The Clyde Coast league match at Castlemilk turned out to be a most interesting event. I thought this year we might do well, however on Friday night and Saturday morning the team looked  far from its strongest with a number of those picked unavailable. I was worried, as so much hard work is put in by everyone before hand. Worse was to come as at least two swimmers did not turn up on the day without a reason. In the end, the overall result was fine; clearly second. North Ayrshire won with Dunoon 3^rd and Kingston 4^th. However we could have done with some more points.

The League matches rely heavily on the swimmers selected being available. As this event reflects what we all do as a Club, it leaves a great burden on those remaining swimmers and reserves to take up the slack. It has an enormous effect on all our swimmers performances when we expect too much of certain individuals. It greatly affects the points totals as well. There is a lot of sickness and injury about at the moment and I do not expect swimmers to swim when they are ill. It was Michaela Warner’s birthday yesterday, however, they rearranged her party, and I’m glad she came and swam really well. I did get a variety of reasons why some others did not attend or were unavailable, some of which were somewhat disappointing. So a big thanks to those who made the effort and the parents and coaches who helped run the event, with or without a swimmer present.

I would like to have seen more of our more senior swimmers on Poolside helping but I did notice Sarah Harvey and Erin Holmes particularly doing a great job.

I was delighted, and a number of others remarked, on how much better behaved the swimmers were this year and how more organised they were at getting themselves up for swims and relays. The spare lane swims were hard to manage and one or two swims were missed when swimmers wandered away when required.

THE TEAMS

In every Clyde Coast round there is a strong Team, usually one of them we do not realistically expect to beat. These teams are “Area Teams”, South Ayrshire, North Ayrshire, REN96, City of Glasgow and possibly West Dunbartonshire. The are other remaining strong teams,  particularly Milngavie & Bearsden. There are no push overs, every team has some good swimmers.

This year North Ayrshire are beatable and I would have been surprised if our girls did not win yesterday.  Dunoon were very also very strong this year and were able to beat North Ayrshire in some events. Similarly, Kingston won one or two events and have made big strides forward. Both Dunoon and Kingston were able to split North Ayrshire and ourselves which led to closer scoring. Overall, our boys are much better than last year, but again shortages of swimmers on the day make it too difficult for the remainder to perform at their best. Points were thrown away by needless errors because some swimmers had too much to do.

In my opinion the best performance of the day was the Girls Squadron relay, 6 different girls, from 3 age groups who beat North Ayrshire. This six; Rosie Mathieson,  Abigail Mein,  Amy Harvey, Hazel Leslie, Lilli Patterson and Lina Guarin, could rival the best of any team in the league. This was followed by all the boys, who had a nearly impossible task under the circumstances but tried their best with no complaints. Particular mention here to Mathew Conroy who had to swim nearly all the Butterfly. Top point scorer was Hazel Leslie. Event winners were Hazel Leslie, Abigail Mein, Lina Guarin and Johnathan Christie.

Mathew Meechan had two good spare lane swims and a good PB in the 50 Free. Jessica Friel, a super 10 second PB in the 100m Backstroke and Maria Lally 5 second PB in the 50m Freestyle. Well worth coming for spare lane swims.

20 Pb’s out of 30 swims. Top PBs – Rory Holmes and Sophie Bestwick. Kyle Lucas never swam 100 Fly before.

How our swimmers swam their swims

In the longer term, whilst we all like to win and swim fast, I want our swimmers to swim technically perfect. Although we strive to do this at all training sessions, various circumstances continually make this more difficult. Many young swimmers think anything will do, or it really doesn’t matter. Others think they are too tired, others think it only matters when I am watching. The truth is, what you see at a competition reflects what happens in training. At a competition swimmers should reproduce their best on demand without thinking. Part of the reason of having our Denny sessions is to instill and continually reinforce this message. Of course not all the swimmers go to Denny and even those who do, do not perfect everything, but I do see big improvements.

By and large within this age group our race skills as a Club are good, but still could be better.

This is particularly true with the Girls. My main criticism here, even with the best girls is that they do not always get into the streamlined position at starts and turns, immediately, but introduce their own version which they think will do, or only do it when I am watching. Some of the girls also have to raise their stroke rates, but still keep the length and technique.

The boys generally are another story. Despite being told the same things as the girls, at the same sessions, in the same lanes, it rarely happens in training, even when they know we are watching closely. And so at competitions the same happens. I did see some boys trying to put these skills into practise yesterday, but at Starts they were often too deep, not streamlined, or, either too long under water or not long enough. Similarly at Turns, often the first swimmer in to the turn, but last out! And then at Finishes, stopping, looking round head up, or gliding before the end. In Freestyle or Fly there should be no breathing from the Flags to wall.  On Breaststroke, the boys swim with too high a stroke rate instead of stretching out and making each stroke count. High stroke rates in all strokes are a problem for the boys. And still, some boys are looking across the pool at other swimmers instead of concentrating on their own swim.

We will continue to work particularly at Denny on these skills. Coaches everywhere, not just Rutherglen, are always criticised by parents for not spending more times on turns. Well, we all do spend time on turns, and, in a session of 2000 metres there are around 70+ turns all of which should be performed excellently when tired, just as in a race (not just practising in perfect conditions). At Denny we do Turns for about 30 minutes each session. Some sessions are devoted as the main theme to Turns, some to Starts. So after the current block of Denny Sessions I will run 4 additional ones for those interested.

1)      Starts with Turns; including push and Glide and underwater phases (emphasis on Starts).

2)      Turns with Starts; including push and Glide and underwater phases (emphasis on Turns).

3)      Finishes; with Starts, Turns (emphasis on Turns).

4)      Individual Medley; Starts, Turns and Finishes Inc Back to Breaststroke.

So after warm up that would be 6 hours worth of specific start turn and finish practise. More details later.

Our Mascot “The Rascal” was out in force another welcome addition to our TEAM.

Overall I think we had a great afternoon out. Thanks to parents and families for supporting the Swimmers and a big thanks to Kingston for hosting.