System Based Sport Coaching

"Someone brings up the fact that Clarkson is going to tactically have an impact on this game - you haven't watched the way I've coached for 14 years. We're a system-based side and that's why Richmond are so strong at the moment. They're system-based - every side that's won a premiership is system-based, none of it is tactics"
Alistair Clarkson (4-time AFL Premiership Coach), 7 September, 2018
https://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/alastair-clarkson-labels-reporters-a-bunch-of-sheep/news-story/388df18e846d1dfb7117e7516665a855

In 2010, I was invited to present a workshop at the AFL National Coaching Conference on game sense coaching junior Australian footballers. It was a wonderful opportunity to talk about some play with purpose ideas and run some play practices, match simulations and scrimmages with the coaches. The conference also enabled me to mingle with elite level coaches, which was a great experience as to that point my coaching had been limited to 'grassroots' sport. During these opportunities to talk with elite level coaches, I was introduced to a new (to me at the time) language associated with the playing 'shape' players were expected to form in attack and defence phases of play. In one workshop, an AFL team line coach used screen shots of a match, using two teams that most people would have thought as having very different 'playing styles', to illustrate playing system 'shape' and 'structure'. Often, the shape  of the teams in front of the contest, behind the contest, and at the contest were the same. At this conference, an elite football (soccer) coach also used screen shots of Australian football AFL games and A-League soccer games to show how similar playing shape and ball movement behaviour were in both games.

I was eager to learn more. Fortunately, by this stage of my professional career I was working at a university and I could easily search for literature on system based coaching. This search led initially to what is now one of favourite books, Teaching and Learning Team Sports and Games . I wrote the papers Developing theoretically informed practice: The forward press in Australian football as an example of the dynamics of a complex system and Skill acquisition in Australian football: Some applications of theoretically informed practice and Informing game sense pedagogy with constraints-led theory for coaching Australian football to help me make sense of what I was reading. During this research, the work of Jean-Francis Grehaigne on team sport as a dynamic system resonated with what I was seeing when I observed elite and semi-professional Australian football practice sessions, and hearing when I talked with coaches at this level. Here are some of the key ideas in Grehaigne's explanation of games as a system.

Tactical Knowledge in Team Sports  (Grehaigne & Godbout, 1995)
Grehaigne (and colleagues) have defined strategy as the elements discussed in advance in order that a team organise itself, while tactics are an in the moment of the game adaptation to the opposition. In describing team games as an opposition relationship in which two teams coordinate their actions in order to win the ball, maintain possession of the ball, and move the ball into a scoring position, three 'indissociable' characteristics are described:

  • A group of players confronts another group of players fighting for, or exchanging possession, of an object (which Grehaigne and colleagues describe as a rapport of strength)
  • Players have a choice of motor skills
  • The game involves individual and collective strategies
From a system perspective, the two teams are described as interacting organised systems. The game system is organised on two levels - 'match' and 'team'. The organisational level of  'match' is defined by the rules of the game.The organisational level of  'team' is defined by the distribution of players on the field determined by the interactions permissible by the rules, and the instructions received by players (strategy).

Dynamic-system analysis of opponent relationships (Grehaign, Bouthier & David, 1997)
In this paper, it is argued that the main challenge in team sports is that the opposition relationship of these games means that teams must coordinate their actions. However, when looked at from a system perspective, the game has many dynamically interacting elements capable of rich and varied patterns. Therefore, a game can rarely rely on the simple application of schemes of play learned during training: hence, the importance of heuristics (a 'rule of thumb' or a 'good guide) to help players quickly solve the problems that present from the way attack and defence configurations evolve.

The foundations of tactics and strategy in team sports (Grehaigne, Godbout & Bouthier, 1999)
A key idea in this paper is that while players can choose to perform only what they know how to do or can do, performance is determined by the players making the most appropriate choice among the various solutions at the players disposal and by the speed of this decision making. Efficiency during play therefore relies on the player having efficient actions rules and play organisation rules that can aid the in the moment strategic and tactical choices of the player.

Qualitative observation tools to analyse the game (Grehaigne & Fernandez, 2001)
The concepts of play-space, action zone and configurations of play are examined to demonstrate how the game as a dynamic system can be interpreted by the shape of the team during configurations of play.

The teaching and learning of decision making in team sports (Grehaigne, Godbout & Bouthier, 2001)
In this paper, Grehaigne and colleagues refer to Mahlo (1969) when describing techniques as the tools for tactics. The thrust of the argument is that during the game, players need to pay attention to the shifts in configurations of play in order to better understand how the play is evolving. Further, to assist players develop this capacity, novice players should be guided with landmarks that provide them with a reference to probable indicators of the evolution of the situation of play, so that over time they learn to ignore the parameters that are not pertinent in making appropriate decisions. Grehaigne and colleagues propose three types of practice settings to develop this understanding:

  • Action settings where the players engage in the actual game, or a form of the game
  • Observation settings where players observe peers, usually with reference to performance criteria
  • Debate of ideas settings following play action, during which there is an exchange of facts or ideas based on observation and participation in the activity
Dynamic systems theory and team sport coaching (Grehaigne & Godbout, 2014)

This paper further explains the concepts associated with the idea that a game can be examined as two interacting systems in movement, where opposition is the common characteristic. A key element in understanding the game as a system is the idea of configurations of play and the ever changing shape of the play: that is, the game moves through phases of contraction and expansion as play moves location on the field or court. By analysing and explaining the concept of opposition, coaches can conceive play situations for training that allow the reality of the opposition to be practised.

"At times, however, what appears to be disorganized game play, especially on the part of the attacking team, may in fact hide some form of order that an experienced observer can make sense of. The purpose of each offensive action, for instance, is to induce and take advantage of an unbalance in the opponents' defense system, to create a surprise effect and unpredictable situations in order to score. Attackers must make every effort to outrun the opponents' reconstitution of a defensive balance or to place their defensive system in a critical position and thus upset the balance in their favor" (p.101)

A key idea in this paper is that players can be assisted to develop into 'experienced observers' by coaching that helps the players to develop 'advanced organisers' - general models of understanding that help the player link information into a larger picture of play: in other words, a frame of reference that helps players organise perceived information in order to respond more efficiently and quickly to the problem brought about during play.


In this system based understanding of play, the intrinsic dynamic of each sport comes about because of specific components and their rules. Therefore, players actions and performance are directly related to the sport's characteristics - the type and principles of play, as well as the relations between team members and opponents. Global 'match' opposition relations break down into sub-phases and transition phases of the game, generating specific shapes of play (Grehaigne, Richard & Griffin, 2005). It is asserted that without general models of understanding that help the players link information into a larger picture of play, team members are uncertain to acquire organisation in their play.

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