Last week the island of Atiu was given an amazing opportunity by our Head of Coach Education – Tahiri Elikana to run a Senior Coaching Course.
From the 1sttill the 4thof June, a total of 18 Senior Coaching certificates were handed out during the 4-day course. Since April 2020 domestic travel to the outer islands has been heavily restricted due to the COVID 19 Pandemic. Now that the Cook Islands has since stayed COVID-19 Free, CIFA took this chance to get the ball rolling amidst the anticipation of the upcoming soccer season to deliver this Coaching Course to the Atiu people.
The group that participated in the course was very young with most of them coming straight out of school. Despite this, the participants were eager and very hungry for the knowledge that the CIFA team had to offer. The course comprised of both theoretical and practical aspects which were held in Atiu island classroom and accompanying field. Participants were determined to get better and also to understand the role of becoming a coach. Some of the topics covered in the course were session planning, drills, and critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the game.
The participant’s execution of skills and drills was outstanding, to say the least. The challenge however arose from when participants were asked to ‘coach the drill’. Participants had to keep an open mind about different ways of how to ‘coach’ a certain skill or drill, rather than carrying out said skill or drill themselves. Nonetheless, the group overcame that obstacle by using outside the box thinking and always asking questions to the instructor to ensure they finished the lesson with no queries remaining.
When asked to share his thoughts on the course Elikana had this to say, “The entire group surprised me, to be honest. They had a great knowledge of the game which helped them a lot during the course, they were very confident during practices and knew exactly what to expect, as well as what was expected of them.”
CIFA’s goal is to share this knowledge with all the other outer islands and eventually the whole country. When the world resumes back to its previous state the Cook Islands will be prepared with not only amazing players but also amazing coaches who will carry the national teams to competitions worldwide.
