Technical Directors kick off 2019 season with first workshop for the year

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In preparation for the 2019 football season, NPL and Association Technical Directors recently met at Valentine Sports Park for the first Technical Director workshop of the year.

Technical Directors from each of the divisions of the NPL men’s and women’s competitions as well as local Member Associations were amongst the more than 40 attendees present.

Presentations were delivered by key representatives from companies, Hudl/Sportscode, introducing their video analysis software that is now available across the NPL footprint, and Smartabase, with their athlete management system and its role in talent identification.

Senior technical staff from the FFA’s National Team and Coach Education Units were also present and spoke of their plans going forward and their desire to be integrated within the NPL ranks.

Ensuring synergy between the men’s and women’s Technical Directors at the NPL level is a key priority for Brian Dene, Football NSW’s Women’s & Girls’ Technical Director.

“Firstly, I would like to thank all of the Technical Directors who took time out of their busy pre-season preparations to attend the workshop. This will be one of many similar events that our Technical Department will be organizing in the coming months, all aimed at improving the knowledge and capacity of technical and coaching staff with our clubs and associations.”

The workshop showcased the valuable role that Technical Directors provide to support the two key strategic spearheads of player development and coach development.

Talent Identification was a key focus for the day with a presentation from Doug Kors, fresh from his time at the recent 2019 Asian Cup, outlining the process of identifying players for future state and national teams via the technology platforms provided by Smartabase and Hudl.

Dene continued, “It was great to have Doug Kors from the Socceroos in the room to share how the various national team coaches use Hudl for their game analysis and how it can assist our clubs with talent identification and coach development. Having Dan Duffield from Smartabase present was also enlightening particularly given our current concerns about player welfare so we will be adopting this system more and more to monitor overload. Increasingly we will be using both technology platforms in our boy’s and girl’s State Representative squads and our Talent Support Program at the same time as encouraging NPL clubs to adopt a similar approach as part of encouraging best practice principles.”

Warren Grieve, Football NSW Men’s and Boy’s Technical Director was extremely pleased with the workshop.

“It was great to see so many TD’s in attendance as these types of gatherings are a great opportunity to get together, discuss common issues, new initiatives and ways of working collaboratively to improve all levels of the game.

“With NSW being so big from both a geographical and playing numbers perspective, utilising technology and ensuring breadth of coverage by Technical Directors and coaches will assist us in identifying potential talent, not only for our State Teams but also for National Team selection. It is our strong desire to lead the country in some of these aspects and to maximise the chances of NSW players wearing the green and gold.”