Welcome to my new coaching blog. As well as being the publisher of this fine magazine and web site I'm also an aspiring coach. Some of you may remember the story of me getting my AFC C License which appeared in the magazine a couple of years ago and we've added to this new performance section. I live in the Sutherland Shire, south of Sydney, and the Sutherland Shire FA has the highest number of registered players of any association in Australia - just over 17,500 players.  The local State League team is the Sutherland Sharks.

For the last two seasons I've been coaching the U11 and then the U12 boys Development Squads. I'll try and explain how our system works here. From U13 up to senior level the Sutherland Sharks run their own show and these squads are open to players and coaches from any location. The Sutherland Sharks U11 and U12 reps teams are run by the Shire FA under the Sharks banner and are only open to Shire residents. A few years ago the Shire FA also instigated a development squad program which runs alongside the representative sides with the aim to taking the next best squad of players and give them extra coaching of a high standard to keep them in contention for representative football the next year. The players still play for their clubs at weekends but get an extra 90 minute session at the Shire FA each Monday for 30 weeks. We organise the odd game through the season to allow them to play as a team and put into practise what we have been coaching them which we appreciate may differ from how they are asked to play at weekends including playing in different positions than they are used to. The development squad program also provides a platform for developing local coaches with all positions at DS and U11/12 reps filled by local coaches. This year we have run boys programs at U10 (32 kids), U11 (16 kids) and U12 (16 kids). There are also girls programs at U12/14/16 running alongside the boys programs. Each program has one coach per 8 kids.

No sooner have we finished the program for this year than we embark on the trials process for next season with trials at all the age groups above but also now at U9 boys and U10 girls. We are expecting somewhere in the region of 1,000 children to trial over the next four weeks for the various representative and development squads.

Next season I will moving down to the Under 10 age group with a group of 32 kids and 4 coaches. Over the course of the season I will share my session plans with you and some of the challenges coaching this age and number creates. My aim as a coach is for every player to leave me a better player than they were when we met and for as many players as possible to go on to play a higher standard of football the next season. To be honest I have no interest (yet) in coaching senior football. I'm really enjoying the 10-12 age group - the golden age of learning - as it's referred to in coaching circles where the focus is on technique and game sense development rather than winning matches. The players have not yet found booze and girls - at least you hope they haven't - and they are all focused on becoming better players. I have an ace up my sleeve as publisher of FourFourTwo as nothing seems to focus them better than the promise of free mags at the end of the session. I also see part of our role coaching kids of that age being developing them as people too and we do this in very basic ways such as insisting that every player shakes hands with us at the start and end of every session. It's a simple but effective way of creating a bond with them, making them feel a bit grown up as most of them don't greet people that way at their age and on a practical level it's a great way of accelerating the learning of their names!!

Recently the Shire FA produced a strategic plan which I'll share with you here that outlines the objectives for the association. I'll keep you posted on the trial process as it unfolds. Feel free to fire any questions at me in the forums.