, and it comes low, and touch and back to me. That's it, off you go. That's it. And then the back. Very good. Another one to help goalkeepers, it's an American football drill where you have your goalkeeper in front of you, their feet shoulder width apart. You get them to do that. And you hold it for maybe six or seven seconds, you go left. They do that, left, centre. This way, this way, back, down, and spring forward two or three yards. If you get that going, the following morning when your goalkeeper wakes up, their quad should be burning, their calf should be burning. Right, simple as that. Week 2, week 3, week 4, guess what? There's no burning sensation. Their legs are getting more powerful. And then you're out there watching your goalkeeper and they come off the line like an absolute bullet and you're going, that stuff might actually be working. But it takes 4, 5, 6 weeks to get us to that level. Okay, the next thing then we're going to look at is over here. So can two different girls come back here behind? Two girls in here please. Now, so what we're going to do this time is, we're just going to go one foot in each. The whole idea here is that all your drive powers off the ball of your foot. Speed drills before and doing A-marches. Now what an A-march is, is what a sprinter does in order to get faster. So when you put up your foot, It comes up hip level, but look at my toe. My toe is pointing up towards the clouds So when it hits the ground it hits the ground going that way a lot of people they run they run that way Flat foot and then they're trying to pick up speed on the next drive when in fact your first step is your driving step, not your second one. Okay, so when we did A marches it was up, toe, toe, toe, toe, like that. And again it gets a range of movement. You must remember the players that we're dealing with are no longer playing tag, 52 bonkers around the school yard, they're no longer getting a range of flexibility that will come naturally as a human being from the age of three when you can run till they're seven, eight, nine, ten. So I think it's our response being out as coaches to correct that, right? So we need to get them in a range of motion. movement and if we do that, get that flexibility, get the A-marches in where they're starting to move their knee higher than they would have normally. If you watch kids running around the yard it's like this because they can't go full blast. Don't you fall you'll get killed, stop we'll all get sued, stop stop stop. Right, so we need to help them to get through all that and that's what the A-march is. Toe up so that when you hit the ground you hit the ground running. So based on that then we go through these and it's only four little pats, choke choke choke choke and it's an accelerate on. Let's go girls. One of you at a time, doesn't matter. That's it, toes toes toes and accelerate out of the way. Let's go. Your grand duppy shy. Well done, that's it. Now come on get out again, this time I'm going to start at the yellow. and come back out the same way again. I won't ask you to do anything different for a minute. So again, once you get to the white cones, knees up, come out to me. That's it. That's it. Paddle through them. That's it. Head up. Ball is coming this time. Right, off you go. Knees, knees, knees. Ball is coming. Good. This time it'll come along the ground, so off you come again. So again, it's no more than five yards because that's the size of the small square inside there. Alright? It's also important that when the players get to a level where they're comfortable. I appreciate the girls and all the times it's all a bit new and there's people watching the last thing you want to do is fall over yourself, isn't it? Like, jeez, it'd be mortifying. It's important though that when they come through this, it's hyper-extend the knees and then the ball comes. Don't even go four or five yards beyond here before the ball arrives. Because if you want to get off our line quick, then we've something to do. We're never running off our line really in the goals like an outfield player making a dummy run going, oh, there was nothing in that for me now. If we're coming off that line aggressive, it's because there's a ball coming. All right, so this time again, girls. Let's go. It's coming low this time. It come out. Well done. Excellent. Excellent. Good. Next. Last one. That's it. All right. The role of the coach here too is to get precision. All of us inside in our head want to find the shortest route to get any place. I would say for a coach, we might have to go the longest way. We go there slowly. We go there precisely. So if one of your players is hopping these too many, I take out of... video and I'm even talking now getting to 8, 10, 11 up along the line kids and just video a bit of it and then show them look we're not getting faster because everything in the world is made twice, it's made once inside your head and then somebody actually physically made it. So unless they can actually see physically the problem that's going on because sometimes we're all inside in our own heads and we could be doing the wrong thing and someone will say to you go I don't do that and then they show you a bloody video of it and you're going oh yeah I am doing that right? So that addition of technology into it, you don't need to put trackers on their backs, that kind of mad stuff, right? But sometimes you'll know yourself with the player you're dealing with whether they can cope with this bit of feedback or not. When that's you, the coach comes into play as well. You'll know your player, you're giving good positive feedback and you're saying, look, well, maybe we can do this a bit differently. So the next thing then we're going to do is we might have to come out and go sideways quickly to stop a shot. So we're going to come out, feet in each, we're going to go this way and then we're going to plant and come out. Again, the ball will come... just as the girls are leaving the outside of this one here. So come out, pitter patter, come to your right and out along. Let's go. Take your time through it now. Come across, that's it. And keep the high knee drive on the way across. That's it, keep the high knee Push off, that's it. Again, from a coaching point of view, you do it slowly because there what happened was, that girl came out, she took off from this leg. It's important we take off from the outside leg. Okay, so when we come out here. knee bend and go. Watch that as coaches, watch the precision of their feet come out and come out the other side. Well done. Plant the outside foot and it comes in from there. So they're just a few simple, I would say footwork drills that will help us. to maybe get that little bit better. Now, that's one thing alright that we bring the ball into the majority. So you do the first three or four without a ball and then the ball comes in and you as a coach then know how hard the ball needs to be hit. That's important. So if your goalkeeper is particularly good, the ball comes faster. The last thing we want is a keeper going home thinking I was babied all the way through that. I didn't really feel the hurley on the ball or the ball on the hurley as hard as I should do. They're not getting a buzz or an energy out of it. So it's important that you're up in the bar all the time. The ball is coming fast. master all the time. Have somebody doing the drills with the goalkeeper that you trust. Don't send Jimmy the 17 year old or 18 year old who's staring the club down because he or she is going to be so tempted to put the ball over the goalie's head to roof it. You know what I mean? So get someone who you can trust and eventually then your goalkeeper will build with you because the hardest job we have in any club is to try to get a goalkeeper's confidence so they'll actually stand in there. I have a cup one goalkeeper please right it's all well and good having our goalkeepers with the fancy feet and all but they have to be able to do it when the pressure is on its most so what we're going to do here is there's obviously four colors around so at the start I'm just going to call two colors so if I say blue yellow it's blue back to the middle out to yellow and back in spread these out a bit further important thing here is that all the time your goalkeeper is coming through the junction all right and discipline also helps inside here So at the start it is going to be frustrating as coaches because when you say blue, blue-red, they're going to go blue and then they're going to go red and they're going this way and it's no benefit to anything, right? So at that stage our patience will kick in there and we'll slowly walk through what we're trying to achieve. So we'll just say if I say blue... Orange, red, so it's going to be blue, back to be orange, back to the middle, out to red, back to the middle and there's a shot going to come. You with me? If you didn't I'll know in a minute because the ball hit you in the head. Now, I'm not going to hit it hard. Okay, so the important thing here is though, that after a while what we're looking to see is that our goalkeeper is doing this with her head up. Like that and there's a shot. That's the movement we're looking for right? At the start now it is going to be, not saying anything against you because I know you're amazing and fantastic, but it is going to be slow and a bit laboured but that's where we're trying to get to. So we'll go blue, yellow. Blue. back, yellow, middle, shot comes, and it's just a save. Okay, so we'll advance it up then, because that was good. Blue, yellow, red, blue, back to the middle. Don't touch it, just get a foot outside it. Red, back to the middle, and save. Well done. That's it. So you can see where we're going. And then we build it up to four of them. So it's blue, orange, yellow, red. Blue. You don't have to touch with your hands. Orange. That's it. Yellow. Feet. Red. And the shot comes in then. But again, the movement we're looking for... Stay out for a sec. And you'll do this the next time like this, I know you will. So, all the time you don't have to touch it, what I want you to do is come out, one, two, back to the middle, three, keeping the feet wide, four, stance to save the shot. Okay? because in here, again where the video can help is that in here if your goalkeeper does that and you're able to freeze frame that image and say if the ball took a deflection anywhere in here and you're in any position to save the ball, especially for the older boys or girls that go, no I'm not really. Okay, that's what we're trying to coach, that's what I want you to get to. So again, you're giving that positive feedback and you're actually showing them what they're doing. Is all of what you think the goalie can say of it? Obviously getting harder and harder. Blue, yellow, red, orange. Blue, back to the middle. Yellow, that's it. Red, back to orange and the shot comes in. Well done, well done. Okay, the next one then is where we have to go. right or left. