Structures, Strategies and Composition
Volleyball (4v4)
Shots in Volleyball
To play volleyball well you need to know how to play each shot successfully.
Serve
A successful serve has to be played accurately over the net in to the opposition’s court so they must pass the ball.
Pass (service reception)
A successful pass or service reception should be played high toward the setter at the net. This gives the setter lots of time to get to the ball and play an accurate set. A pass is your teams first touch after the opposition have served.
Set
A successful set should be played high, close to the net at the sides of the court. This allows either the player in position 2 or 4 to play an effective attacking shot. The set is normally the 2nd touch played.
Attack
An attacking shot is played over the net on to our opponent’s court so that they have to defend the ball. Ideally the attack will be played low and quickly over the net to give our opponents less time and hopefully score a point. The attack is normally the 3rd touch played.
Three types of attacking shot are:
Spike
Tip
Attack Volley
Defence (Dig)
Successful defence is when the ball is played high and would land within your team’s court. The two generally played for defence are digs and volleys
Block
A successful block is when our player in position 3 attempts to block the opponents attacker.
Court Positions and Rotations
In a 4v4 game of volleyball there are 4 court position known as court positions 1, 2, 3 and 4.
During a game of volleyball players rotate around the court positions when their team wins service from the opposition. This occurs when a team wins a point after the opposition has served.
Each court position has rules attached to it that the player in that court position must follow.
These rules are to ensure that players start each rally in a legal position on court and that the team are rotating properly around the court.
The rules for each position are:
Player in Court Position 1
Must be closer to the baseline than the player in court position 3
Must be between the players in court positions 2 and 4
Player in Court Position 2
Must be the player closest to the left sideline
Player in Court Position 3
Must be closer to the net than the player in court position 1
Must be between the players in court positions 2 and 4
Player in Court Position 4
Must be the player closest to the right sideline
Non Specialist Strategy
The basic strategy in 4v4 volleyball matches is the non specialist strategy.
In this non-specialist strategy each player takes on a different role depending on the position they are in on court.
When a player rotates into position 3 they play as the setter. When a player is in any other position (positions 1, 2, or 4) they play as a passer/hitter.
Roles on Court for the Non Specialist Strategy
Setter
The setter plays the 2nd touch and tries to set up an attack for the team. They do this by playing the ball high close to the net at the side of the court.
The setter also tries to block the opposition’s attacks.
Passer/Hitter
The passer/hitter is responsible for passing the opposition’s service. The pass should be played high and close to the setter.
The passer/hitters are also responsible for playing our team’s third touch which is our attack. The attack is our attempt to score a point and should be played so that it is difficult for the opposition to control the ball or even to score a point directly.
When the opposition are attacking the passer/hitters are also responsible for trying to defend the attack.
Strengths
The strengths of the non specialist system are:
· Very simple to use and easy to understand. This is particularly important when players are beginners in the sport.
· Players don’t have to move to other positions during rallies. This means that there is less chance for confusion that could result in the opposition scoring points
Weaknesses
· Players who are weak at passing the ball to the setter sometimes have to perform this part of the game. This means that the opposition can target these players to get an advantage.
· The teams best attacking players will sometimes be setting which means the team will not be able to use there strength as attackers.
· The player in the team who is best at setting is only doing this in one rotation. This means that players who are weak at setting also play sets which often results in sets that don’t allow an effective attack.
Gathering Information on Performance
We gathered information on our performance to see if we could adapt our strategy to improve our performance.
General Observation Schedule
Firstly we used a general observation schedule (G.O.S) to look at our teams performance of all parts of the game.
Description of General Observation Schedule
· Played 3 sets of volleyball to 25 points
· Against opponents of similar ability
· Looked at service, passing, setting and attacking
· Tally mark in successful box if performed well. Tally mark in unsuccessful box if performed poorly.
Results from General Observation Schedule (G.O.S)
The G.O.S showed us what our team’s strengths and weaknesses were when playing 4v4 games of volleyball.
Strengths
Our strengths were shown as we had more tally marks in the successful box than in the unsuccessful box beside these parts of the game.
The G.O.S showed us that our team strengths were our serving and attacking.
This meant that we were good at serving and attacking and that these shot were mostly played accurately in to our opponent’s side of the court making it difficult for them to control the ball and often scored points for us.
Weaknesses
Our weaknesses were shown as we had more tally marks in the unsuccessful box than in the successful box beside these parts of the game.
The G.O.S showed us that our main weakness was our teams setting. It also showed that our passing was also a weakness.
This meant that often when we played sets they were not played high and accurately to the side of the court near the net. This made it difficult to play effective attacking shots.
As our passing was a weakness this meant that often we were unable to play the ball high towards the setting zone. This made it difficult for the setter to get to the ball and play a good set.
