Boys HS Notes: Focus, Discipline and Dedication

If you train in a half-assed manner, not taking anything seriously, being lazy, cutting corners, being inattentive and goofing off with your buddies, this is how you will play in matches, since this is how you've trained yourself to behave. You will have missed or ignored important coaching points, and will be unprepared to compete against players who have been paying attention. If you take training seriously, and focus on your individual weak points, and listen to and take on board specific coaching recommendations and instructions, then you will play with discipline and focus, and you will improve.

Game focus flows directly from training focus. You will play the way you train, be it well or poorly. Bad game play reflects poor individual and team discipline. It shows a lack of dedication to yourself to better yourself as a player, and a lack of dedication to your teammates and yoru mission to improve and win.

We have a great deal of exceptional individual talent, and some very serious athletic depth in speed, size and strength, but none of this counts for anything against a team that has trained hard and well, and is cohesive in a single game plan, showing discipline to put into action the skills and tactics trained at practice. Every single player on our team needs to get better. This is not a criticism, but a simple observation based on the fact that we are young and inexperienced, and many of our players are true first-year novices. We need to improve fitness, strength, ball handling, tackling, rucking/mauling, developing the counterattack, and basic knowledge of the Laws of the Game. The coaches are ready to work on all of these, if players are willing to show the discipline and dedication to take it onboard.

Players should take EVERY training session as a unique opportunity to improve their game, to work on a specific weak point--and every player has at least one, and usually many. Training is for serious work, and socializing and goofing off is for before and after, and there is plenty of time for this. Show discipline and dedication to your team and teammates, and buckle down and work hard in training. It will pay off in matches.