Pen-Y-Coed Petanque

Coaching Coaching will improve your game. There is no doubt about it, but you will need to play through the new style as it can be a difficult time. The beginning of the season is the ideal time to take on board some personnal development. Some coaching needs to be done at an agreed time before an event so this flat spot can be played through. Little point in getting a team together 2 weeks before a big event as the flat spot can take four maybe five weeks to disappear and c

Coaching.  Good or Bad?   Coaching is certainly the key, catching new players and young players alike and giving them the basics, not of the sport but of the coaching structure. Get the players asking how they can improve and develop their game. Any coaching with established players will bring a dip in performance until the problems they have are ironed out.  This is the frustrating problem with coaching however it is also the answer.  The improvement of players will push the

County Coach Module System Just imagine if this existed! This is for information and discussion only   The County coach course is to be a continuous improvement module system. Unlike the Club Coach this is not a qualification that can just be earned over a weekend of demonstrations and exams but a steady growth of a coach into a useful and methodical tool for Petanque England   There could be an extended course? followed by an initial exam of core subjects but it is also up t

Petanque Team Play Cont.  So we are coming to the end of the Petanque Coaching tips and soon launch a more technical group aimed at Coaches as well as players. Here we are rounding up the series with Team play, Roles and tips to all the team. These tips can play an active part in helping a team to victory even if they are playing total rubbish. Top Tips We have mentioned in the past about swapping playing positions. It can be when one of your team are having a nightmare or yo

Team Play Cont.   So we are coming to the end of the Petanque Coaching tips and soon launch a more technical group aimed at Coaches as well as players. Here we are rounding up the series with Team play, Roles and tips to all the team. These tips can play an active part in helping a team to victory even if they are playing total rubbish. Here we look at some tips we have not covered in our practice and tactics series and well worth a mention. The key to Petanque is Belief. Bel

Marking the jack and boule. Tip from 2010 rules have enforced the marking! Just touched previously on the benefits in marking boule are many fold. It is difficult to always mark the boule and many players just agree to play as if they were marked. Now it would seen silly to lose a game after all that practise just because you have not marked the boule or jack. The boule can be a lot of trouble to mark, as there will be 11 in the head, and the jack and boule move. Why mark the

Team Play Cont.   So we are coming to the end of the Petanque Coaching tips and soon launch a more technical group aimed at Coaches as well as players. Here we are rounding up the series with Team play, Roles and tips to all the team. These tips can play an active part in helping a team to victory even if they are playing total rubbish.   Match Play Why do they do that? In serious competitions you will see teams do lots of strange things not usually seen in local league or cl

Team Play So are coming to the end of the Petanque Coaching tips and soon launch a more technical group aimed at Coaches as well as players. Here we are rounding up the series with Team play, Roles and tips to all the team. These tips can play an active part in helping a team to victory even if they are playing total rubbish. Passing People. Behind the jack Your teammates should be standing at the jack end when you are throwing. They can stand anywhere in the head when you ar

Shooting Perfecting the skill . On Line. Equipment Required Your set of boule One spare Boule 25 metres of string or twine Here we are concentrating solely on the line of the boule you are throwing. No matter how good you become, the principles remains the same with shooting. If your boule is not thrown on line it will miss the target boule. In this exercise we are concentrating totally on the line your boule takes from leaving your hand to the time it hits the target boule.

Shooting Advanced. Develop the skill No.2 Over the top Equipment Required Your set of boule Three spare Boule Jack 4-inch square block of wood 25 metres of string or twine Last session we focused on throwing straight and landing straight. On a firm flat terrain you will improve your hit rate no end by focusing on the line when shooting. Petanque as we know is a tricky sport and the opposition and pistes tend to gang up on you. We are to take the shooting practice to the next

Advanced Pointing Hard Piste continued… The main pointing problem is all those deep pistes we play on. A hard firm pitch with little topping make the game far more difficult to play your normal tactics. The most common mistake is to start marbling your boule to the jack. On a normal pitch your pointed boule may travel two to three metres on the ground, rarely more than this distance. Every millimetre your boule rolls on the ground increases the chance of a deviation or slowin

Advanced Pointing Hard Piste Over our coaching tip series we have focused on soft pitches and how to adapt your tactics to suit. We examined the idea of shooting a boule that will not move and how that maybe a bad choice of tactic. Pointing into a crowded head may seem a little dull but, levering the jack out of a head for points will turn a stalemate game into a winning one. A close game on a deep piste may sometimes feel like a battle in the trenches. The game will always b

Here we continue our look at two pistes. One rocky and covered in bits of grass and hidden underground stones as discussed in the last post. The other undulating from side to side so the boule takes a winding route to the jack. Undulating fast rolling pistes. These fast pitches can be a nightmare as your boule rolls down the pitch twisting and turning. First this is the secret so secret if you tell anyone I will have to…….. Well you know the rest. Drawing a circle on these pi

Advanced Pointing Tricky Pistes Here we will look at two pistes. One rocky and covered in bits of grass and hidden underground stones. The other undulating from side to side so the boule takes a winding route to the jack. Many pointers can get frustrated when faced with a difficult piste to play on. My guess is the unpredictability is possibly the most annoying. When the boule leaves your hand and it felt perfect both in weight and distance. It lands exactly where you wanted

Advanced Pointing Pointing over or around Equipment Required  Your set of boule Three Jacks 25 metres of string or twine 10 metre tape Previously we focused on basic tips to improve pointing, setting up heads and practicing shots. Here we are looking at pointing and adapting to different situations. In the Shooting Advanced you will spend a long time setting up the parallel lines for shooting but do not worry the hard work is used in this tip. The string lines from the circle

Oh! a few more observations from the wacky world of Petanque A.    Why did we play on that piste?   If you want to play on a certain piste it can be difficult to keep hold of it. Leaving your boule at the end can help as well as constant guarding of the piste by practicing. “Yes we are playing here” These people have not even organised their opposition let alone tossed. But, time is their ally as all the piste fill up. Now they find you and proclaim there is only one piste av

Marking the boule. Many players are using plastic circles for more relaxed play as they are using the equipment on pistes that are traditionally difficult to draw your circle. These pistes have been constructed with a very compacted layer system and known as rolling or marble pistes by some. They are possibly the closest to the French market town pistes with a fine dusting layer over a very hard surface. The piste has two uses for a strong marker of both boule and circle. It

Why Mark the jack?  Rules looked at a little closer   Equipment Required   Sturdy finger or six inch nail etc.   Over our coaching tip series we have focused tactics and practice sessions. Here we look at a few rules and explain a couple of details that may help win a game or at least stop you from losing to a fluke shot.   Many teams will mark the jack sometimes to the derision of the opposition and spectators. Why do they insist on marking the jack and wearing away their fi

Still going round in Petanque Circles Now we know there are rules dictating all this and the circle should not be within 2 metres of another circle and 1 metre of an obstacle. The string marking out the pistes is not an obstacle. The circle should be marked in case it gets kicked or moved as players step out of it. As the following states. Art 6 In all cases the circles must be marked before the jack is thrown. The spacing is covered by, The circle must be drawn (or placed) m

Oi! Where are you going with that circle? The introduction of preformed plastic circles revolutionised how we look at petanque. It is now rare to scratch a circle in the ground when most clubs have circles in the clubhouse or players have folding circles in their bags and kit. Visible for all to see they have changed the game in subtle ways that are slowly improving the play and the attraction of petanque to onlookers. This session we will look at circles and the rules around