Director of Coaching Update

 

Hello everyone,

Finally we have some advice and direction to move forward regarding the resumption of football activities.

I am sure you have been reading the papers and watching the news, so will know the advice and direction given by the state government is constantly being reviewed so we need to be agile in our planning.

You may or may not be aware that the resumption of football activities is informed by the interaction of the Federal and State Governments, the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Framework for Rebooting Sport guidelines, Football Australia, Football Queensland and Football Brisbane, as well as our local government representatives.

Discussions are layered and have complexity, with a focus on safety and wellbeing the priority.

Preparation

In recent months, members of the Committee and myself have participated in several Football QLD and Brisbane webinars to plan for the resumption of football, considering training and game schedules, player safety, etc.

Prior to return, each club has to have in place a plan of action including member education, hygiene and training protocols.  Mike Cournane, with a strong history in the Health and Safety area has been appointed the club’s COVID  Co-ordinator and preparations are well underway.

At the time of writing this update, we have two dates on returning to the field

§  Team training can commence from 12 June

§  Competition can commence from 10 July.

However, it is not as simple as the dates suggest.

Training

Different states are interpreting the guidelines set out by the AIS differently. The QLD government has taken a very conservative approach compared to Victoria and New South Wales when it comes to training commencement advice.

Whereas other states can have up to 20 people per field for training, QLD has said we can only have 20 people per venue.  This makes the planning for training simple, but completely ineffective. We also have to stagger training sessions so there is a 15-minute space between the ending of one training session and the commencement of another.

The 20 people per venue rule will be in place for approximately a month, when it moves to 100 people per venue. Even at 100 people per venue it is difficult to get all teams training during the week!

As you would expect, all sporting groups in QLD believe this is unfair and unjustified when we can see more than 20 children in a classroom from this week, children freely running around school fields, full shopping centres etc.

Our football associations are strongly advocating for a change to the 20 people per venue ruling and have encouraged individual club members to let the government know their thoughts.  

Our Club believe that allowing all our fields to be used is feasible whilst still meeting relevant COVID mitigation controls.  We have made written representations to our government members requesting an alignment with the AIS guidelines, which other states are using.  We will update further on this aspect as soon as possible.

Planning

As DOC, I have begun planning for the resumption of training based on the guidelines, as they exist. Needless to say, giving senior, youth and academy teams two training nights per week is very difficult.

I will need to offer training times for some teams over our weekends and also Fridays for the first month to try and accommodate some of these needs.

As well as the training schedule challenge, there will also be a challenge of trying to maintain the social distance guidelines during training. There can be no physical contact, meaning that training sessions will be very much based on individual skill development for the first month.

As mentioned there are also expectations around training hygiene, parent drop off and pick up protocols, use of equipment etc. These processes are underway and we will let members know of these in the week prior to training.

There will be no practice games during this period because that would lead to physical contact between players.

 

Coach meetings

To support all coaches in planning for the implementation of the first phase of training from 12 June I will be conducting two Zoom meetings in the week beginning 1 June and 8 June. Hopefully there will be updated advice as to government training expectations by then.

Coaches will be notified of the days and times related to those Zoom meetings next week.

Fixtures

All clubs, along with the association, are committed to implementing a competition for all age groups and all divisions. This is the expectation.

We are all very confident that this will happen.

At the moment, Football Brisbane has not been able to finalise fixture schedules because of the changing nature of the advice from all parties, and also because of the need to try and align decisions with other competitions around Queensland.

The current thinking is that competitions may:

§  Continue to the end of October, perhaps later for some teams

§  not have a final series

§  Include super weekends, when teams may play 2 or 3 games

§  Include games during the September holidays.

As you would realise, competitions for Miniroos will have different variables to those impacting on senior football. All of these variables are being discussed at the moment.

It is possible that Football Brisbane fixture schedules may need to be shared on a weekly or fortnightly basis depending on the variables impacting on decisions.

Teams

At the time of our pre-season training activities being cancelled, 99% of our junior and youth teams were finalised. We are now being given until the end of June to finalise our team nomination process.

Both the committee and myself are concerned that some parents may decide to pull their child out of football at this time. While we understand the reasons why some parents may choose to do this, the impact on the club would be significant for many reasons.

From the DOC’s perspective, if several parents withdrew their children from each age group, it may mean that all teams in an age group would need to be restructured. This would be impossible to do fairly, as under the current guidelines, we could not get all children in an age group to come to the venue at the same time for trialing purposes.

At this time, when we have so many other things to plan for in relation to training, the restructuring of teams would be difficult and cause come children to be moved arbitrarily into other teams. This would of course cause further distress to the children (and families) impacted. I would prefer NOT to do this.

Players

Although training arrangements for players will be different to what we’ve been used to, we believe that we’ll adapt quickly.  We continue to lobby on improving the 20 per venue aspect and substantial work continues behind the scenes on hygiene and safety arrangements - we will keep you updated in the lead up to training from 12 June.

My most important consideration is to ensure that our players enjoy their return to football. I want them to have smiles on their faces at training and to be eagerly looking forward to the games in mid July.

My current planning is to help coaches prepare for the delivery of the best training possible within the narrow boundaries that have been set for us.

I have been very impressed with the stories of personal commitment to practice by many of our junior players. I know that our coaches are excited about the return to training and will give it their best. I will be there to support them.

If you have any immediate concerns in relation to the coaching program please email me at doc@pinehillsfootball.com

 

Thanks

Ken