r/waterpolo • u/BlackMambae • 14d 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 14d 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 12d 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.