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to throw the ball over the yellow or the red cone. So I need you to stay nice and loose like this. This is good for our young keepers, anyone up to age 10, 11, just to get their hand-eye coordination going right. So stay nice and light on your feet. Don't ever stand with your, no, light up towards your feet. Like I am now, just nice and light, nice and light. Here we go. Now just throw it back to me or hand pass it back to me. Let's go again. See, you try the trick, you add on that little bit of extra giving. Giving them the eyes. Right, ready? That's it, move sideways to catch the ball. Outfield players, when they're running to get the ball, their instinct is to go in that way. Now if a ball's coming this way, and I'm running that way, I've only that size to stop the ball. Right, I'd much prefer throw the ball to any side of me you like, just pop it up. That. Difference between an outfield player and a goalkeeper. They'll use their feet to get there. A goalkeeper, an outfield player will use the hurly extension because it's all about getting your hands on the ball. speed. For me as a goalkeeper my job is to get it in my hand with all my body behind it if possible because if my hand lets me down it pops back out. So that's why here when you're training your goalkeeper if you've got an outfield player in there they'll turn off their foot straight away to catch it that way. people we want is to do this. It also helps them show with progression that their feet are getting them, we'll get them there. Okay, we'll go again. I'm going to roll the yellow this time. Feet, well done. Back in again, sideways in. Back in, well done, good. Let's go again now. That's it, well done. Excellent. See the way she's able to keep her form and shape? And now suddenly, able to put out her hand and catch the ball. Well done. Go on to this next exercise. Positioning the side and the goals. I was lucky when I was underage, I was tiny. So that meant I had to appreciate the height of the crossbar very early in my life. And it helps you throughout the rest of your career then. Goal line here. Where would you stand if the ball hit out from 60 yards? I'll show there's the goal line. Where would you stand? Stand in. There's a 65 or a 45 being taken. Where do you stand? Okay. Can you see the crossbar? If the ball goes in back that way, you're going backwards. Okay. For me, forever and a day, whether I was 5 foot nothing or 4 foot nothing or 6 foot 1 as I stand today, toes behind the line. See the crossbar. Do not leave this position as a goalkeeper until you are dead sure. sure you're going after the ball. Because the last thing we want is, we start here and we're starting to go this way. And this is a scary place to be as a goalkeeper going backwards. And how many goalies have we seen, I batted, oh jeez the goal, I hit the crossbar at the hurley. Disaster zone, right? Can be avoided, but also a starting position is good. Also I'd have somebody on the line with me. Why? Because I'd say if I'm going off the line, you stand in behind me. So there's an extra comfort. They mightn't stop it, but but inside my head I'm thinking, well, at least I'm not the last line of defence anymore. And if I'm coming out, I'm coming out then more often than not, if I can catch it, I can catch it, and communication then with your full back line is key. So if I... I was never really big at the shouting, Keeper! Because what happens then is that everyone goes, quiet. And then, whoosh, and you're mortified. I'd say mine is all I'd say. No big roars, but as long as my full back is only here to hear away, then they know that I'm getting... getting it. So while you're shouting and roaring like a bull inside, my ball! Everyone knows I'm coming out like a train including the full forward who knows you're coming at that stage. I'd have a good relationship with my full back no matter what age it is and say leave it off, it's mine. And that's as loud as it gets. But if I'm in any doubt, I'm doing that. Save the ball, let the rest look after itself after that. We're going to start on the orange, we're going to race out to the red, reverse to the blue and then there's a shot coming. coming out, stop, back, and then I'm going to hit the ball in low. Again, it's all about getting your center of gravity right, that you're coming forward to take the ball, rather than going backwards like this to try to take it. Out you go, out two, back one, forward, well done, well done. Back you go again, we'll do two more. So this is as simple as what it is. Let's go, back, forward, you're alright, but all the time you're just getting the goalie used to that bit of muscle memory. There's many's of times during games that things that happen for me And to be honest with you I'd look at it afterwards to find out what happened It just happened and that was it Anybody here who's played any sort of GAA or sport When you were playing really well can you remember what you were thinking of? Can you? When you're at your best, just take any day, it could have been under 12, 16, whatever the day you were the fella playing with the Camogie team, corner forward, whatever the case may be. You're thinking actually of nothing really, you're just playing. and that's because your subconscious is taking over driving the car and you're just playing with freedom. There's many a restaurant I walked into, at inter-county level especially, where players weren't playing with freedom. They were paralysed by expectation of what they should be doing and they forgot how good they were and the basics that were drilled into them here. So it's another little thing we have as coaches. You'll have a good goalkeeper in your club. Everyone outside is telling he or she they're brilliant, amazing, they're going to be the next fecking David Fitzgerald or whatever, right? But the reality is you have to manage that and say, look, next step, next step, next ball, next ball, next ball. And that's what this does. It makes sure that your goalkeeper comes out and catches it. I do 15 or 20 of these with the goalkeeper now. So that they finish, they're just doing it and giving it back to you and doing it, giving it back to you. And I'm thinking really about what they're doing. It's just muscle memory. Now, what I want you to do is I want you to come out and take the first ball off me, it'll go on the ground and pass it back to me. I'm going to pop the second ball back over your head. I want you to reverse and catch it. Okay? So out you come. come out to me, hand pass, the next ball back, back, back. Alright, we'll do that again then, right? So keep coming out to me, second ball is going over your head. Come out, touch, hand pass to me, second ball, second ball, and reverse back. So what we're doing here is we're making sure our goalkeeper is comfortable going that direction. If they ever have to go that way, we may as well practice it. Alright, now we'll bring in some of the live ammo. You're going to hand pass to that girl, you're going to hand pass to that girl, and you're going to be running around the back of all of them and take their hand pass. pass off the far over girl and then shoot for a goal. You with me? So all you two girls are doing is jogging forward, you're running around the back of them, hand pass there, there and you hand pass to this girl and then you shoot and you have to shoot from outside the white cones. What's happening here is the girl in the red cone will start with the ball, the two girls inside will do a three person weave only for they're not exchanging places. So the girl in the red, hand pass to the middle girl, to the outside girl but all the time the girl in the red is making her way around the outside. the outside of the group to take a looping hand pass off the girl in the green and white helmet. All of this has to be done before they get to them blue and white cones. Whatever way, hand pass, hand pass, come off the shoulder, hand pass, shoot. Good. Next trick out. So you can see here that most games when we get an overlap, off we go, the forwards make a hash because they think about getting the goal before they think about getting the hand pass. Shot! Good save, well done! So this also helps your forwards because their eyes will light up when they're coming through We've a goal here, and how many times have we thought we've a goal here and you're on the line going You dropped it! Right, take him off Let's go! Bit more speed now, let's go! Pop! Good girls, well done. That's nice. Good save, I love when a goalie ruins a good plan. So to redevelop that then, the two girls on the outside, once they've hand passed the ball, their job is to get in front of that goalkeeper as fast as they can and be a distraction. So we still have a shooter coming off the red down the loop, but the two girls, and this can be a condition drill as well if you're looking to get physical fitness for outfield players, you have your 30 yard sprint into the goal. So they take off once they've given the hand pass, accelerate as quick as they can, and their job is to get in front of the goalie before the shot's taken. In reality they won't, but at least you have another pair of people coming in at the goalkeeper going mental. Okay, same again. This time you're still the shooter. You still hand pass, you still hand pass on the loop. But once the two of you have given the hand pass, I want you to sprint in, in front of that goalie as quick as you can. You're to shoot. Your job is to get in the way of the goalkeeper. get in on top of the goalie before the ball is hit, but your job is to be a distraction. Okay, so as soon as you give the hand pass, you get into the edge of that square as quick as you can. Let's go. