Omega Otters, a paranetball group whose training sessions are funded by Herts County Netball and Wodson Park netball club, have finished their summer term. Here’s a end of term report from Rebecca, their friend and coach.
“We held our fundraising tournament at Sele School on July 9th; the weather behaved in the end despite threatening otherwise. We had enough for four teams of players – every team a mix of ParaNetballers from both our session and St Albans, regular netballers of various standards and ages, and family members who had been roped in! We played two rounds, with the White team winning one round and the Purple team winning the other round. We raised over £200 to add to the accounts. As usual our athletes benefited from playing alongside others; some of the skills we have worked on lately are hard for them to practice when they are only playing with each other – for instance, catching on the move requires a ball to be thrown into space, which most of them struggle with. Playing alongside people who know how to give a ball into space (and have the confidence to do so) gave them the chance to demonstrate they could do this outside of just practising it with a coach. The excitement also helps to bring some of our quieter members out of their shell!
We have continued working on our change of direction drill, with spots set on the floor to practice moving down court in a zig zag pattern before entering the circle to receive a pass from a coach/volunteer under the post. As well as the change of direction itself, we have used this to work on the concept of receiving the ball close to the post and, for those who are able to do so, to use a jump to try to land a bit closer. We also played the “spots” shooting game a few times, with two teams going head to head to see who can win the most spots by standing on one and scoring a goal, and revisited our square drill that encourages timing to move out for the ball.
Volunteers from Wodson Walking Netball have again been to the session a few times to help out when our assistant coach is unavailable, which has been invaluable.
As always, we appreciate the support for the session from the county. We are now enjoying a well earned summer break and look forward to restarting in September.
Thank you again from Rebecca and all at Omega Otters.”
