'Talk' and its implications

Hi All,

Had the opportunity to watch some 12 year's representative games in AFL on the weekend that my son played in. Had a little listen to a number of coaches (had to be discrete when listening to the other team's coaches) and all had a common theme that came up, that of 'talk'. All coaches mentioned that 'we need to up the talk' as a key indicator of implementation of the strategies and tactics which would assist the individuals make decisions in relation to play. I have often wondered about talk and how often we teach it (or don't). Models such as TGfU and Game Sense don't deal with this vital component but I suspect that is because the models still don't completely accurately and completely represent the complexity of game play or the authors have realised that the coaching and PE world were not ready for this as well as strategy and tactics and decision making.


Lets examine who talks and what is required to talk, which we can describe as 'verbal communication' (I'll get to non verbal in another post, as it is at the heart of decision making). Have you noticed who talks in, lets say, invasion game sports such as soccer or AFL and when the majority of verbal communication is? It is when the team is without possession (I won't say defensive because you can be defensive with possession), mainly because the more experienced a player or team gets, the less they wish to give away their intent on offence. But what does the team without possession talk about? They give a series of predictions about what may happen to allow the fellow players on the team be aware of the possible courses of action of the other team, what Gréhaigne, Richard and Griffin (2005) note as situation potentials. This range of predictions help stop the offence gaining an advantage from possible plays that are unnoticed or force the opposition to make a more conservative play that does not disadvantage the team without possession. It is ironic that in football, for example, the person who has to talk the most is the goalkeeper, and they are often removed from play to train in isolation, yet they are integral to the 'talk' of a team.
Now what are the requirements of a talker or verbal communicator? Well, the player needs to understand their own role in the conservation (non possession) or defensive structure that allows the team to execute their defensive strategy. They then need to understand the roles that their fellow players or sub team have in this strategy and make tactical decisions on the run to keep up with unfolding 'situational potentials'. From this they then need to understand the range of possible opposition responses as individuals, a sub team and a team to their patterns. They then need to get this out of their mouth before it happens to let the others in the  team know. If on offence, such as in AFL when they are disrupting runs from behind a player, they need to combine this with their action in the one instance. This does not include the player who is the 'talker as encourager', the life and soul of mots teams. No wonder we simply use the statement 'We need to talk more'. It is so much easier than teaching it!

I use a number of methods. Firstly, I have a player out of the field of play who has to describe all of the elements without having to combine this with movement (this is an injured player at training or a non uniform student). This has been noted by one of our best players as 'incredibly difficult', from positioning himself in the best position to see everything to getting his message out in time. In net court games, we have a player standing on a chair to oversee the action. I am also tempted to try a 'loose player' who has no possession responsibilities to just be a talker about play about to happen. If we want it, we have to teach it!

I wonder when was the last time you actually taught how to 'talk' aligned with what is required to do this in schools or coaching?. As players, and as a central defender, I was a talker. As players who then become teachers or coaches, we often take what is required to do this 'talk' for granted or already have a couple of players of students who can do this so expect others to be able to as well. Ken Robinson notes that it is hard to know what we take for granted as ... we take it for granted. Do you do this in your coaching and teaching in relation to verbal communication?

Lets us know what you think.

Greg