Always call match ups on defence

So imagine you're playing a low stakes game of ultimate. A regular team training or a weekly league game.

Here are two scenarios:

1. You call match ups, assigning a teammate to defend a particular opponent

2. You say "match up across".

Always do scenario 1.

Call match ups.

If you simply just guard the person across, it means the line caller has invested almost no focus into this point. It means who you guard doesn't matter. It means how you play this point doesn't matter. It means throwaways are fine and jogging on defence is fine.

And that leads to sucky ultimate.

So always call match ups, even if the game is low stakes. It will make the ultimate better.

Specific feedback for your D game

Following on from a List of Offence Skills in ultimate, here is a...


List of Defence Skills

Players create defensive pressure by

1. guarding cutters wherever they go (tightly guard deep cuts; guard in cuts; guard dump cuts; guard throw and go cuts)
2. marking the thrower (stop early throws by getting a force on early; hold a force to limit break throws; mark with agility and energy)
3. pulling the disc (throw into the alpha zone regularly; not give up bricks; pull strongly against the wind) 
4. adjusting to where other defenders are (switch; push cutters into crowded places like the stack or someone clearing)
5. moving to defend other cutters (poach effectively when their cutter does not draw them away; clog the open side, break side, deep and under as needed)
6. moving at the right time (run down the field when the cutter watches a huck; defend the dump position early; adjust guarding position early so the cutter doesn't blow past)
7. being athletic (guard quality players for long periods of a game; block swill that is high or wide; outrun cutters; outaccelerate cutters)
8. working within the team D structure (know and use the team's patterns; don't require teammates to change their mark or guarding unnecessarily)

Most of these correlate with stopping the eight things the offensive player wants to do.

With eight categories listed, it is now easy to choose, say, two strengths and two aspects to work on. This keeps feedback concise, but more specific than "work on your throws and cutting".

Suggestions?

Positions on offence ain't positions on defence

Just because you are a handler on offence, doesn't mean you will always serve your team best by defending handlers.

Just because you are a receiver on offence, doesn't mean you will always serve your team best by defending receivers.

Those were the main messages I got from this article on basketball matchups.

In fact, the traditional convention of 3 handlers, 2 mids/cutters and 2 longs/receivers might have served a purpose for assigning pull reception roles for a few plays in the past, but it doesn't describe what most players are doing in most systems these days.

I know that the 2008 Dingoes had a variety of roles.

Player A: on offence, a handler who didn't huck and was a semi-regular deep threat; on defence he defended handlers
Player B: on offence, a handler and in-cutter; on defence he defended handlers and under cutters, but got blocks when he could afford to poach off his man
Player C: on offence, an in-cutter; on defence he defended handlers
Player D: on offence, a long; on defence he defended handlers or cutters

So a different system might be needed to describe roles, particularly for defence. Being called a "handler" doesn't tell you what your role is on defence.

The fourth quadrant

As a player on the field, you have two modes you can be in: playing defence or playing offence.

And you can be involved with the throwing of the disc or the catching of the disc.

So put simply, there are four quadrants for the on-field roles: thrower and cutter (on offence), and their defensive counterparts, marker and guarder.

It can be worthwhile to evaluate which of these are your strengths, and which you have to work on.

Obviously the thrower role is critical for every player - a team with mostly poor throwers is not a strong team.

I think that the skills of a guarder are under-evaluated. Many folks I know have a very simple approach to guarding: "stay open-side, chase my cutter, get a block if can". There isn't much adapting to circumstance, and while you won't go too wrong, that isn't enough at the elite level. The corresponding skills for throwing, cutting and marking are far longer lists in the conscious and subconscious minds of many players.

There are many small goals and skills for a guarder:

• Unnerve the cutter with my positioning
• Talk to teammates
• Steer the cutter back to the other defenders in the stack
• Choose when to look over at the thrower and their stance
• Bait the huck
• Take a charge
• Look to switch with a mismatched teammate

Mackey covers some more of this.

Sophisticated forces

When I first started playing ultimate, forces were simple: backhand, forehand and force middle.

Since then I have seen more complexity - specific defences to pressure certain options for the offence, such as straight-up into one-way forces to pressure hucks in general, and funnel (one-way force with straight up on one sideline in the far half) to pressure hucks down the trapped sideline.

In one game at Nationals recently, my team had big successes taking away an opposing team's down the sideline hucks, by forcing middle. But we also wanted to pressure the hucks in the middle so we went more straight up the closer the disc was to the middle of the field. Call it Mesa - flat in the middle and angled on the sides. As we were defending closer to our own endzone this transitioned into a one-way force (the huck threat disappears and having a one-way force to rely is more valuable for a guarder.

I can also see the converse being an option: straight-up in the middle, moving to straight-up in the middle, for teams that you want to see trapped on the sideline. Call it Valley (the converse of Mesa).

Have you used these forces, or anything more sophisticated than just switching a force when the disc moves more than X metres down the field (yet worth the added complexity)?

Where are we headed? Well, we have a long way to go before we reach 100+ year old sports like basketball. Check out just some of the defences you can use against the variety of screens (aka picks) the offence can try.

But as we see teams building deep rosters, engaging coaches, training more and investing time on the details of their defences, more and more sophisticated forces should arise.

Wanted: Defenders

Playing and watching games at Worlds, I saw a need for Australian senior teams to improve their defence. While the Junior Women were a defensive machine, due to well-thought out tactics and utilisation of players,  getting stops in the Open division, for instance, depends more heavily on winning one-on-one matchups.