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Race in, race in, race in. Get in front of the goalie. Shoot. Control. goal. The other progression on this then is that the middle girl becomes the hooker. So red will be the shooter, hand pass, hand pass, but as soon as blue has given the hand pass they're looking to try to hook red. And then the outside girl is still trying to get in front of the goalkeeper to pick up the pieces this time. That girl now is the defender. So if the goalie breaks it out they're picking it up. It's important that every time your goalkeeper hits the ball you have a fair idea of where it's going and your players know where it's going. Eamonn O'Shea showed me this one many moons ago. when he tried to teach an old fella new tricks. See that box out there? I'd have had about five or six boxes around the pitch. That's where the ball went every single time. Right? So I knew and the players knew that if that box was free, that they were going to get the ball. It's as simple as that. So you need to, when you're hitting the ball then, you see a lot of players will scrunch up when it's going short. The problem is if you have too many moving parts, when the pressure really comes on, you don't get a clear swing and drop short around the ice. the anchors. The first thing I had to do was get a stock swing and that meant staying tall, hitting the ball and hitting through the ball. That was the first thing I had to learn to do because I was going out that distance before I was trying to nurse it and I was trying to half hit it and the whole lot, right? Also the angle that the ball is struck as far as I was concerned was all determined by my top hand. The power was determined by my bottom hand. So if I'm going out to left half back deck and fanning and back into good old days, I have it like a six iron and I needed to get it up and down. So that's my, when I was in the golds, I was changing. If you ever watch any of them, I'm like that with it. Because I'm deciding where it's going to go, six iron there, and just boom, through the ball all the time. That movement, all the time. How I got to that point was I put a camera up on top of the goal post, and I videoed myself hitting the ball. It's as simple as that. If you use a super slow-mo on the camera, it's better again. You get to see when it's not struck right, why. It's normally because you scrunch, or that you don't have free movement of your arms. That's the strike. When goalkeepers are hitting it wrong, their arms are like that. when they're hitting it right, their arms are in full flow and a follow through. Okay, strike a ball out there, no pressure. Good, well done. Follow through, perfect. All the different things will come like distance and all as soon as we get bigger and stronger. Another part too is if you have a goalkeeper in the club who's struggling with distance, give him a heavy hurling ball, put it in water overnight and give it to him to follow through. day and tell him give 10 minutes poking that ball against the net it's going to kill him so what you do then is you put a target on the net how high up you go so you stand back 10 yards from the net and the first night you say well we'll go as far as the first line a week later you go into the next line and later on later on we are always giving goalkeepers targets we can check progress then the target is a happy clappy one it's not if you don't do this you're going out the gate job right it's allowing them to see that the process you put them in is working That's the whole idea of putting that target there. So if you're showing the wall or you put the cones out for distance, the goalkeeper then obviously is thinking the next night, geez, I want to get it higher, I'll really show off the next night now. And guess what, they're at home practicing. Because suddenly they're saying, well, if I go to the field and it is right, I'm going to feel really good. And the reason we do things in life is to get a good feeling out of it. So if you can create that environment where your players are trying to stimulate good feelings for themselves, then they'll go home and practice and they'll bring that practice into the pitch then from there. The other progression then is I put a purple cone out there, we won't use it today when you're practicing the puck out to support. So people are always saying to me, what do you do to get a game plan going, building from the back and all that, right? So what I do is I have my goalkeeper hitting balls into there for at least a month so I know they're going in there. Then I put someone at the purple cone and I tell them hit the ball into the square, the purple cone supports. I'd have another cone out there about 60, 70 yards, that's my midfielder coming onto the ball. Play it off the wing forward there if you want to progress it, flashing into the corner forward. You start that from that side as well, you've got eight or nine people each side of the pitch working. If you want to do it from the far end of the pitch, if you're 25 trend or 30 trend, you do it that way. Everybody's working in sync. The more chaos you can get out there, the better. Next progress then is to put somebody between the square and here. Or put somebody 10 yards behind the purple cone they're chasing them. Putting pressure on the play. But you have to do that. after a month or six weeks where you're sure it's right. I gave at least two months with Eamonn O'Shea putting the ball into bloody boxes at nauseam, right? Until I was doing nine out of ten into the box. And then Eamonn brought in the players into it then. He said, look, he told the different players at the time, didn't tell them all at the one big meeting, but Larry knew that if the space was out there, Larry was walking this direction, leaving the space, and then he'd go. And when you talk about creating movement, Right? If you five players in any forward line, half back line or midfield that think they have a chance of getting the ball, what are they going to do? They're going to move. And they all move. And there's movement. There's no such thing for me as, I'm going to do the movement drill now lads. Let's all go out and run around the pitch. Right? But if each person has an idea where the ball is going to drop, they're going to leave the space and then they're going to move. And when they move, it creates space for the next person. And then their game play or their game management comes into it because they know the space is there. He's going to move now in a second. It might come out here to me. And then the game intelligence starts to flow then from from there so You push off. We see your toe pints the way you're going right if you think about the The one way we'd have done it was I suppose that we just leave yourself fall And then put your foot out to run it's another one of the speed training drills So if I want to go this time direction, I point my toe where I want to go and I push out over that foot all the time. That foot fall out over it. Okay, and that will then get you, you're not missing a step. The last thing we want in here is like that we're, and then we're going here. you know? So that's pretty much where your toe goes, your leg falls out over and then you push off it. You see, what I do, look, I'll tell you what we do in Ballybacon, when I get the under 10s down who I train now, right, I set up mini goals. So to start the training there's goals set up all along the pitch and I put the boys standing in there or the girls if it's a Monday night for camogie and they hit the ball over and back to each other passing it and then I say, right, we'll have a game, who can get to three goals first? And you have them deciding the goals. And what you're doing then is you're watching what's going on. and see who has the graufer. And after a month, six months, maybe 18 months or so, we have a young fella at home, Tiernan, sorry Tiernan, who's a really, really good goalkeeper now. He's exceptional, right? But he wants to play out the field. So every single night then Tiernan plays a little bit more on the goals, do you like it? And DJ was down at an event I had here and he was asked about positions, positions. He felt that every child should play in every position of the pitch from that height up along. So now, since I got that off him, when I'm playing under 10 guys now, I just switch my backs and my forwards at half time. So I go, no, I don't want to play, I can't. And guess what, we've got two or three players now playing the backs who thought they were forwards because coming onto the ball is suited them better. So his theory was that as... coaches we silo players and if a guy is big and strong at full back or a girl right they're full back now that's it but they might go into the county setup or you might need to play cornerback or wing back and they haven't got the skill set because we haven't given them the opportunity to learn it right so that was his view and i'll tell you it opened up my mind and because i just said in the club he's a cornerback he's a corner forward and junk into the silo they go right so when you're back to the goalkeeping thing i show three or four of them then we'll come over here what we do is goalkeeping session take them away They're feeling special, they're feeling loved, all that kind of stuff because that's what they are if they can get them to be a goalkeeper. The others are saying then, what are they doing down there? They're goalkeeping training. Why can't I do that? I want to do that. You can do it next week. And you're bringing three or four every time, bringing them through little footwork drills, little one-to-one training and it's grand. But you're making it sexy again and that's the important thing we're talking about trying to develop goalies. Huge, huge thank you to Brendan. We'll have to keep moving on. Right, best of luck the rest of the day. I know in our club, why he is full back. Sure his father was a great full back before. So as Brendan said, why not give more attention to a number of key words there. Feet, knees, concentration, footwork. Listen to that man for 40 minutes, you can hear confidence. I'm going to see him confident. No problem at all. Best luck.

