2. Key Concept 2 The identification of strengths and weaknesses in performance in terms of roles and relationships, formations and tactical elements When you talk about structures and strategies, you should consider the role that you play within your chosen structure or strategy. The success of any attacking or defending strategy depends on how the team operate as a UNIT, with each player performing his/her role to the best of their ability. Let’s look at some examples of roles you might take on in Volleyball: Role Attacking Responsibility Defending Responsibility SetterTo set the ball efficiently for the attackers to have options of where to attack Primary Blocker – to stop the opposition from scoring at the net HitterTo score points by attacking the ball so that the opposition cannot defend it. To defend the opposition’s attack and make an accurate pass to the setter in transition DefenderTo provide a back up, back-court attack for the setter – hitting the ball deep into the oppositions court To defend the back of the court in serve reception and in defence and stop the opposition from scoring points.

3. The individual role that you adopt will be dependant on many factors. These may include: - Your physical attributes (hitters may be tall) - Your ability as a skilled performer (passer needs to be able to defend) - Your decision making qualities (setter chooses where the ball is set) Your structure and strategy should make use of your teams Strengths and Weaknesses, in relation to their role within the team.

4. Key Concept 4 Mental factors influencing performance, including motivation, preparation and mental state during performance - MOTIVATION Motivation is a valuable quality which gives volleyball players the determination, encouragement and desire to succeed at a high standard. It takes account of an individual’s personality characteristics and the situation they find themselves in. (For example, how do they reach to performing in front of a large crowd, or playing a very competitive game) Highly Motivated Volleyballers - look for challenges - want to do well - persist for longer at training - value feedback - enjoy performing - not afraid of failure Less Motivated Volleyballers - avoid challenging tasks - preoccupied with failure - give up easily - seldom ask for feedback - dislike being evaluated - perform worse when being watched

5. - MOTIVATION The behaviour shown by highly motivated volleyball players is likely to be repeated over and over again and maintained throughout training, practice and performance if it is constantly rewarded. REWARD MOTIVATES BEHAVIOUR EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION Rewards can come from outside – such as praise from your coach, prizes awarded or applause from the audience. This is EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION. INTRINSIC MOTIVATION In contrast, rewards can come from inside the person themselves, such as the satisfaction gained from improvement. This is called INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

6. Hello, Welcome, Bonjour, Aloha! Last lesson, we looked at factors that influence your decision on choosing a structure/strategy. Case Study You are a Volleyball coach of a 4 player team. It is the last game of the season and if you win, your team will win the championships and you, as a coach will earn £1 million reward! The other team – your opposition – are a strong team and their main hitter is tall and powerful. They are going to play a diamond formation where you know their hitter will hit her preferred shot down the line. Their main defender however, is slow and struggles to move quickly or react. You have played one set already and they won 25-16. You have two substitutes – a tall hitter and a fast setter. In the first set, you played a diamond formation but didn’t have an attacking strategy. How do you win this game? Give two changes you will make and explain why you are making this change...

7. Learning Intentions.... We are going to develop our understanding of the principles of play We are going to develop our understanding of the principles of play We are going to apply the principles of play to our Diamond Formation in Volleyball We are going to apply the principles of play to our Diamond Formation in Volleyball Copy these learning intentions into your notes, with today’s date. Beside each learning intention, draw a small circle. We will use this, at the end of the lesson, to reflect on what we have learned...

8. Principals Of Play When you are considering your structure/strategy in relation to all the other previously mentioned factors (strengths/weaknesses, roles, qualities etc), you also need to take into account the following PRINCIPALS OF PLAY S Use of SPACES W WIDTH in Defence/AttackW I ISOLATE opponent’s weaknessesI B BALANCEB D DEPTH in Defence/AttackD D DELAYD O OVERLOADO C COVERC M MOBILITYM P PENETRATIONP

9. Use of SPACE You use SPACE when you attack the ball against the opposition. As an attacker, you should be looking at the court on the other side of the net and seeing where the defenders are not covering – and then playing your attack here. You CREATE SPACE in attack by “clearing out of court” when the setter has the ball. This allows you to make an approach to the net where the opposition will not be able to read where you are going to attack. This makes it more difficult for them to defend.

10. DENYING SPACE You DENY SPACE when you block the ball in defence. The blocker is the first line of defence and my choosing their “blocking line” they can take away space from the opposition. The blockers may choose to block “the line” so that they stop the opposition from hitting down the line (denying the space). This may be because your defender on the line is a weaker passer, or because you want them to tip/hit cross-court to free your line defender to prepare to hit. By denying space in defence, you take away options from the opposition and begin to force them into playing the ball where you want them to.

