Six-on-six complete rally

Six against six with everything in it: serve, pass to the setter, attack, block, defense and counter-attack, until the ball is down. This is the drill you finish a practice with, because it shows you whether what you worked on survives at match speed. Pick one thing to watch beforehand, because in a complete rally too much happens to coach all of it.

12 players 12 phases ± 30 min 6 balls, full court From U17 upwards, with twelve players

Phase 1 of 12Line-up six on six; B serves from the right back

Your own team (P = outside hitter, S = setter, M = middle blocker, D = opposite, L = libero) The opposition Ball

This animation comes straight out of the Koach app. In the app you play it at your own pace and the positions carry your players' real names.

Open in the app

How the drill runs

What you are training

Full 6v6 match drill: serve, pass to the setter, attack, block and defense with a counterattack.

Playing every phase of the game back to back without the coach interrupting.
Reorganizing for block and defense after the first attack.
Staying inside your system when the rally gets scrappy.

Coaching points

Coach one topic per set and stay quiet about the rest.

In a full rally ten things go wrong at once. A team that gets told about all of them remembers nothing; on one topic the behavior changes within a quarter of an hour.

Do not stop the rally to explain something.

The value is in playing on. Note down what you see and bring it up between two rallies, or simply start the rally again without comment.

After your own attack everybody drops back behind the three-meter line.

In this drill the counter-attack comes on nearly every rally. Teams that stay standing where they attacked lose the second ball again and again.

The setter calls what he is going to do as soon as the pass is up.

With six players there are three hitters approaching at the same time. Without a word from the setter it is a guess which ball is coming, and then the other team's block has the advantage.

Variations

Easier: The rally starts with a free ball from the coach instead of a serve, and nobody blocks.
Harder: Only points off the counter-attack count, or: the attack has to come from a different position every rally.
With fourteen players: Six a side plus one substitute per team who replaces the player in position 4 every five points.
As a game: Two sets to 25 with a real change of ends and two time-outs per team. Have a substitute keep score the way it is done on a match sheet.

Volleyball drills

4 players · 6 phases SafeVolley base round Warm-up 3 players · 5 phases Shoulder activation with band Warm-up 2 players · 6 phases Dynamic movement patterns Warm-up 5 players · 5 phases Core plank with rotation Warm-up

Read on in the knowledge base: the 5-1 system and its rotations · perimeter and rotation defense · why game-like drills transfer