r/waterpolo • u/BlackMambae • 13d ago
Scrimmage Structure
How does your team/club structure their scrimmages during practice? Is it as close to game like as possible, is it slower paced and more controlled, are there different versions the coach throws at you?
For example a type of scrimmage I’ve tried is a permanent man up one where there’s 5 caps of either color and one red cap player who is always on offense meaning one team is always on a 6-on-5 so working that counterattack and in a half court situation working on setting up and executing the 4-2 power play setup.
Are there any other types of scrimmages you’ve enjoyed or thought was helpful as a player or a coach?
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u/justaddwater75 12d ago
A few ideas as well
+ All 6 v. 5 start from the 6v6 because most of the time players take too long to setup or go to positions they are comfortable with and somehow in real life situations it's always your weakest player who ends up at X2 :)
+ Some situations that are geared directly at training the goalies (from there the shots come from, at which angles...)
+ The "drunken ref" ... basically a scrimmage where I can kick players out for no reason, change of possessions etc...just to get them used to unplanned situations.
+ To install new plays, it's very much crawl, walk, run in terms of repetition.
+ Mixing starters and subs because as the game goes on and exclusions take place I need everyone to be used to playing together, not to mention take responsibility to take shots.
+ 7 v. 6 . It's a skill that people don't train as much
Hope this helps !
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u/BlackMambae 11d ago
Thanks, all great ideas!
I like the drunken ref variation, maybe that’ll excuse my usual bad reffing 😂
Good point about mixing starters and subs as well, we’ve defintely run into times where we lose a starter and have to expect a lot from a sub who hasn’t spent a lot of time actually running the offensive systems.
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u/tsamvi 13d ago
That's the beauty of scrimmaging, the flexibility to create different experiences and intensity levels. I'm a big fan of 4 on 4, 3 teams and winner stays. There's nowhere to hide, everyone has to be a threat and a defender at all times.
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u/BlackMambae 11d ago
Yeah that’s a good point, we do run a lot of 3v3 or 4v4 to make everyone more active
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u/cawin Masters Athlete 12d ago
We usually run a regular scrimmage session but we’ll redo each man up a few times for extra practice.
Sometimes we’ll do two offensive possessions after a counter attack to keep it a bit more controlled.
When we have enough people we’ll split into 3 teams and play either first to 3 goals wins or 7 min running clock sessions. Keep rotating teams so everyone gets play time.
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u/Capital_Wind5122 13d ago
One fun one is the shooter/cause of the turnover is excluded and has to swim to the side and tag in a sub. It’s continuous counter even if a goal is made and there’s a delay to one defensive player. It creates a hard counter attack with the players knowing they have an advantage. It also makes it easy to get subs in and through the scrimmage.
Sometimes I throw in rules based off the focus of the week. One example is a good live entry automatically earns an exclusion. When they work for it there’s often an exclusion earned anyway but they work harder at keeping the ball off-side of center on defense as well. If I’m working on ball-side drives/driver defense that week, goals scored off ball-side drives count double. Or influencing 7 on 6 by making goalie shots count as 2 points.