What I'd like our set stance to be is maybe an inch or two wider. Okay, so you over-exaggerate all that you're doing, your footwork drills, your goalie, so that eventually muscle memory will bring it back from being like this. To be like this, to be like this.

I don't expect any goalie going into goals to be like that. But during some of the drills they will be over exaggerating so that their body will compensate on the day of the game then and get into a more comfortable wider stance. So what we're doing here is we're coming out, we're stopping here, feet shoulder width apart off the balls of your toes, left foot drive, feet, feet, feet, feet, feet, right foot. And out. Okay, so girls, off you go.

Hurley up, that's it. Go around the cone, that's it. Forward, out that one, across, and forward again. That's it, off you go.

Go back around, we go again. We don't want our... feet that close are crossing. If you think about it inside in the goals, when the ball is in the danger area, alright thanks you can hold up a minute, when the ball is in that danger area the last thing we want is our feet off the ground for too long. Why?

Because we need to plant our foot too. to go someplace. Alright?

So you need to just hover over the top of the ground when you're a goalkeeper, like that. Because it gives you a stand instead of the ball goes this way, you're here. If your feet are like this, if I had to jump out there, it's as good as it gets. If I had to jump out there, see the difference.

So it's really important, and even for outfield players, if you tell players go across like that, you're not going to cross like this. If they're clicking their feet, they've no control over their feet. You're talking about players playing the fastest game in the world.

If your feet are like this, feel her off the ground for a millisecond too long you can't turn, you can't change direction, you can't react to what's happening around you. So that part of your feet low across the ground like that is really important, so it's like a crab. So let's go again, off you go. Well done, better, feet shoulder width apart, better and forward out, that's it, you're alright, keep going now. Push off the left foot, that's it.

That was done for like outfield players, but the hurley is down here like this and we're moving all the time. but as goalkeepers, we need to hurl it up. So you come out and it's important as well that your knee drive. If you're looking to take off, you flex your knee and push.