General Observation Schedule
Success / Error / Total SuccessService / In Court / In Net/Out Court
Passing / High so setter can play it / Somebody else or no one plays it
Setting / An attacking shot can be played / No attacking shot can be played
Attacking / Attack is played in court / In Net/Out of court
Defence / The ball is played high so the rally can continue / Rally ends
Focussed Observation Schedule
After identifying that our main weakness in our strategy was the teams setting we used a focussed observation schedule to identify which players in the team were stronger setters and which players were our weaker setters.
Description of Focussed Observation Schedule
· Played 3 sets of volleyball to 25 points
· Against opponents of similar ability
· Looked specifically at each players setting
· If the set was played well a tally mark was placed in the successful box. If it was a poor set a tally mark was placed in the unsuccessful box.
Results of Focussed Observation Schedule (F.O.S)
The F.O.S showed that we had players in our team that were our best setters. This was shown on the F.O.S as these players had many more tally marks in the successful set box than in the unsuccessful set box.
The F.O.S also showed that some players in our team were weak setters. This was shown as they had more tally marks in the unsuccessful set box than in the successful set box.
The results of the F.O.S showed us that our ability to set up an effective attack depended on which player was playing as setter in that rotation.
The F.O.S showed us who our strongest (best) setter was as they had the most tally marks in the successful sets box on the sheet.
Focussed Observation Schedule
SettersName / Successful Set
An Attacking Shot Can Be Played / Unsuccessful Set
No Attacking Shot Can Be Played / Total
Why the G.O.S and F.O.S were appropriate methods to gather data
The G.O.S and F.O.S were appropriate methods to gather data as:
· They identify strengths and weaknesses
· You can then plan a programme to improve these weaknesses
· These methods are permanent
· This means you can compare the information you gathered before your programme to the information gathered after your programme to see if you have improved.
· The information is gathered in a game situation
· Games are played against opponents of similar ability
· The sheets are easy to fill in and understand
Adapting from the Non Specialist System to Specialist Setter System
After finding out that some we had players who were weak and players who were strong setters we decided to adapt our strategy to use a specialist setter strategy
Specialist Setter Strategy
In the specialist setter strategy we have our best setter playing as the setter in 3 rotations out of 4. This means that they are responsible for setting up our team’s attacks more often as they will play most of our 2nd touches.
To allow this to happen the setter has to make sure that they start the rally in a legal rotation then move to the setting zone quickly as soon as the service has been played.
The setter has to do this when they are in court position 2 and 4. When they are in court position 3 they don’t have to move as they are already at the setting zone.
When the setter is in court position 1 it is not possible to make the switch as they are backcourt and would not be able to block the opponents attacks. In this rotation the passer/hitter that is in position 3 needs to play as the setter.
It is therefore important that the player who is opposite the setter is also a effective at setting as in this 1 rotation they will have to play as the setter.
Roles on Court for the Specialist Setter Strategy
When using this strategy the roles on court are the same as they were in the Non-specialist strategy except that players carry out the same role every rotation.
Passer/Hitter
There are 3 passer/hitters who are responsible for playing the ball to the setting zone and playing our teams attacks. One of the passer/hitter must take on the setting role when the setter is at the back of the diamond. This is most often the weakest attacker of your 3 passer/hitters.
Setter
The setter plays the teams 2nd touch to set up our attacks. They take on this role in 3 of the 4 rotations.
The setter has to make sure that they start in a legal rotation on court and then has to move to the setting zone after the service has been played.
The setter is also responsible for blocking the other teams attack.
Starting Court Positions when using the Specialist Setter Strategy
In the diagrams below the person playing as the setter is the number with the square around it.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Specialist Setter Strategy
Strengths
· Makes good use of each player’s strengths and weaknesses.
· Players always perform the same role on court which means they can spend a lot of time practicing this to become strong at this role.
· Strongest setter is setting up most of the attacks. This means the sets are more likely to be accurate allowing for more effective attacks.
· Strongest attackers are always playing our attacking shots shot. This means we have more chance of playing effective attacks that score points.
· Most of the time the same three people are receiving service which means they can practice working together to cover the whole court.
Weaknesses
· The setter has to switch after the serve which can mean they don’t have time to get to the ball.
· The system is more complicated and can sometimes cause confusion that can lead to the loss of points.
· Quite often the best setter is not the best blocker and this may make it difficult for your team to defend the other team’s attacks.
Training Programme – Specialist Setter Strategy
After deciding to use the specialist setter strategy we completed a training programme to improve our performance within this strategy. The programme lasted six weeks and involved us receiving 5 feeds in each rotation so 20 feeds in total.
In each rotation the setter had to move quickly to the setting zone receive the ball from our pass and set up an attack.
If we managed three touches with the last shot being an attack we counted it as successful. Each session we set ourselves a goal out of 20.