Monday 1 February 2010, Garscube, Outdoor
This week we introduced the concept of playing defense as a team and helping out your team mates to shut down the opposition. We started with a review of marking out the danger zones and where to position yourself when man marking. We then ran a few drills to enforce the following ideas:
Up calls and communication:
We spoke about this in week one. Up calls are an essential part of defense and this should be instinctive whether you are the force, on the sideline, playing a game or even in drills. When you hear an “up” call you need to check where the disc is reposition your self accordingly or go get a block. If the disc is up in the air or heading towards the endzone EVERY DEFENSIVE PLAYER has the right to leave their mark and get under the disc. 7 vs 1 are much better odds than 1:1. We proved this several times in the drill.
Switching
Call a switch when yourself or a team mate is in a better position to mark out a dangerous cut.
Important points:
- be aware of all the cutters in your field of view not just the one you are marking
- call switches to be smart and stop the biggest threats, not to be lazy
- stay with your mark until the switch occurs (or until your team mate is aware of the switch)
Marking in pairs or sandwiching
This is where you and your team mate mark out a pair of cutters together. One player marks under and the other deep. This way the first cut will be marked out whether it is and in cut or a deep cut and the second player can pick up on the second cut. If the offensive players change the angle of their cut then the two D players can call a switch. Take a look at this example:
This can be extrapolated to many players marking out a vertical stack, where the D player at the front will take the first cut in, no matter where it comes from, and the deepest D player will always mark the man deepest in the field.
Thanks to another great turnout we had enough players to cover both pitches and play a few games of sixes.
See y’all next week.