Sometimes you say to goalies, God how did they get off their line so fast? There's two things going on. One, they're in a good position which comes with experience.

But two, they had to drive off their knee like that. They didn't start by going this way. They had a knee bend. So that's why we're teaching our goalies to get off the mark quickly on the outside.

So there's no path to the drill that's wasted. you come here you push off right foot, slightly bend left foot, up like that, right foot and push off. Now girls I'll bring a ball into the equation there.

So all I'm going to do when you come out the far side here, you'll push off your right foot, you'll come forward and I'll just pop the ball off you to catch it. Off we go. Feet shoulder width apart, that's it, forward, shoulder width apart, forward, look up, catch, that's it. Thank you.

Off we go. Hardly off, stop position, that's it. That's it. Head up. Very good.

Okay, stop up for a sec. And the next thing that we'll do is we'll go with one along the ground. And then normally I go back another 10 yards. And then I'm striking the ball at the goalkeeper.

And to go all the time when we're striking the ball all morning, I'm hitting the ball, the goalie can say it. We'll bring in live ammo later on, which is our forwards and outfield players. And they have an opportunity to take the head off the goalie with the odds stacked in the goalie's favour.

But initially we are all the time in here telling the goalie. goalkeeper, how well they're going, how good their body shape is, how this is going to make them play better on Sunday, how what you're doing here is going to help us win the match. Don't worry about playing the games, don't worry about your footwork in this section, then we move on to the shot stopping. Okay, so we'll go once more guys, off you go. That's it.

And up, and it comes low, and touch and back to me. That's it, off you go. That's it. And then the back. Very good.

Another one to help goalkeepers, it's an American football drill where you have your goalkeeper in front of you, their feet shoulder width apart. You get them to do that. And you hold it for maybe six or seven seconds, you go left. They do that, left, centre. This way, this way, back, down, and spring forward two or three yards.

If you get that going, the following morning when your goalkeeper wakes up, their quad should be burning, their calf should be burning. Right, simple as that. Week 2, week 3, week 4, guess what?

There's no burning sensation. Their legs are getting more powerful. And then you're out there watching your goalkeeper and they come off the line like an absolute bullet and you're going, that stuff might actually be working. But it takes 4, 5, 6 weeks to get us to that level.

Okay, the next thing then we're going to look at is over here. So can two different girls come back here behind? Two girls in here please.

Now, so what we're going to do this time is, we're just going to go one foot in each. The whole idea here is that all your drive powers off the ball of your foot. Speed drills before and doing A-marches.

Now what an A-march is, is what a sprinter does in order to get faster. So when you put up your foot, It comes up hip level, but look at my toe. My toe is pointing up towards the clouds So when it hits the ground it hits the ground going that way a lot of people they run they run that way Flat foot and then they're trying to pick up speed on the next drive when in fact your first step is your driving step, not your second one.

Okay, so when we did A marches it was up, toe, toe, toe, toe, like that. And again it gets a range of movement. You must remember the players that we're dealing with are no longer playing tag, 52 bonkers around the school yard, they're no longer getting a range of flexibility that will come naturally as a human being from the age of three when you can run till they're seven, eight, nine, ten. So I think it's our response being out as coaches to correct that, right?

So we need to get them in a range of motion. movement and if we do that, get that flexibility, get the A-marches in where they're starting to move their knee higher than they would have normally. If you watch kids running around the yard it's like this because they can't go full blast.

Don't you fall you'll get killed, stop we'll all get sued, stop stop stop. Right, so we need to help them to get through all that and that's what the A-march is. Toe up so that when you hit the ground you hit the ground running. So based on that then we go through these and it's only four little pats, choke choke choke choke and it's an accelerate on.

Let's go girls. One of you at a time, doesn't matter. That's it, toes toes toes and accelerate out of the way. Let's go.

Your grand duppy shy. Well done, that's it. Now come on get out again, this time I'm going to start at the yellow.

and come back out the same way again. I won't ask you to do anything different for a minute. So again, once you get to the white cones, knees up, come out to me. That's it.

That's it. Paddle through them. That's it. Head up.

Ball is coming this time. Right, off you go. Knees, knees, knees.

Ball is coming. Good. This time it'll come along the ground, so off you come again. So again, it's no more than five yards because that's the size of the small square inside there. Alright?

It's also important that when the players get to a level where they're comfortable. I appreciate the girls and all the times it's all a bit new and there's people watching the last thing you want to do is fall over yourself, isn't it? Like, jeez, it'd be mortifying.

It's important though that when they come through this, it's hyper-extend the knees and then the ball comes. Don't even go four or five yards beyond here before the ball arrives. Because if you want to get off our line quick, then we've something to do.

We're never running off our line really in the goals like an outfield player making a dummy run going, oh, there was nothing in that for me now. If we're coming off that line aggressive, it's because there's a ball coming. All right, so this time again, girls. Let's go.

It's coming low this time. It come out. Well done. Excellent.

Excellent. Good. Next. Last one. That's it.

All right. The role of the coach here too is to get precision. All of us inside in our head want to find the shortest route to get any place. I would say for a coach, we might have to go the longest way.

We go there slowly. We go there precisely. So if one of your players is hopping these too many, I take out of...

video and I'm even talking now getting to 8, 10, 11 up along the line kids and just video a bit of it and then show them look we're not getting faster because everything in the world is made twice, it's made once inside your head and then somebody actually physically made it. So unless they can actually see physically the problem that's going on because sometimes we're all inside in our own heads and we could be doing the wrong thing and someone will say to you go I don't do that and then they show you a bloody video of it and you're going oh yeah I am doing that right? So that addition of technology into it, you don't need to put trackers on their backs, that kind of mad stuff, right? But sometimes you'll know yourself with the player you're dealing with whether they can cope with this bit of feedback or not. When that's you, the coach comes into play as well.

You'll know your player, you're giving good positive feedback and you're saying, look, well, maybe we can do this a bit differently. So the next thing then we're going to do is we might have to come out and go sideways quickly to stop a shot. So we're going to come out, feet in each, we're going to go this way and then we're going to plant and come out.

Again, the ball will come... just as the girls are leaving the outside of this one here. So come out, pitter patter, come to your right and out along.

Let's go. Take your time through it now. Come across, that's it.

And keep the high knee drive on the way across. That's it, keep the high knee Push off, that's it. Again, from a coaching point of view, you do it slowly because there what happened was, that girl came out, she took off from this leg. It's important we take off from the outside leg.

