GAELIC SPORTS WORLD Issue 36 - October 17, 2015 | Page 31

BY JOE TROLAN
OCTOBER 17, 2015
All coaches give feedback but does your feedback actually help or hinder your players’ progression. Feedback is of
course an essential component of both practical and theoretical coaching. Done correctly it can help athletes match
their expectations with reality and encourage athletic growth.
Done incorrectly, it has the potential to damage many players belief in their abilities and commitment to sport. There
are many different avenues for giving feedback to your players
and it is important that your method is flexible because you
will have a variety of different players and player expectations.
A coach should know the players’ expectations and character
so that he or she can alter their feedback style.
STYLE AND LENGTH
The two main principles of feedback are style and length. In
relation to style coaches can give positive, negative or both
as a feedback method but whatever style you choose it is important that each style is used to motivate and reinforce and
encourage progression in the athlete. The style of feedback
should be carefully chosen and alternated dependent on the
athlete. Some athletes can handle negative feedback while
others cannot and as such could resent the coach or the sport.
In relation to the concept of negative feedback – coaches
should also attempt to try and rely negative feedback through
a more positive way rather than just being critical to a player
because feedback should be used to encourage rather than repress players. Therefore, keeping feedback positive is one of
the leading principals of coaching feedback.
POSITIVE
Positive feedback helps to motivate players to challenge
themselves and to try and meet the coaches’ expectations

and exceed their own. For example, if a player does something
wrong during a small sided game then a coach has two options:
1) tell him in a negative manner that what he did was wrong