Lisa Letchford is a former player for England and GB before she became a coach. She coached in Belgian club hockey for several years at the top level, including youth national teams.
In 2020 she returned to England where today she is Lead Talent Coach for the girls at Hockey England and head coach for the English U16 girls team.
If there is one thing every field hockey coach should walk away with from Lisa Letchford’s masterclass on ‘Basic Skills Through Small Sided Games’, it’s this: stay on task. In practice, this core principle means designing your sessions with crystal clarity on which basic skill you’re targeting, and resisting the temptation to over-coach or jump between objectives during small sided games.
Why does this matter? In today’s coaching landscape, especially among experienced coaches working with different age groups and abilities, the shift towards game-based learning has brought plenty of positives—engagement, decision-making, and player enjoyment are at an all-time high. But there’s a downside: unless a coach is intentional about what they’re actually trying to develop, small sided games can quickly become little more than entertaining chaos. Too often, sessions lose focus as players are bombarded with feedback on every aspect of the game, making it impossible to see real progress in one area.
Lisa’s approach is refreshingly simple but deeply effective. “Be really specific in what it is you want to coach,” she says. “If it’s tactically, then make sure that’s what you’re watching and there are specific skills that will help with tactics.” By zooming in on a single technical or tactical element—be that receiving across the body, flat passing, defensive footwork, or something else—you make your feedback relevant, measurable, and actionable for the player.
How does this translate into day-to-day coaching?
Start Every Session With a Focus: Rather than coming in with a laundry list of objectives, pick one or two skills or moments in the game to prioritize. For example, decide that today’s 3v3 or 4v4 small sided games will revolve around pressing skills or receiving under pressure.
Design Your Games as Intentional Tools: Set up constraints (space, numbers, reward systems, zones, touches) that actually force players to confront the targeted skill. Don’t hesitate to alter pitch size, add extra attackers or defenders, or modify scoring to draw out the technique or decision you want to see.
Observe With Purpose: As gameplay evolves, discipline yourself to filter out the noise and watch for moments of that one skill. Celebrate successes loudly—positive reinforcement is powerful, particularly in group settings—while being specific and constructive about what the player did well.
Change Plan, Not Focus: If your setup isn’t eliciting the responses you want, Lisa recommends not being afraid to adapt. “If you’re not seeing what you want to see, change it,” she urges. This could mean switching to more isolated practice briefly to fix a technical flaw before quickly inserting that learning back into the game format.
By embracing this approach, the scattergun effect of ‘hockey 101’ (trying to coach everything, seeing improvement in nothing) is replaced by a laser-focused, player-centered session design. “It’s all about picking the right tool for the right moment. I love gameplay and I think it’s great to be working on individual skills, but there are definitely moments where breaking the skill down to individual isolated elements is equally important.”
Why watch the whole session?
Lisa’s masterclass does more than just explain the benefits of game-based learning—it demonstrates how a coach’s mindset, session design, and real-time feedback can combine to unlock player development at every level. Her blend of practical examples, clear frameworks, and honest discussion about what works (and what sometimes doesn’t) provides actionable insight for coaches who want to sharpen their impact on the pitch. If you want to see firsthand how top-level thinking can be translated to grassroots practice, or how to manage the mix of developing technical basics, player engagement and tactical understanding, this is 70 minutes you’ll want to watch in full.
