Coaching tactics

The purpose of this chapter is to develop the readers’ knowledge and understanding of coaching tactics in games. This is an important issue in coach development because tactical knowledge is a critical component of coaching expertise. In doing so, it has identified tactics from team invasion games, central net and wall games as well as striking and fielding games. Moreover, it suggests that the development of players’ tactical understanding can impact positively on their decision-making performance during games play. This chapter has also introduced the reader to the game-focused, player-centred approaches to coaching to demonstrate the ways in which coaches can enhance player tactical knowledge and decision-making skill. It has stressed the need for coaches to simplify, or complicate, game tactics to provide their players with developmentally appropriate game forms that continue to make authentic decision-making demands on their players, even players at an early stage of the learning process. To further develop the readers’ knowledge and understanding of the issues described, the theories of learning that attempt to explain how players develop decision-making skills were also presented. It is hoped that this chapter encourages coaches to continue to develop their knowledge of tactics, coaching tactics and player learning so that they have the knowledge and skills to improve their players’ game performance, thus providing them with success, confidence and enjoyment in games participation and learning.