11. WIDTH in Attack You use WIDTH IN ATTACK when you have your two outside hitters attacking from wide on each side of the net. The setter should make sure that she sets the ball right out to the antennae (width of the net). This allows the attackers to build an approach to their hit so that the opposition are unable to read where they are going to hit the ball. It also pulls the opposition blocker right out to the width of the net, meaning she will have to travel further to block. This may allow your attackers to hit over a free net (without a blocker). The hitters should be attacking the ball where the stars are in this diagram - WIDTH

12. WIDTH in Defence You use WIDTH IN DEFENCE when you are receiving serve. Your two outside players (hitters) will cover the width of the court and are responsible for defending any serves which are played out to the side lines of the court. By setting up your defence in the diamond or “one up” formation, you will always be able to have WIDTH IN DEFENCE as in each structure, there are two players who are responsible for covering the width of the court.

13. Isolate Opponent's Weaknesses This is where we identify which areas of the game are the opponent’s weak areas and we ensure that our structure or strategy benefits from this weakness In the Diamond Formation we can certainly isolate our Opponent ’ s Weaknesses. If we identify, for example, that the Opponents blocker is slow to move across the net, then our setter can disguise her set more, and make it quicker to make sure that the opposition blocker struggles to block our attack.

14. Balance This is where we equally use both sides of the court or make use of all the players instead of being obvious or read-able. We can create balance in the Diamond Formation by the setter making effective and regular use of all her hitters. By setting the ball to each side and the back court player, we create uncertainty in the opposition and can outwit their defence.

15. DEPTH in Attack You use DEPTH IN ATTACK when you are attacking against your opposition. It means that you play the ball deep into the opponents court and mix it up with playing some short balls. When you hit down the line in your strategy, you should be trying to play the ball into the back corner of the oppositions court. This will make it more difficult for them to pass the ball as they will struggle to get into that position to make an effective pass to their setter. It may also cause them to be INDECISIVE as to whether the ball is going out, and they may make error in their judgement. In your chosen strategy, you will also be playing short tips cross court. These should be landing, inside the attacking zone, just behind the blockers. This will also make the defenders struggle to make a good pass to their setter.

16. DEPTH in Defence You use DEPTH IN DEFENCE in either the Diamond formation or the One Up formation. It means that you make sure that your structure covers the court from short attacks to long attacks. Players in defence have a responsibility for covering Tips from the opposition (in the one up formation it’s the one player behind the blocker and in the diamond formation it’s the two wide players) and also deep attacks into the back of your court (the players furthest back in defence). It is important that you have this DEPTH in DEFENCE and do not just stand in a straight line – as you will be able to stop the opponents from scoring points on your court.

17. DELAY You DELAY in Volleyball to slow down the game. This may be to allow your attackers time to prepare for their hit or to outwit your opponents who may have prepared for a faster attack. To DELAY in Attack, the setter will slow down the set – making it higher. This might be because the hitter has just passed the ball and needs time to prepare for the hit. Or the opposition defence may have set up a block for the faster attack and therefore, by DELAYING the set, you will outwit the opposition.

18. COVER You COVER in Volleyball when someone in your team is attacking. As your attacker is playing the ball, the other three players should be grouping around him to COVER the block. This is to prevent the opposition from scoring from a “kill block” If your attacker is blocked, it is important that their team mates can defend the block and transition into another attack. In the clip above, you can see why COVER is important!

19. OVERLOAD

20. This clip shows an example of a volleyball team using MOBILITY in their chosen strategy. This volleyball game is 6 vs. 6 but the principals are the same as they are when you play your 4 vs. 4 games. You use MOBILITY when you are adapt your defence or attack to what the opposition do. In Volleyball defence, this means reacting to the type of attack that the opposition are making and – are they tipping the ball or are they hitting? If you have MOBILITY in your structure/strategy, then your team should be able to react to where the hit is coming from and move into position early. They should then be able to take their defensive position from whether it is a hit, tip or “free ball” In attack, you need to have MOBILITY to choose the right play to make in reaction to what the opposition’s defence do. If they are defending quite far back, then you might want to tip the ball. Or if they are defending your tips, you may want to play the ball deep to the back of the court. MOBILITY

21. PENETRATION

22. Strengths of Your Team Technical AbilityPhysical AbilityTactical Ability Weaknesses of Your Team Principals of Play Width/Depth in Attack Width/Depth in Defence Delay/Speed Cover Mobility Creating/Denying Space Strengths and Weakness of the Opposition Choosing your initial structure/strategy Roles and Responsibilities

23. Key Concept 3 Problem Solving and Decision Making to develop and improve performance When playing matches there will be a need to adapt play in response to performance demands. The need to change or adapt current strategy will depend on the following attacking and defending considerations: Is the strategy working or not? Are we being too pressurized in defence that we’re not getting to attack Do we need to catch up or apply more pressure? To suit individuals who can effect an advantage Are the physical demands of our chosen strategy too much? Are we losing? Are we winning? Have the opposition changed their structure?

