Omega Otters, a paranetball group whose training sessions are funded by Herts County Netball and Omega netball club, have finished their Winter 2024 term. Here’s an end of term report from Rebecca, their friend and coach.
This term seems to have flown by, with good numbers attending each week - between 8 and 12. We have been very fortunate this term to have been assisted most weeks by two relatives of one of our athletes visiting from Australia; as they are familiar with netball and have experience with SEN adults they have been invaluable helping with drills and taking part in our game play. We were also assisted by our Walking Netball volunteers again one week when our assistant coach wasn’t available. On that occasion we had only eight athletes but four volunteers, so we were able to do circuit training instead of our usual warm up, with a volunteer manning each station and the athletes moving round in pairs, and then played 5-4-3-2-1 which always requires a volunteer for each pair to help keep count of the passes! On another low attendance week we were able to play noughts and crosses again, and this time after the first couple of rounds some of the athletes did start to grasp the concept of blocking the other team’s line with a little bit of prompting which was very good to see. We also revised shoulder passes this term as some of them had forgotten how to do these correctly. We revisited several favourite exercises including Caterpillar and Three Ball Drill. On high attendance weeks, with volunteers filling in the last two bibs, we were able to have some full 7 vs 7 games. It’s a bit cramped (and noisy!) given the smaller than standard court indoors at Wodson, but everyone really enjoyed the chance to have more people to pass to, and we were able to encourage them to work hard to find an empty space to run to when it was their turn for the ball.
We have again been working on the concept of catching on the move (and passing to someone who is moving), both of which are difficult for most of our athletes to grasp and execute. We also introduced the idea of running one way but looking at the person holding the ball at the same time – we did this in an exercise where they run from the circle edge to under the post to receive a ball, so they had to look toward a feeder on the circle edge. Success was varied and they still need prompting to transfer the skill to actual gameplay but hopefully it is something that will improve as we keep working on it. Our fundraising tournament is planned for 30th June at Sele School, so we are all hoping for good weather that day! As always, we are grateful for your continued support of the session. While the noise on busy (and even not busy!) weeks can be a bit challenging, it is good to hear them all enjoying the game and getting excited calling for passes or celebrating when a goal is scored.
Thank you again from Rebecca and all at Omega Otters