You need to be able to put players on the field who can really pressure a thrower or cutter, or are are really effective at getting blocks. As an example, when the Dingos played their pool game vs USA, we scored regularly thanks to an athletic offence. But we only produce two turnovers from the opposition. That won't win you the game.

This is a call for us to develop the next generation of shutdown defenders and blockgetters.

What does the Australian landscape of defence look like? 

We have a culture of playing sport in this country.

We have good tactics. Many elite teams have a wide repertoire of man-on-man and junk defences.

We have athletes. We continue to recruit some very athletic people, either 6'4" aerial monsters or very speedy runners.

But there are some basic skills that don't appear often enough. Reading the cut of an offensive player. Guarding the dump. Running to the mark to prevent a huck. Not biting on a throwing fake. Spotting both where your man and the disc is, and where other players are. Not being deceived by a simple jab-step fake. Knowing how much or how little to turn your hips.

This is a call for existing coaches to develop these skills. And a call for more coaches.

Your defensive mindset

Each time you play defence, you should have a focus for what you, as an individual, plan to do on defence.

There are many factors that influence your choice: previous points in the game, what your leadership has set as a focus, what the offence is trying to do, who you are guarding, and what your personal strengths and weaknesses are.

Some guarding tactics are:

• cover my player cutting under
• cover my player cutting deep
• look to be a help defender on deep throws
• look to be a help defender on short throws
• stay physically really close to my player
• clog the passing lanes
• interfere with the offence's set plays

And there are marking tactics too:

• stand off the thrower
• bait a handblock
• force to make the inside break harder
  
• force to make the around break harder
• hold a constant force
• move around with the thrower as they rotate to find a dump
• hassle the hammer
• go clown-crazy hyperactive
• change the tempo of your mark (from a passive, flat-footed stance, to an active, moving stance as the count increases)
  

Know what you want to do. Smart defenders will think about what approach they can use, reflect on how it worked, and adapt.

Just chasing your player around the field produces seven games of one-on-one. Team defence is far more powerful, and it starts with individuals having flexibility in how they play defence.

Marking the disc

There are some key tips for marking the disc, that most experienced players know: be on your toes, arms out, watch the thrower's navel or body language, learn their fakes, etc.

But there is another I never hear mentioned: keep your arms back. By this I mean, don't wrap. Ah, those Queenslanders need to practise this.

If you do wrap your arms around the thrower, they will throw under your arms or draw a foul easily.

Let's see how these markers are doing:

• Pete
• Lisi
• Drucey
• Stephanie
• Johnny

Guarding the dump

I like guarding the dump. I find it rewarding.

I have 4 positions I can start in: safe, face, tiger and sumo. By position, I mean where I stand on the field relative to the dump.

Let's consider these positions for the situation where the thrower is on the line, forced line. The dump is 5 metres away, level with the thrower (ie not upfield or downfield but in between).

Safe
This is where most people stand. Generally denies upfield cuts. Allows the thrower to turn and dump immediately, with little cutting required by the dump. Most dumps are used to being marked this way.

Face
This involves facemarking the dump, and standing between them and the disc. The dump is equally open if they cut left or right. But they usually have to spend several seconds cutting to get free.

Tiger
For this position, stand downfield of the dump. This takes away the easy backwards pass. The up-the-line cut is more vulnerable. But if you know where the dump will cut and have a speed advantage, this is not a big problem. Additionally, if the dump cuts up the line and doesn't get the disc, the thrower has no dump anymore. This is an aggressive tactic, so I call it tiger.

Sumo
Same as safe, except closer. Real close. If a player is successfully cutting up the line, stand close, with your feet apart. The dump will have to make more of a cut around you to go up the line. In a safe stance, you are usually side-on and moving when they get close to you. Sumo changes this. I call this sumo, as you are trying to look big.

You can work out how these positions would apply in different situations, e.g. if the force was a force middle. Or the thrower was left handed. Or the disc was in the middle of the field. Or a teammate was helping you by poaching in front of the thrower.

I think I might need to change the names - safe and face sound too similar. And I don't know if tiger aptly describes that position.

Lastly, remember that everyone likes to throw backhand dumps. If you want to allow a throwing option, make it a forehand.

Measuring a good pull

How do can you tell if you have improved?

Sometimes it seems obvious to you.

But other times you need to measure that skill or aspect of your game.

Here is how I measure the quality of a pull. It is a useful system for pullers to compete against other pullers, or to compare their own pulls over time. This follows on from my 7 Postulates of Pulling.

Alpha pull - disc lands in the endzone, more than 5 metres away from a sideline.

Beta pull - disc lands in the field, but not in the alpha zone.

Brick pull - disc lands out of bounds.

Alpha (green) is better than beta (yellow) is better than a brick (white).

Take 10 pulls, and see how many alphas, betas and bricks you get. Maybe 6-3-1. Which is better than say, 4-2-4.

"But hang on a tick!" you say. "Why is it less valuable to land the disc near the back of the endzone? Isn't a disc that lands 1 metre from the back left cone a fantastic pull?"

The problem with such a pull is that you can't do it regularly. If you aim there 10 times, a bunch of pulls are going to land out, giving your opponents bricks. (Unless you are the most accurate thrower ever, in which case you are earning money playing disc golf in the US, not reading this blog.)

Aiming well within the bounds of the endzone should mean that almost no pulls land out. And that is far more valuable than 5 pulls in the corner and 5 bricks.

This is why I don't congratulate pulls that do land 1 inch from the back left cone. The puller is lucky the risk didn't backfire that time - they're not worthy of "Wow! Great pull!"

Addendum: Tao calls alpha pulls with lots of yummy hangtime "Alpha pluses". Making it a 4-tier scoring system.