‘Encouraging Variety’ is a new workshop, attended by Auckland rep coaches this month, co-delivered by Netball Smart, Sport Auckland and Balance is Better.
Auckland rep coaches in the Encouraging Variety workshop.
Amelia Pasco, Netball Northern Zone NetballSmart Development Officer, says the Encouraging Variety workshop provides tools and techniques from other sports to develop young aspiring netballers.
“From NetballSmart and an injury perspective, netball is very repetitive in movements,” says Amelia.
“So, enhancing a netball coaches toolkit with new activities, helps develop different movement patterns in players for them to become more athletic and injury resilient.”
Development and reducing burnout
Lucy Pollock, Balance is Better Centre Activator at Auckland Netball Centre say the workshop was an opportunity to provide new ways of thinking for coaches.
She says players at rep level are playing a lot of netball – for their school, their club and in their rep teams which is a huge honour.
“At this level, the climate is often for performance - where we’d like to be encouraging more of a climate of development,” says Lucy.
“We know variety is important as part of development, so the variety piece encourages coaches with thinking outside the box.”
Lucy says being able to mentally give the players a break, with new and differing development skills, is important and will ultimately help in reducing the risk of burnout.
Co-development and co-delivery
Sports Auckland Youth Sport Advisor, Michael Halliday says Encouraging Variety is a product of the organisations coming together to promote Balance is Better with the Auckland Netball Community.
Michael says during the workshop he was able to lead the practical session and provided two football exercises, which the coaches could work to create adaptions they could add to their netball coaching toolkit.
Michael says the co-development and co-delivery of these workshops is so important.
“The more organisations from varying areas and levels that collaborate on messaging the better, and I’m really happy we were able to do that for this workshop.”