Okay, so when we come out here. knee bend and go. Watch that as coaches, watch the precision of their feet come out and come out the other side. Well done. Plant the outside foot and it comes in from there.

So they're just a few simple, I would say footwork drills that will help us. to maybe get that little bit better. Now, that's one thing alright that we bring the ball into the majority. So you do the first three or four without a ball and then the ball comes in and you as a coach then know how hard the ball needs to be hit. That's important.

So if your goalkeeper is particularly good, the ball comes faster. The last thing we want is a keeper going home thinking I was babied all the way through that. I didn't really feel the hurley on the ball or the ball on the hurley as hard as I should do. They're not getting a buzz or an energy out of it. So it's important that you're up in the bar all the time.

The ball is coming fast. master all the time. Have somebody doing the drills with the goalkeeper that you trust. Don't send Jimmy the 17 year old or 18 year old who's staring the club down because he or she is going to be so tempted to put the ball over the goalie's head to roof it.

You know what I mean? So get someone who you can trust and eventually then your goalkeeper will build with you because the hardest job we have in any club is to try to get a goalkeeper's confidence so they'll actually stand in there. I have a cup one goalkeeper please right it's all well and good having our goalkeepers with the fancy feet and all but they have to be able to do it when the pressure is on its most so what we're going to do here is there's obviously four colors around so at the start I'm just going to call two colors so if I say blue yellow it's blue back to the middle out to yellow and back in spread these out a bit further important thing here is that all the time your goalkeeper is coming through the junction all right and discipline also helps inside here So at the start it is going to be frustrating as coaches because when you say blue, blue-red, they're going to go blue and then they're going to go red and they're going this way and it's no benefit to anything, right?

So at that stage our patience will kick in there and we'll slowly walk through what we're trying to achieve. So we'll just say if I say blue... Orange, red, so it's going to be blue, back to be orange, back to the middle, out to red, back to the middle and there's a shot going to come. You with me? If you didn't I'll know in a minute because the ball hit you in the head.

Now, I'm not going to hit it hard. Okay, so the important thing here is though, that after a while what we're looking to see is that our goalkeeper is doing this with her head up. Like that and there's a shot. That's the movement we're looking for right? At the start now it is going to be, not saying anything against you because I know you're amazing and fantastic, but it is going to be slow and a bit laboured but that's where we're trying to get to.

So we'll go blue, yellow. Blue. back, yellow, middle, shot comes, and it's just a save.

Okay, so we'll advance it up then, because that was good. Blue, yellow, red, blue, back to the middle. Don't touch it, just get a foot outside it.

Red, back to the middle, and save. Well done. That's it.

So you can see where we're going. And then we build it up to four of them. So it's blue, orange, yellow, red.

Blue. You don't have to touch with your hands. Orange.

That's it. Yellow. Feet.

Red. And the shot comes in then. But again, the movement we're looking for... Stay out for a sec. And you'll do this the next time like this, I know you will.

So, all the time you don't have to touch it, what I want you to do is come out, one, two, back to the middle, three, keeping the feet wide, four, stance to save the shot. Okay? because in here, again where the video can help is that in here if your goalkeeper does that and you're able to freeze frame that image and say if the ball took a deflection anywhere in here and you're in any position to save the ball, especially for the older boys or girls that go, no I'm not really. Okay, that's what we're trying to coach, that's what I want you to get to. So again, you're giving that positive feedback and you're actually showing them what they're doing.

Is all of what you think the goalie can say of it? Obviously getting harder and harder. Blue, yellow, red, orange.

Blue, back to the middle. Yellow, that's it. Red, back to orange and the shot comes in.

Well done, well done. Okay, the next one then is where we have to go. right or left. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to throw the ball over the yellow or the red cone. So I need you to stay nice and loose like this.

This is good for our young keepers, anyone up to age 10, 11, just to get their hand-eye coordination going right. So stay nice and light on your feet. Don't ever stand with your, no, light up towards your feet. Like I am now, just nice and light, nice and light.

Here we go. Now just throw it back to me or hand pass it back to me. Let's go again. See, you try the trick, you add on that little bit of extra giving.

Giving them the eyes. Right, ready? That's it, move sideways to catch the ball.

Outfield players, when they're running to get the ball, their instinct is to go in that way. Now if a ball's coming this way, and I'm running that way, I've only that size to stop the ball. Right, I'd much prefer throw the ball to any side of me you like, just pop it up. That.

Difference between an outfield player and a goalkeeper. They'll use their feet to get there. A goalkeeper, an outfield player will use the hurly extension because it's all about getting your hands on the ball.

speed. For me as a goalkeeper my job is to get it in my hand with all my body behind it if possible because if my hand lets me down it pops back out. So that's why here when you're training your goalkeeper if you've got an outfield player in there they'll turn off their foot straight away to catch it that way.

people we want is to do this. It also helps them show with progression that their feet are getting them, we'll get them there. Okay, we'll go again.

I'm going to roll the yellow this time. Feet, well done. Back in again, sideways in.

Back in, well done, good. Let's go again now. That's it, well done. Excellent. See the way she's able to keep her form and shape?

And now suddenly, able to put out her hand and catch the ball. Well done. Go on to this next exercise.

Positioning the side and the goals. I was lucky when I was underage, I was tiny. So that meant I had to appreciate the height of the crossbar very early in my life.

And it helps you throughout the rest of your career then. Goal line here. Where would you stand if the ball hit out from 60 yards?

I'll show there's the goal line. Where would you stand? Stand in.

There's a 65 or a 45 being taken. Where do you stand? Okay. Can you see the crossbar?

If the ball goes in back that way, you're going backwards. Okay. For me, forever and a day, whether I was 5 foot nothing or 4 foot nothing or 6 foot 1 as I stand today, toes behind the line.

See the crossbar. Do not leave this position as a goalkeeper until you are dead sure. sure you're going after the ball. Because the last thing we want is, we start here and we're starting to go this way. And this is a scary place to be as a goalkeeper going backwards.

And how many goalies have we seen, I batted, oh jeez the goal, I hit the crossbar at the hurley. Disaster zone, right? Can be avoided, but also a starting position is good. Also I'd have somebody on the line with me. Why?

Because I'd say if I'm going off the line, you stand in behind me. So there's an extra comfort. They mightn't stop it, but but inside my head I'm thinking, well, at least I'm not the last line of defence anymore. And if I'm coming out, I'm coming out then more often than not, if I can catch it, I can catch it, and communication then with your full back line is key.

