In water polo, seizing every offensive opportunity is essential, leaving no room for mistakes. Precise passing is a crucial skill for every player. To excel, players should explore various passing techniques, simulating real game scenarios. These drills elevate your passing abilities, ensuring correct form and solidifying good habits. Let’s delve into the skills you can develop through these drills:
- Quick catch-and-release passing
- Passing with movement
- Long distance passing
- Set passes
- Pressure passing
Water Polo Passing Drills
1. Middleman Quick Passes
This drill helps players work on their ability to make quick catch and release passes, building muscle memory and endurance through quick passing repetition.
Players form a group of three and line up in a straight line. The player in the middle passes to the their teammate and then receives a pass from that same player. The middle player then catches, spins, and passes to the opposite teammate. That player then passes back to the player in the middle.
The drill continues with the player in the middle passing, receiving, spinning, and passing to the other players. Take turns having a different player in the middle.
2. Upsliding Passes
Check out this short video clip if you’re not familiar with upsliding.
What is upsliding in water polo?
Upsliding is a technique to move with the ball while keeping it off of the water. The player makes an initial vertical movement, then moves horizontally, and finishes with another vertical movement.
This technique can be incorporated into shooting or passing drills to give players an opportunity to move with the ball into a better scoring or passing position.
Form a group of three to pass in a triangle shape. Players should practice upsliding before making their pass. This drill should result in players constantly rotating in a clockwise direction.
Here’s an additional video covering upsliding and a two person variation of this drill.
3. Back ‘Em Up
Players get in groups of two and start out passing close together. As they continue passing they slowly start moving further apart. The goal of this drill is to not drop the ball as players pass further and further apart. If the pair fails to make a successful catch, then they move back to their initial distance.
Coaches can make this drill into a game by playing a ‘last-man-standing’ variation. Have pairs start passing at the same time to ultimately have one pair remaining.
4. Precision Set Passing
Form a group of three to pass either clockwise or counterclockwise. The player receiving the pass should set up as if they are in hole set. The key here is that the receiver needs to extend their hand out towards the passer to show where they want the ball to be set.
The passer’s aim is to deliver an accurate pass that reaches the water exactly where the receiving player has extended their hand.
Here’s a great video that covers how a hole set should receive different types of passes.
5. Pressure Passing
First let’s take a look at what pressure passing looks like.
Here’s a great video demonstrating a technique that players can use to make passes when under pressure.
Now that we’ve got an understanding of pressure passing in water polo we can incorporate into different drills. You can use this in half court offense, passing drills, or full game scrimmages.
Try forming groups of at least four players. Half of the group will start on offense and the other half will play defense. The goal of this drill is to pass to your teammates while under pressure.
It can be helpful to do this drill at 50% speed and then slowly work your way to 100%, so that everyone can effectively learn how to pass under pressure.
