With Saturdays Arena league result for the A team being one of the worst in terms of results since I took over as Head Coach, I had a few days of soul searching. From just looking at the result you could say it was a bad night at the office. But look deeper and it turns out it was a very good night at the office.
Including relays there are 102 swims at Arena league, 79 of our swims were quicker than times off the rankings with only 6 being over a second slower than the rankings time. No club had as many swimmers at the bottom end of the age group as us. We were only 4 points off 4th place and with the 2 swimmers we had missing that would of easily been achieved.
The main thing I questioned about my own philosophy was how far behind our 11 and under and 13 and under were as a whole. Knowing a couple of the coaches and how they train their juniors, I know that they are very distance and work oriented. Whilst this gets results at a young age you could see on the night and in the results that provides a lot of success in these age brackets but little to no success in the 15 or Open age brackets. No club scored as many points as us in the Open category on the night. My view as head coach is that we prepare swimmers for their journey to senior success, as statistically speaking Olympic medals are won by 22 year old women and 24 year old men. In my time as a swimmer and a coach I have seen 100's of young fast swimmers dominate up to the ages of 13 or 14 and then disappear off the scene, either suffering from injuries, losing the desire to continually do the work required to be successful or simply having no where to develop to after doing all the hours of training available to them. The holistic approach we take in terms of pre pool, post pool and education at a young age pays off as is clearly shown in the success of our open age group. The way the club is set up where hours are increased through the squads and swimmers are moved up on their needs means the swimmer has every opportunity at continually progressing whilst not being over worked.
Whilst we came last on the night we are coming first in ensuring the long term development of our swimmers. On the night I could not of asked for more from the swimmers themselves, as they fought for every point and not once did the give up. They were a credit to the club.
Keep up the good work, follow the pathway and goals will be achieved.
