Two things. First and foremost they need to get stronger (gym work) and you need to have them perform more long striking. It's that simple. Not a sexy answer but there's no magic drill and most players physical deficiencies on the field need to addressed off it.

Thanks J, im working on both since January, I suppose what im really looking for help with is a bit more variety regarding the drills, I like to try and keep training interesting and any new ideas would be really beneficial.

Oh right, sorry. As I'm just on the fitness side of things I wouldn't feel comfortable telling you what to do but I'm sure someone around here will!

Pgall some of the drills used to improve long striking are very simple really and maybe a little old fashioned but they work. The biggest thing to emphasize would be to open the shoulders when striking the ball

Some you could use would be,

1. A long puck competition seeing how many shots it takes players to puck the ball up the field.

2. 1 Player on both 20/40 yard lines and they have to try and strike the ball over opposite players head first player to put the other on the endline wins.

3. Striking between two players increasing the distance every training session maybe start at 50m and increase by 5M every sessions and see how you get on could be useful to encourage players to catch the ball over head here and you will have introduce another skill into the drill.

4. 2 players on either sideline - PlyrB PlyrA ____________PlyrC PlyrD.

Player A lays ball off to player B who takes the ball at full tilt and strikes to player C who catches and lays off to Player D strikes to B who lays it off to A and strikes back over.

Basically player who strikes the ball will always receive the ball back the next time and pass back to the his partner to strike to opposite side.

Hmmmmm

all a hurler and someone who has coached underage I would say the main issue with improving your striking is practice

buy every player a 'wall ball'. €5 each
tell them its up to them to improve their striking
get them to find a wall and constantly practice - a lot of it is to do with finding your sweet spot to hit the ball and getting footwork correct
to speed up striking - measure how many they can do in a minute standing 3/4 metres from wall. challenge them to come back in two weeks and improve that figure.
then work on one or two other practice drills - stand further from a wall and catch and turn to strike on opposite side - mimics what happens in games
all that work will improve striking

after each training you can spend a few minutes working on forearm strength - hold hurley in one hand - rotate hurley from side to side for one minute - switch to other hand

Great stuff, thanks for the help, il definetly bring these ideas into training. I find the wall ball drills very good and each player has been given a set of drills to perform once per week outside of training in the alley since February. Keep the suggestions and ideas coming ,very helpful so far and the more variety and new ideas the better. I know theres no magic drill, but my main aim is to make training interesting and benefical to each player and the best way to do this is through a variety of drills.

a hurler should be pucking the ball regards of being given stuff to do outside of training........the hurley should be in the hand whenever the opportunity arises ...remember being a child and walking to the shops or just hanging around all about the ball in the hand!!! I think simple pucking around accompanied with strength training...weight bearing exercises such as press up and circuits would be the tonic!!!

A simple one you can use to speed up the striking and to improve trajectory and accurracy is to brake up in to groups of 3 full lenght of field

Player 1 on end line , player 2 around 65 to midfield and player 3 end line oposite end.

Have all gorups lined up this way across the field. Create a competition , on your whistle each group competes to get sliothar from end to end as fast as possible. This forces player 1 to be as accurate and as long as possible , Player 2 to receive ball and move and strike to player 3 as fast as possible. repeat this process back up field.

Maybe the first team to win 3 times for example get rewarded in some way.

Done this with minor and Junior teams and improvment in match situations was massive

for striking drills you need to replicate the movement and situations that players will need to strike in

eg - full back line will need to turn and strike over their shoulders a lot, so pair them up 30m apart, facing away from each other and have them strike over their partners (while heading away from the partner) jog back to original spot

the half back line strike a lot of balls by turning away from their marker - so that needs to be worked on

forwards/midfielders will need to have accurate striking on the move - either lots of shooting drills at full pace or striking to a moving player.