From Ed Binnie:
Eldo,
for a state league, I’m inclined to agree with you.
But I would like to hear your thoughts on Juniors and school. Too often I see players in U15s etc being used as defensive specialists, or specialist blocking subs, or double sub to ensure constant back row setter.
My thoughts are that this is creating overt specialisation of athletes. I had one player join a uni side who had never dug a ball in his life, because he was a front court only player. Especially at young ages, where heights and athleticism are still developing, surely we’d want our juniors to be exposed to the full game, not just the one thing they can do well. This applies to AJVC, AVSC, and the U16 and U15 tourneys.
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Specialisation of athletes exists whether you sub players on or off or keep them all on the court. I’m inclined to believe that if a coach won’t put a player on for 3 rotations on the FC or BC, they’re hardly going to put that player on for 6 rotations under the 12 sub rule. In a perfect world you would just take 3 players off halfway through each set and leave the subs on, but it doesn’t always work.
I have always coached junior league that way, so technically i could still get all my junior players equal court time under 6 sub rule and develop them equally. One of the (unwritten) rules eldo had when he took me for my level 1s is that every kid should get on at least 60% of the time. If there’s a chance to “create history” (an expression i’ve heard verbatim from a lot of head coaches!), then you do what it takes to win. 12 sub rule subbing will only get you to 50%. I think with junior league teams and AVSC div 1 & 2 teams, the court time should be equal and the players having a chance to develop all round skills.
I think you Ed makes a good point about it changing the game – constant backrow setter, specialist blocking subs etc. It becomes less about the best 6 players with good craft skills taking on their best six on the other side, but that’s not a bad game either. it’s become part of a necessity in tournaments. Expensive travel cost of tournaments => more game time => you have to use your full bench. I don’t think this is too bad at a national junior or avsc honours standard. it’s a different level of play with different expectations than equitable junior league/avsc div 1. And besides, at best of 5 sets, the player that plays 50% of the time subbing only on or off can play nearly as much as the div 1 / junior league player who’s on the whole time (trust me, i’ve done the maths on this one!)
Where U15s falls is the grey area. Vic, ACT and QLD have rep teams so maybe the expectations are like nat juniors. SA hasn’t entered ever as far as i know (although if we did, the group that eldo takes each year would probably make up most of the team anyway, with a couple of brighton kids that go with hawks). So for the SA teams that go, it’s probably more “developmental” than the rep teams that go over. I do find the level of specialisation at U15s disturbing. I coached against teams that employed 5-1 systems with specialist passers, and teams that played with the player in position 2 setting – in essence they could have rotated on at the serve – they were both competitive!
a uni-age player who has played for years but never dug a ball would have been poorly coached whether they played their whole career under 6 sub rule or 12 sub rule. if anything, they would have dropped out (or “weeded” out) under 6 sub rule because they never got on the court. But then again maybe getting people unsuited to quit volleyball for other sports earlier is good development (sounds insensitive, but marketing guru Seth Godin actually wrote a book about knowing when to quit). who knows.
12 sub rule is not a perfect system. and it can be used or abused. as winston churchill said of democracy “it … is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”
