Comparing possession characteristics between 12, 15 and 18 a side games in junior Australian footballers

The purpose of this investigation was to compare the effects of altering the number of players during ‘small sided games’ on the possession characteristics within a youth under10 football setting. Two modified ‘small sided game’ versions of 12 a side and 15 a side in accordance to the Australian Football League (AFL) junior match policy were used to compare against the 18 a side game used in a junior football association. Possession characteristics were coded using IPad installed with the application Dartfish Easy Tag across 4 game periods of 24 minutes for each game format. It was found that the additional players in the 18 a side version led to more tagged events on average, however, there was a decrease in the number of tagged actions per player compared to 12 a/side and 15 a/side. It was also observed that there were more possession characteristics for kicking and handballing per player during the 12 a/side and 15 a/side versions. The findings suggested that the 12 a side game version of Australian Football is more appropriate for under 10 than the 18 a side format, as it provides players with greater involvement and therefore potentially greater enjoyment, engagement, and technical game-based development. This uniquely aids player development, skill acquisition and participation levels in junior Australian footballers.