24. The players must be able to respond to changing situations by adapting their team strategy. To be able to adapt, the team must: - Know the alternatives - Have practised playing against varying offensive/defensive structures - Have practised changing from one strategy to another - All be able to react on court - Understand the alternatives

25. So you have decided to change your structure/strategy because it’s not working. Let’s look at an example of a change: INITIAL STRATEGY We decided that our strategy during our Volleyball games would be to Tip Cross Court and Hit down the line when attacking. As we were playing in the diamond formation, this meant that the two outside players were responsible for this attacking strategy. We decided to tip cross court, because the opposition were also playing a diamond formation and they had left lots of space in the centre of the court. This was our target for tipping cross court. We decided to hit down the line, because the line defender had based themselves high up on the line to cover behind the block, and so if we were to hit hard, with power to the back of the court on the line, then we would find space. It meant that our setter could set forward and reverse set to confuse the opposition’s blocker and could add a little bit of speed to her sets to increase the tempo of the game. In order for this strategy to work, our hitters had to, physically have a lot of power, to jump high and hit the ball hard down the line – to stop the defender from being able to pass it easily. The attackers also had to have a great deal of accuracy when tipping cross court, to ensure that they are able to play the ball just behind the block to make it harder for the defence to pick up. The attackers need to have good balance when attacking so that they can disguise their shot and outwit the opposition. Our setter needs to be fast to get into the correct position after the pass in order to make the most effective set for the attackers. The setter also needs to have good decision making skills to set the ball to the right person at the right time

26. The strategy is not working……WHY? WEAKNESSES When playing against one of our biggest rivals, we found that our team were losing a lot of points. The opposition had taken the first set and were in the lead in the second set. Our coach decided to change the strategy here to see if we could regain the lead. Through external feedback from the coach, we could see that the hit down the line was not being effective. Our hitters were losing accuracy and either hitting the ball too deep and out on the baseline, or too wide and out on the side line. This meant we gave away too many points on errors. This was effecting our attackers mentally as they were losing motivation every time they made an error. The opposition had also started to read our attackers when they were attacking and their blocker was blocking down the line – stopping us from hitting the ball steep and hard down the line. Their defender had also moved deeper on the line, and when we did manage to get the ball in court down the line, he was able to pass it up easily and create better attacking opportunities for his team. Our Tip cross court was less effective as well as the defenders were being able to read the tip more often and were moving in to pass it to their setter easily. As our team were making errors and being defended easily, their level of concentration and motivation was dropping and this began to effect their overall performance. Our coach decided that in order to overcome these problems, he would change our strategy……

27. ADAPTED STRATEGY We decided to change our strategy to overcome the problems identified. Our new strategy was to HIT CROSS COURT and TIP DOWN THE LINE. We decided to hit cross court to allow our attackers more space to hit the ball into. As they were losing accuracy previously, they were now able to score more points by hitting the ball hard cross court. This also meant that they weren't getting blocked as the opposition’s blocker had decided to block line. The hitters were more effective hitting cross court without a block and against a defensive unit who had lined up to defend down the line. This meant that opposition were unable to pass from our hits, or were likely to make mistakes when they were able to pass it. We decided to tip down the line because the blocker was blocking the line, so we could tip it just over the block. The defender on the line had based deep on the court thinking that we were going to hit down the line. This meant when we tipped the ball just behind the block, the defender was unable to reach the ball and we scored points. As a result of changing this strategy, we began to see more success in our attacks and were winning more points. This meant that the team regained focus and motivation and became more confident in their own ability. It also lowered the confidence of the opposition as they were going from a winning position to a losing position. So what did we change it to?

28. STRUCTURES AND STRATEGIES KEY POINTS INITIAL/CHANGED STRATEGY - Description - Roles + Responsibilities - Physical Abilities - Personal Abilities - Technical Abilities - Attacking Roles - Defending Roles - Strengths of Strategy - Weaknesses of Strategy PRINCIPALS OF PLAY - Width in Attack/Defence - Depth in Attack/Defence - Mobility - Cover - Tempo - Delay - Use of/Denying Space DATA COLLECTION - Knowledge of Results - Video Analysis - Observation Schedules - Personal Reflections OTHER FACTORS - Motivation - Concentration - Feedback

29. STRUCTURES AND STRATEGIES HOME LEARNING TASK Answer the following questions in your Homework jotter: (a)Describe a strategy you have used in Volleyball and outline the responsibilities you had in this strategy (b)Discuss how you applied the following principles of play to ensure your strategy was successful