Coaching for player learning using Play with Purpose

In my role as a teaching and coaching 'academic'* I get to see a lot of sport teaching/coaching in community and professional coaching settings. While I see many coaches have adopted elements of game-based play with purpose to develop general game skills and sport specific movement skills, what I still mainly see is what is often called a “traditional” method. That is, players in lines waiting for turns to move off markers in defined movement patterns using prescriptive (what some call textbook or stylised) techniques under mostly  directive coaching/instruction (Light, 2012). 

While I have observed a move towards more game form practice, what I mainly see is what use to be called an open drill rather than game form practice, and match simulations or match play still are most likely to occur at the end of the training session. This is reminiscent of the drill-drill-drill-game structure that the introduction of game-based coaching in the UK in the 1960s and elsewhere was intended to disrupt and displace. In Australia, that disruption of a common and also called traditional 'drill-to-skill' coaching approach was meant to be disrupted by the introduction of the Game Sense approach by the Australian Sports Commission in the mid-1990s. 

 

*If you are unfamilar with the concept of open and closed drills, I explain the two concepts here

The literature from a dynamic systems perspective of games as complex changing systems helps to understand why a game-based approach with its emphasises on creating practice situations that are representative of the performance context 'works'. This is described as information-movement coupling (Serra-Olivares et al., 2015), in order to intentionally facilitate transfer of learning from practice to play. In this area, the work of Grehaigne and colleagues has been particularly instructive to my thinking. If you are interested in the idea of 'systems based' coaching I blog about Grehaigne and colleagues ideas here. The book Teaching and Learning Team Sports and Games remains one of my 'go-to' reads. (Available here)

'Those who have been around for a while' will see parallels with the intentions of a game-based approach and the old maxim 'practice as you want to play' - the principle of 'specificity': that is, the idea of conditioning game rules that structure the playing environment, what players can do, and how a game is scored deliberately, are intentionally used by coaches to achieve a 'teachable moment' - a metaphor for the learning intention of the activity. Teachable moments are ideal opportunities for coach use of inquiry strategies such as a 'freeze replay' (Worthington, 1974) with convergent and divergent questions to the players (Raya-Castellanoe et al, 2024). 

Modifying games to condition (shape) play to achieve specific player learning intentions is a feature of all game-based approaches.

Involving players in game play is not the end of the story. The play must be purposeful. Players may learn by figuring it out by simply being involved in play, but the asterix here is that the movement models may lead to the players developing functionally adaptive movement ability, but there is also the possiblity of what Alan Launder (author of Play Practice) called 'dead end' techniques. Techniques that may be successful to a level, but won't be able to take the player any further. For sure, some players will learn by mimicry and careful observation of top level players or by attention to the 'bunker' analysis of performance available while watching televised broadcasts of elite sport. But I believe that this is leaving player development to chance.

Education research indicates that practice which is structured and deliberately designed to be progressively and coherently complex stimulates learning (Darling-Hammond et al., 2020; Kuhn, 2008). In sport  coaching, physical activity provision whether by game form or practice form (like a drill) is not of itself educative; you can have players engaged in training and no education occurs, only performance of existing skills, knowledge and understanding. That is, retrieval practice. If learning - helping the players 'be better', is the intention then learning implies improvement and an adaptation on behalf of the individual resulting in an changed state of performance ability over time. 

To achieve performance improvement over time coaches need to be clear about the target concepts and capabilities that game-play or game-form practice is designed to develop – I call this design play with purpose. Some of the elements which contribute to this play with purpose are:

Practice is game-centred, but not game only: In game-based coaching approaches play is the core element of training/lessons, the orientation of the coach is towards inquiry with players to develop them as 'thinking players', but directive teaching is not excluded or precluded. I believe that the pedagogical 'skill' of a coach is in knowing when and with which players to use particular coaching (teaching)  methods.

Practice features small-sided game play but is not restricted to small sided games: Less players means more game engagement for each player and therefore more opportunity to consolidate movement understanding and capability. With young players, small-sided games is a tool to accelerate game development. With older and more expert players, small sided games may be used as a warm-up to focus on 'retrieval' or 'activation' of specific technical and tactical skills that will be foregrounded in match-simulations or phase play practice that follow. Small sided games may be used to teach game moments, or typical scenarios that commonly occur in a game.

Designer games are used to package technical, tactical and fitness outcomes**: Teachers/coaches can manipulate game constraints (from an ecological perspective: task, performer, environment elements) or game conditions (rules of play impacting what players can and can't do) to focus learning on particular game outcomes, such as a principal of play or a strategy (team) or tactical (individual) game behaviour. I was familiar with this deliberate, intentional manipulation of the parameters of play (some now call constraints) as a concept called Shaping Play 'back in the early 80's'. 

Representation (from an ecological perspective) or coherence to the logic of play (from a cognitive perspective): Transfer from practice to play is facilitated when the practice task is representative of the game context. Hence, "practice as you want to play"

An early model of the scale of representation of practice activities comes from Worthington (1974).

