Game Realistic Training – TheMastermindSite

My 4-step process for making teams better

November 6, 2026November 6, 2026 by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Masterclasses, Subscriber Exclusives, Team Analysis

As a coach, I always endeavoured to make my players better. If I could improve my players, I would improve the entire team. But even teams with great technical and physical qualities will still falter if the tactics aren't right. That's why you'll often see teams with even 70-80% of the possession still lose football matches. They had all the better players, but they didn't have the better way of winning the match. So when something's not clicking quite right or you need to solve a tactical problem, I like to follow a 4-step process.

Coaching Newsletter #3 – Merging repetition & game-realism together

October 15, 2023October 16, 2023 by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Coaching, Masterclasses, Subscriber Exclusives

There's often a conflict between the old-school coaches who design "drills" focused on repetition, and the new-school coaches who provide actual education toward what players will encounter in a game. But in reality, the two can easily be merged together. You see, game-realistic activities around a specific session topic naturally allow for repetition toward the patterns our players will encounter in the game. In this coaching newsletter, I use my personal experiences as a part-time professional athlete in the sport of trail running to detail how game-realism and repetition can be easily combined together.

Attention to detail when coaching at the elite level

October 6, 2023December 27, 2023 by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Coaching, Masterclasses, Subscriber Exclusives

While coaching ideologies can generally apply across a myriad of ages and abilities, there are a few distinct differences. This includes: a greater attention to detail at the high-performance level; a greater attention to position-specific training; and more complexity when adapting activities to add challenge/intensity. I break this down in Coaching Craft – Newsletter #2 – Coaching high-performance athletes. Here is a preview of how you can focus on the finer details in high-performance environments.

Coaching Craft – Newsletter #2 – Coaching high-performance athletes

October 6, 2023October 9, 2023 by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Coaching, Masterclasses, Subscriber Exclusives

While coaching ideologies can generally apply across a myriad of ages and abilities, there are a few distinct differences. This includes: A greater attention to detail at the high-performance level. A greater attention to position-specific training. More complexity when adapting activities to add challenge/intensity.