RichardHowells posted on May 05, 2009 17:24
Head Coach’s Report 2008-09
Development
We’re a small club with limited time and space, yet we try to cater for everyone’s needs:
- Individual players with varying experience and ability (from beginner to NVL level)
- Developing 3 teams (especially when a match is approaching).
For the second year we ran 3-hour sessions, allowing two different
groups to train each Sunday. Last year’s AGM agreed we should have more
sessions for everyone mixed together, however there were more league
matches so overall we had fewer team training sessions than last year:
|
Nr of sessions (min 1.5 hr)
|
Everyone
|
A-team
|
B-team
|
Ladies
|
Juniors
|
|
2008-09
|
15
|
4
|
6
|
5
|
3
|
|
2007-08
|
13
|
12
|
11
|
3
|
3
|
Together with various competitions, plus the summer fun sessions on
sand and grass and the trip to Austria, I believe we offer our members a
very good deal. Many thanks to the people who helped to organise and
coach all this activity! I’m always pleased to receive feedback and
ideas (and volunteers) to help us keep improving.
Some of our members play higher level competition with Wiltshire
Mavericks (regional and NVL, men and women), Newbury (NVL men) and
Polonia (Cinzia in NVL div 1). Congratulations to all these players, and
thank you for remaining loyal to your local club. I hope one day we
might have our own NVL team – that way we would keep the expertise in
our club and cater for an even wider range of members. However it would
require greater financial and organisational commitment than we
currently invest.
Each year we should ask what kind of club we want to be?
Performance
Top performers this season were the Women’s team, winning six
league games and losing only one (to Devizes by one point!). However
late changes by the organiser meant that our small squad was unavailable
for two of the four league dates, so we guess the league title has
eluded us. We also reached the women’s cup final before losing to a
strong Devizes team.
The A-team came 2nd in the Premier League again… unable
to field a full squad in either match against eventual champions
Devizes, we lost the deciding set 23-25 in both matches. We would have
been champions if just one of these sets had gone the other way! The
season started with a poor defeat to Olympiad in last year’s delayed cup
final, and is due to end with a delayed cup semi-final against Devizes.
The B-team played in an expanded Premier League for the first time
in club history, and continued their improvement from last year. Despite
two good wins we were unable to get the better of Calne and will be
relegated. A big thank you to Irwin for his dedication as coach.
Another “nearly” season… but not bad for a small club with limited resources?
Phil Heads, 29th April 2009