Transfer: Games from the same game category (Invasion, Target, Net/Court, Striking/Fielding) are presumed in a gme-based model to ask similar “questions” of players from the configurations of play (from a cognitive perspective, the pattern of play can be recognised if the player has a mental representation or model of the situtation - the configeration of play). The tactics and specific strategies developed in response to game “questions” or “problems” learnt in one game/sport can sometimes be applied in another game/sport in the same category. For example, in Australian Football (AFL) the team in defence will attempt to get the opposition kick in from a point score to go towards the boundary where they are more likely to be able to adopt a defensive shape that contains the ball in a position that the team kicking-in will find it hard to exit from. To achieve this, 'density' (player numbers) are concentrated in the 'corridor'. Similarly in basketball, from a defensive rebound there frequently is an outlet pass to the boundary as the opposition has defended the central corridor of the court. Different sports, same defensive principles of play in action. In the sport I do a lot of coach developer work with - Australian football (AFL), I heard coaching great David Parkin tell the story of recognising in the early 1990's that Australian Football was evolving from a positional game to an open field game, as Lacrosse had earlier done. Therefore, he could learn from lacrosse coaches to inform his football game plan. Former Sydney FC coach Paul Roos is talked about as bringing basketball zoning and pressing tactics into the defensive structure of Australian Football, while I have heard Hawthorn FC coach Alaister Clarkson talk about what he has learnt from association football (soccer) at an AFL Coaching Conference, and I saw a presentation from former A-League coach Ernie Merrick comparing ball movement patterns and player set ups around the ball as essentially the same in AFl and association football.

Read here Clarko's lessons from abroad

Positioning players as problem solvers to develop 'thinking players': In a game-based approach with play with purpose learning is scaffolded by the deliberate use of questioning to lead players to 'discover' target concepts. It is assumed that when a player discovers a solution they are more likely to retain the new knowledge and understanding than if being told. Being able to shape the play and focus the play on the purpose for the play through well designed questioning is an important, but perhaps the most difficult, pedagogical skill of an ecological constraints-led coaching perspective and a game-based coaching approach (like the Australian Game Sense approach). Part of the difficulty is knowing if the question is promoting player recall of understanding or truly guiding discovery of understanding. Questioning is a nuanced teaching skill, in that questioning may be deliberately closed to focus on a right answer to remind a player what to do, or what a rule is, or what their role in the team structure was in a moment of play. The questioning may be designed to converge on what the coach/teacher considers to be the 'right' answer, or the coach may be seeking to stimulate creativity or option generation by open-ended divergent questioning. The Spectrum of Coaching Styles contains useful descriptions of the distinctions and when each style of questioning is most appropriate. (if interested in these ideas, The Spectrum of Coaching Styles book is available here)

Focus the play: Practice tasks should be purposefully focused on game concepts or player tactics. Often this achieved by being clear with players what the learning intention of the game is. In education, we call this 'explicit teaching' or visible learning, in that the learning purpose of the activity is visible (i.e. known) to the players. This doesn't mean players are necessarily told 'how' to achieve the outcome/intention. Another way to focus players is by informing and forming the thinking of players through the coach use of cues and questioning. This a method of setting the cognitive focus of the players.

The objective of learning in this game-based environment can be considered to be game sense, also called game intelligence or game logic, which is referring to the players decision-making and execution ability; some might say ability to couple perception-and-action. While technique is the visible display of movement, in a game-based approach Skill is understood as Technique coupled with Game Context (den Duyn, 1997). Therefore, knowing what to do, knowing how to do it, and being able to do it are not separate but rather intertwined and complimentary components of performance

What this means to learn in and through games is that the games are designed differently and therefore 'look' different based on the players readiness to learn. Below, modelled is the differing focus as players progress their tactical-technical ability I use in Play with Purpose resources. 

Related Blogs

Developing thinking players here

Closed and open practice here

System based sport coaching here

When do I work on things players are not learning through play? here

Play with purpose as deliberate practice here

The Game Sense coaching approach using game modifications and affordance theory here

Developing game sense by delberate coaching here

Making sense of game sense coaching here

Inquiry stratgies to develop thinking players here

Coaching sport for understanding (the ideas of Wade and Worthington) here

References

Darling-Hammond, L., Flook, L., Cook-Harvey, C., Barron, B., & Osher, D. (2020). Implications for educational practice of the science of learning and development. Applied developmental science, 24(2), 97-140.

den Duyn, N. (1997). Game sense: Developing thinking players. Belconnen, ACT: Australian Sports Commission.

Gréhaigne, J. F., Richard, J. F., & Griffin, L. L. (2012). Teaching and learning team sports and games. Routledge.

Light, R. (2012). Game sense: Pedagogy for performance, participation and enjoyment. Routledge.

Kuhn, L. (2008). Complexity and educational research: A critical reflection. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(1), 177-189.

Pill, S. (n.d.). Game based coaching as deliberate practice for LACROSSE Developing the tactical-technical connection through Play with Purpose [available via Research Gate]

Pill, S., SueSee, B., Rankin, J., & Hewitt, M. (2021). The spectrum of sport coaching styles. Routledge.

Raya-Castellano, P. E., McRobert, A. P., Cárdenas, D., Fradua, L., & Reeves, M. J. (2024). Exploring the ‘teachable moments’ of questioning during training: a work-based coach development programme affecting behaviour change. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 29(4), 376–394.

Serra-Olivares, J., González-Víllora, S., García-López, L. M., & Araújo, D. (2015). Game-based approaches’ pedagogical principles: exploring task constraints in youth soccer. Journal of human kinetics, 46, 251.

Thanks for stopping by and reading this blog. If you would like to connect with the ideas here or any of the ideas I have blogged about, you can contact me via my email here

Notes

*My 'day job' is that of teaching-research academic but I have been coaching continuously since 1988 from entry level to semi-professional sport, from children's sport to masters sport.

**Rick Charlesworth used the term Designer Games to describe practice games that package technical, tactical and fitness training into a modified game or situational game practice. Sport Coach, 17(4), 30-33.

First published 2012/Updated 2021/Revised 2026