Netball practice plan template

A training plan that keeps to the court booking

Most netball clubs hire a court by the hour, and the next team is warming up on the side when yours runs over. A list of drills does not tell you that the passing has run long and match play is about to be cut in half. A plan with a start time beside every block does, while there is still time to do something about it.

So this template is a run sheet. Each block has its length and the minute it starts, counted from the first whistle, with a tick box to mark it done and the coaching cue printed under each drill. It prints on one page, with lines at the foot for notes.

What is in the plan

It is the plan the practice plan maker opens on for netball:

• a five-minute team talk, so everyone knows what today is for;
• a fifteen-minute warm-up of easy laps and dynamic stretches;
• passing in pairs: a chest pass at five metres, a shoulder pass at eight and a bounce pass close in, every ball caught in two hands and moved on inside three seconds;
• dodge and drive: take the defender one way, plant the outside foot, and drive back hard towards the ball, with the feeder passing into the space in front of the player;
• a water break;
• a twenty-minute scrimmage, match play in all but name, where the passing and the getting free are tested against a defender who means it;
• a cool-down.

It runs about an hour and a quarter. For a one-hour booking, take five minutes off the warm-up and five off match play, and the start times on the sheet still tell you where you should be.

The cues that matter in netball

Both drills practise rules that cost junior teams the ball every quarter. Once a player catches the ball they have three seconds to pass or shoot, so the cue is catch, land and get the next pass away. A pass has to leave room for a third player between the hands of the thrower and the receiver, which is why the closest pass in the drill is a bounce pass at about three metres.

In dodge and drive every player stays in the areas their bib allows: a wing attack in the centre and attacking thirds, a goal attack in those two and the goal circle. Netball is a non-contact game, so the defender follows and tries to stay goal-side but never holds or blocks. When you progress the drill by giving the feeder a defender, that defender marks from 0.9 metres, measured from the landing foot, as the rules require. Junior formats such as Bee Netball and NetSetGO change the ball, the ring and some of the rules for beginners, so check the version your league plays.

Changing it

On paper, cross a drill out and write yours beside it, keeping its minutes so the later start times still hold. On screen, the edit button opens the practice plan maker with this plan loaded. Swap either drill for any of the netball drills in the library, such as feeding the circle or the centre pass, change the minutes, and print it again with every start time worked out. It is free and needs no account.

For match day, the rotation maker for netball shares out the quarters fairly across a squad of ten and prints who plays which position in each one.