COACHES CORNER

Coaches Report 16 - January 2006

Training is going well.  We have more hours available now and some swimmers are making the most of them and I expect them to do well in the County Championships.

Three of our swimmers have been selected to swim in an Inter County Competition on 4 February – Phillip Austin, Charlotte Archdeacon, and Jamie Taylor.  We had arranged the Closed Club Championships for this date but because these swimmers would be unable to take part we have changed the date of our Championships to a later date in March.

I have struggled with selection of girls in the younger age group in the Crusader.  I have had to choose from Tadpoles as we have no one else.  The only experienced swimmers are Grace Noden and Annie Mellings and Annie cannot swim on the 21st January.  I still don’t know whether Grace can swim.  This does emphasise that we need to recruit swimmers from the age of 7 or 8 to get them ready for Galas at the age of 9 or 10.

I put a squad sheet on the board for Crusader  so that swimmers can tick when they are available, yet I still find myself having to telephone people to find out if they can swim this weekend.  Hopefully it will be better for the next Crusader.

In Crusader League double points are allocated to relay wins so it is important that I put our fastest swimmers in the relays.  I know from experience that other teams place more emphasis on relays than individual events in this league.

Hilary Flack has done a great job with the County entries and she has everything organised for our participation.  Hilary if very thorough and reliable and should be congratulated.

I am really pleased with the way our Lane 5 swimmers are progressing.  There are some good swimmers amongst them and they are keen to succeed.  They will serve the club well in the future.