Conditioned Games

When I was playing football at home a game at the end of training usually took the form of backs and forwards or if we had enough and there was a portable goal around we might split into two and play a match. The most conditions that would be placed on it would be maybe the reliable one hop one solo rule.

Now a day’s though ‘conditioned games’ are all the rage. As with anything you do at training there should be a purpose and that purpose should be explained to the players. One simple game we play has four goals. One team defends its two goals (which should be a good distance apart) and attacks two goals opposite. The other team does likewise but defending/attacking the opposite goals obviously.

The purpose of this game is to quickly switch the direction of the play if one of the goals is blocked. The team should always have a player in the ‘hole’ and the ball should be transferred to the other side of the pitch via home. This requires patience and awareness i.e. don’t try and hammer the ball in through twenty lads, instead switch the play to the space at the other side of the pitch.

We played one the other night which was about reacting quickly when space opens up. The idea was simple. There were four different coloured cones, two on each sideline of the pitch. I could call a player’s name and a colour at any time, even if they were in possession. The player would have to immediately sprint around the colour cone before re-entering play (dropping the ball if in possession). This could be used to create a 3 v 2 by removing a defender or make someone available for a switch pass by taking his marker out of the game as well as creating many other situations. The idea is for players to be able to quickly recognise these openings and capitalise.

I use conditioned games to try and knock bad habits out of us and give us more experience of game type situations. Also they are used to enforce a certain style of play. In our case that should mean moving the ball rather than carrying it.

We use these games a lot. The fact of the matter is we don’t have guys with a load of football behind them so our experience of situations is lacking and also ability wise we don’t have a broad skill set. With that in mind we have to keep things very simple, relying on accurate hand passing and good movement off the ball.

I think guys get a bit fed up of the restrictions so on Thursday we loosened things up a lot. My hope was that the conditioned games we have played would be evident in how we played out a game under normal conditions.

Absolutely not though. We went straight back into bad habits; kicking ball ten yards or nearly worse, thinking we can pick out a lad fifty yards away when he’s marked by two men. Another annoying habit we have (and actually you see this everywhere) is getting the ball out of a pack of people and instead of switching the play, we go straight back into the pack. Carrying the ball, especially into contact is another thing that we seem to think is great craic!

I think a reason for this brain freeze is that guys want to have the ball for longer and make the sexy pass. People get enjoyment out of that. However, the reality is the only enjoyment that is important in hurling and football is that gained from either winning or playing beyond your capabilities. Conditioned games try and train our minds to play to our strengths. The style forced upon you in those games is the style which needs to be brought to unrestricted training games and tournaments.