So if I... I was never really big at the shouting, Keeper! Because what happens then is that everyone goes, quiet.

And then, whoosh, and you're mortified. I'd say mine is all I'd say. No big roars, but as long as my full back is only here to hear away, then they know that I'm getting... getting it.

So while you're shouting and roaring like a bull inside, my ball! Everyone knows I'm coming out like a train including the full forward who knows you're coming at that stage. I'd have a good relationship with my full back no matter what age it is and say leave it off, it's mine. And that's as loud as it gets. But if I'm in any doubt, I'm doing that.

Save the ball, let the rest look after itself after that. We're going to start on the orange, we're going to race out to the red, reverse to the blue and then there's a shot coming. coming out, stop, back, and then I'm going to hit the ball in low.

Again, it's all about getting your center of gravity right, that you're coming forward to take the ball, rather than going backwards like this to try to take it. Out you go, out two, back one, forward, well done, well done. Back you go again, we'll do two more. So this is as simple as what it is.

Let's go, back, forward, you're alright, but all the time you're just getting the goalie used to that bit of muscle memory. There's many's of times during games that things that happen for me And to be honest with you I'd look at it afterwards to find out what happened It just happened and that was it Anybody here who's played any sort of GAA or sport When you were playing really well can you remember what you were thinking of? Can you? When you're at your best, just take any day, it could have been under 12, 16, whatever the day you were the fella playing with the Camogie team, corner forward, whatever the case may be.

You're thinking actually of nothing really, you're just playing. and that's because your subconscious is taking over driving the car and you're just playing with freedom. There's many a restaurant I walked into, at inter-county level especially, where players weren't playing with freedom.

They were paralysed by expectation of what they should be doing and they forgot how good they were and the basics that were drilled into them here. So it's another little thing we have as coaches. You'll have a good goalkeeper in your club.

Everyone outside is telling he or she they're brilliant, amazing, they're going to be the next fecking David Fitzgerald or whatever, right? But the reality is you have to manage that and say, look, next step, next step, next ball, next ball, next ball. And that's what this does.

It makes sure that your goalkeeper comes out and catches it. I do 15 or 20 of these with the goalkeeper now. So that they finish, they're just doing it and giving it back to you and doing it, giving it back to you.

And I'm thinking really about what they're doing. It's just muscle memory. Now, what I want you to do is I want you to come out and take the first ball off me, it'll go on the ground and pass it back to me.

I'm going to pop the second ball back over your head. I want you to reverse and catch it. Okay?

So out you come. come out to me, hand pass, the next ball back, back, back. Alright, we'll do that again then, right? So keep coming out to me, second ball is going over your head. Come out, touch, hand pass to me, second ball, second ball, and reverse back.

So what we're doing here is we're making sure our goalkeeper is comfortable going that direction. If they ever have to go that way, we may as well practice it. Alright, now we'll bring in some of the live ammo.

You're going to hand pass to that girl, you're going to hand pass to that girl, and you're going to be running around the back of all of them and take their hand pass. pass off the far over girl and then shoot for a goal. You with me?

So all you two girls are doing is jogging forward, you're running around the back of them, hand pass there, there and you hand pass to this girl and then you shoot and you have to shoot from outside the white cones. What's happening here is the girl in the red cone will start with the ball, the two girls inside will do a three person weave only for they're not exchanging places. So the girl in the red, hand pass to the middle girl, to the outside girl but all the time the girl in the red is making her way around the outside. the outside of the group to take a looping hand pass off the girl in the green and white helmet.

All of this has to be done before they get to them blue and white cones. Whatever way, hand pass, hand pass, come off the shoulder, hand pass, shoot. Good.

Next trick out. So you can see here that most games when we get an overlap, off we go, the forwards make a hash because they think about getting the goal before they think about getting the hand pass. Shot! Good save, well done! So this also helps your forwards because their eyes will light up when they're coming through We've a goal here, and how many times have we thought we've a goal here and you're on the line going You dropped it!

Right, take him off Let's go! Bit more speed now, let's go! Pop!

Good girls, well done. That's nice. Good save, I love when a goalie ruins a good plan.

So to redevelop that then, the two girls on the outside, once they've hand passed the ball, their job is to get in front of that goalkeeper as fast as they can and be a distraction. So we still have a shooter coming off the red down the loop, but the two girls, and this can be a condition drill as well if you're looking to get physical fitness for outfield players, you have your 30 yard sprint into the goal. So they take off once they've given the hand pass, accelerate as quick as they can, and their job is to get in front of the goalie before the shot's taken. In reality they won't, but at least you have another pair of people coming in at the goalkeeper going mental.

Okay, same again. This time you're still the shooter. You still hand pass, you still hand pass on the loop.

But once the two of you have given the hand pass, I want you to sprint in, in front of that goalie as quick as you can. You're to shoot. Your job is to get in the way of the goalkeeper. get in on top of the goalie before the ball is hit, but your job is to be a distraction. Okay, so as soon as you give the hand pass, you get into the edge of that square as quick as you can.

Let's go. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Race in, race in, race in.

Get in front of the goalie. Shoot. Control. goal.

The other progression on this then is that the middle girl becomes the hooker. So red will be the shooter, hand pass, hand pass, but as soon as blue has given the hand pass they're looking to try to hook red. And then the outside girl is still trying to get in front of the goalkeeper to pick up the pieces this time. That girl now is the defender.

So if the goalie breaks it out they're picking it up. It's important that every time your goalkeeper hits the ball you have a fair idea of where it's going and your players know where it's going. Eamonn O'Shea showed me this one many moons ago.

when he tried to teach an old fella new tricks. See that box out there? I'd have had about five or six boxes around the pitch. That's where the ball went every single time. Right?

So I knew and the players knew that if that box was free, that they were going to get the ball. It's as simple as that. So you need to, when you're hitting the ball then, you see a lot of players will scrunch up when it's going short.

The problem is if you have too many moving parts, when the pressure really comes on, you don't get a clear swing and drop short around the ice. the anchors. The first thing I had to do was get a stock swing and that meant staying tall, hitting the ball and hitting through the ball.

That was the first thing I had to learn to do because I was going out that distance before I was trying to nurse it and I was trying to half hit it and the whole lot, right? Also the angle that the ball is struck as far as I was concerned was all determined by my top hand. The power was determined by my bottom hand.

