'MEC Press' March School News Publication 2020 | Page 20

LGFA TY/AS Programme

By TY Ella Hayes

On the 26 th of February, a group of 12
Transition Year ladies’ footballers went to
Rathcoffey G.A.A to spend the day doing a
coaching and refereeing course with Elaine
McGovern.
Refereeing
They started the day doing the referee
course. Every girl was handed a TY/AS
Programme booklet which included
everything you needed to know about
coaching and refereeing. The girls learned
the roles/ responsibilities as a referee and
the signals that a referee would need to
know on the pitch. They also spent time
identifying several offences as Red Cards,
Yellow Cards, Non-technical offences and
Technical offenses. They did this in teams of
two and were up on their feet learning in a
fun and active way! The girls also learned the
‘Go Games’ rules, score keeping and how to
communicate as a good referee.
Coaching
After doing the referee course the girls
moved onto the coaching course. They
learned the ‘IDEAL principle’ to coaching.
This is to Introduce the skill, Demonstrate,
Explain, Attend and Look/Observe. They
learned how to demonstrate a drill correctly
using the ‘Head, Hands, Feet’ technique.
They then learned the ‘Coaches Ten Point
Plan’ and organisational hints. After learning
all of the skills they would need to know to
be a coach the girls split up into groups of
three. Each group coached the other 9 girls a
warm-up, skill drill and fun game. This was
the girls’ favourite part because they all got
very competitive and had a great laugh.
Elaine was also giving them some tips as they
were coaching each other.
To finish off a great day the girls started to
organize a football blitz for the girls in first
year. They will use all of the skills they learnt
on the day to do so. It was a great day out.