This is a periodic update in my role as Indoor Performance Director for Volleyball England. I laid out the high level priorities under which I’m operating in my initial post.
As I wrote in the.
December Juniors camp
We ran a camp for kids in the 2007 and younger age groups (some as young as 2011). The heavy focus was talent assessment. There were a lot of kids we needed to either get another look at or see for the first time in a national team context to judge if they were Pathway material – at least at this point.
Unfortunately, the camp was bookend by a pair of serious medical issues. On the first day, following their first court session, an athlete had a seizure. Then, on the final day during their last session, a different athlete was hit by a ball and suffered a concussion. In between there were a few minor issues, but the trainer (physio) was definitely kept busy dealing with athletes carrying pre-existing conditions (shoulders, knees, ankles, etc.).
I will definitely say that organizationally the camp could have been better. A number of things we’d otherwise have had in place weren’t there simply because I was the only administrator on-hand. I do think, though, that generally the coaching staff provided a consistent athlete experience.
Seniors tournaments
The Senior national teams took part in two separate tournaments the first weekend of January. One was the Novotel Cup in Luxembourg. The other was the 5 Nations tournament hosted by VE in England. This obviously meant splitting squads and coaching staffs.
Starting with the latter, both the Men and Women played in a round-robin against Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland (a team dropped out). The men fielded an mostly experienced team and only dropped a set to top the field. They then played Scotland in the final and won that convincingly as well. The women fielded a younger group that not surprisingly had a more difficult go. They still managed to take second, with their only match losses coming to Scotland in the pool and the final.
Things flipped around for Novotel. The men’s team was a less experienced one, while the women sent their stronger squad. They were meant to play three matches, but a team dropped out, so there were only two official ones. Both teams lost to the hosts, but beat the German U18s. The coaching staffs were pleased with the performances.
U18W in Romania
In the latter part of February we sent a group of U18 girls to Romania for a bit of training and competition. A local Romanian club hosted them. There schedule featured a trio of matches against club sides, with training time mixed in. Naturally, they also had some cultural experiences as well.
The reports back were very positive. The team didn’t win any of the matches, but it was a positive learning experience by all accounts. The newest member of our admin staff went on the trip as her first exposure to the sport. She came back with some quite useful takeaways based on her prior experience as an S&C coach.
Athlete Management System (Perfbook)
Juniors camp in December provided us with our first intensive use of the Perfbook platform we’re using for athlete management. We set up daily schedules on there. Well, at least for the main stuff like training and education sessions. We didn’t go so far as to put in meal times, bus departures, and things like that, though we could have. That was the relatively simple stuff.
The more complex, and arguably more useful, elements were the questionnaires. Each morning there was a check-in questionnaire about how the athletes were feeling. Then, after each session, they had to report an RPE. Those two things were useful for the staff to monitor where the players were at through the camp.
We also used the questionnaires in an assessment fashion. I created one the coaches used internally to rate players and enter notes on them. Another was feedback to go to the player after camp. Finally, the players had one of their own to do a kind of self-assessment.
I definitely won’t say everything went smoothly. I don’t think any of the check-in questionnaires were close to 100% completion by the athletes, for example. As a first go at using the system in this way, however, I think things went reasonably well. Moving forward, we’ll definitely want to find a way to enforce the system’s use.
U22 Euro Qualifiers
We finally learned just last week the pool assignments for our U22s for July’s Euro qualification groups. The Women will travel to Slovakia to compete in a pool that also includes Poland (likely favorites) and Isreal. The Men go to Italy for a pool which also features Ukraine and Denmark. The top team from each pool (5 in total), plus the 2 best runners-up, advance to the finals next Summer.
Upcoming
We’ll be back in camp with the U18 and U20 groups in April, after recently selecting the attendees. We’re looking at arranging a similar Romania trip for the U18M as what we did for the girls. This is part of preparation for U18 Euro qualification happening later in the year. The Seniors are looking to play some friendly matches against teams entered into this year’s CEV Silver League to help see where they’re at competitively. And, of course, the U22s will be preparing for Euro qualification coming up this Summer.
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