So if I'm going out to left half back deck and fanning and back into good old days, I have it like a six iron and I needed to get it up and down. So that's my, when I was in the golds, I was changing. If you ever watch any of them, I'm like that with it.

Because I'm deciding where it's going to go, six iron there, and just boom, through the ball all the time. That movement, all the time. How I got to that point was I put a camera up on top of the goal post, and I videoed myself hitting the ball.

It's as simple as that. If you use a super slow-mo on the camera, it's better again. You get to see when it's not struck right, why. It's normally because you scrunch, or that you don't have free movement of your arms. That's the strike.

When goalkeepers are hitting it wrong, their arms are like that. when they're hitting it right, their arms are in full flow and a follow through. Okay, strike a ball out there, no pressure.

Good, well done. Follow through, perfect. All the different things will come like distance and all as soon as we get bigger and stronger.

Another part too is if you have a goalkeeper in the club who's struggling with distance, give him a heavy hurling ball, put it in water overnight and give it to him to follow through. day and tell him give 10 minutes poking that ball against the net it's going to kill him so what you do then is you put a target on the net how high up you go so you stand back 10 yards from the net and the first night you say well we'll go as far as the first line a week later you go into the next line and later on later on we are always giving goalkeepers targets we can check progress then the target is a happy clappy one it's not if you don't do this you're going out the gate job right it's allowing them to see that the process you put them in is working That's the whole idea of putting that target there. So if you're showing the wall or you put the cones out for distance, the goalkeeper then obviously is thinking the next night, geez, I want to get it higher, I'll really show off the next night now.

And guess what, they're at home practicing. Because suddenly they're saying, well, if I go to the field and it is right, I'm going to feel really good. And the reason we do things in life is to get a good feeling out of it.

So if you can create that environment where your players are trying to stimulate good feelings for themselves, then they'll go home and practice and they'll bring that practice into the pitch then from there. The other progression then is I put a purple cone out there, we won't use it today when you're practicing the puck out to support. So people are always saying to me, what do you do to get a game plan going, building from the back and all that, right? So what I do is I have my goalkeeper hitting balls into there for at least a month so I know they're going in there.

Then I put someone at the purple cone and I tell them hit the ball into the square, the purple cone supports. I'd have another cone out there about 60, 70 yards, that's my midfielder coming onto the ball. Play it off the wing forward there if you want to progress it, flashing into the corner forward.

You start that from that side as well, you've got eight or nine people each side of the pitch working. If you want to do it from the far end of the pitch, if you're 25 trend or 30 trend, you do it that way. Everybody's working in sync.

The more chaos you can get out there, the better. Next progress then is to put somebody between the square and here. Or put somebody 10 yards behind the purple cone they're chasing them.

Putting pressure on the play. But you have to do that. after a month or six weeks where you're sure it's right.

I gave at least two months with Eamonn O'Shea putting the ball into bloody boxes at nauseam, right? Until I was doing nine out of ten into the box. And then Eamonn brought in the players into it then. He said, look, he told the different players at the time, didn't tell them all at the one big meeting, but Larry knew that if the space was out there, Larry was walking this direction, leaving the space, and then he'd go. And when you talk about creating movement, Right?

If you five players in any forward line, half back line or midfield that think they have a chance of getting the ball, what are they going to do? They're going to move. And they all move.

And there's movement. There's no such thing for me as, I'm going to do the movement drill now lads. Let's all go out and run around the pitch.

Right? But if each person has an idea where the ball is going to drop, they're going to leave the space and then they're going to move. And when they move, it creates space for the next person. And then their game play or their game management comes into it because they know the space is there. He's going to move now in a second.

It might come out here to me. And then the game intelligence starts to flow then from from there so You push off. We see your toe pints the way you're going right if you think about the The one way we'd have done it was I suppose that we just leave yourself fall And then put your foot out to run it's another one of the speed training drills So if I want to go this time direction, I point my toe where I want to go and I push out over that foot all the time. That foot fall out over it. Okay, and that will then get you, you're not missing a step.

The last thing we want in here is like that we're, and then we're going here. you know? So that's pretty much where your toe goes, your leg falls out over and then you push off it. You see, what I do, look, I'll tell you what we do in Ballybacon, when I get the under 10s down who I train now, right, I set up mini goals.

So to start the training there's goals set up all along the pitch and I put the boys standing in there or the girls if it's a Monday night for camogie and they hit the ball over and back to each other passing it and then I say, right, we'll have a game, who can get to three goals first? And you have them deciding the goals. And what you're doing then is you're watching what's going on. and see who has the graufer.

And after a month, six months, maybe 18 months or so, we have a young fella at home, Tiernan, sorry Tiernan, who's a really, really good goalkeeper now. He's exceptional, right? But he wants to play out the field.

So every single night then Tiernan plays a little bit more on the goals, do you like it? And DJ was down at an event I had here and he was asked about positions, positions. He felt that every child should play in every position of the pitch from that height up along.

So now, since I got that off him, when I'm playing under 10 guys now, I just switch my backs and my forwards at half time. So I go, no, I don't want to play, I can't. And guess what, we've got two or three players now playing the backs who thought they were forwards because coming onto the ball is suited them better.

So his theory was that as... coaches we silo players and if a guy is big and strong at full back or a girl right they're full back now that's it but they might go into the county setup or you might need to play cornerback or wing back and they haven't got the skill set because we haven't given them the opportunity to learn it right so that was his view and i'll tell you it opened up my mind and because i just said in the club he's a cornerback he's a corner forward and junk into the silo they go right so when you're back to the goalkeeping thing i show three or four of them then we'll come over here what we do is goalkeeping session take them away They're feeling special, they're feeling loved, all that kind of stuff because that's what they are if they can get them to be a goalkeeper. The others are saying then, what are they doing down there? They're goalkeeping training. Why can't I do that?

I want to do that. You can do it next week. And you're bringing three or four every time, bringing them through little footwork drills, little one-to-one training and it's grand. But you're making it sexy again and that's the important thing we're talking about trying to develop goalies. Huge, huge thank you to Brendan.

We'll have to keep moving on. Right, best of luck the rest of the day. I know in our club, why he is full back.

Sure his father was a great full back before. So as Brendan said, why not give more attention to a number of key words there. Feet, knees, concentration, footwork.

Listen to that man for 40 minutes, you can hear confidence. I'm going to see him confident. No problem at all.

Best luck.

Transcript for:Effective Goalkeeper Training Techniques

Transcript for:
Effective Goalkeeper Training Techniques