Strategy for Touch Nationals

[meglin]

All,

If we are serious about putting a team together for the touch
nationals and making the trip worthwhile, we are going to need to play
a lot better and more cohesively than we did last Saturday.

Jean has been putting out a lot of enthusiasm (nice work Jean), but
I'm not sure she's getting a lot back from us. Here are some thoughts:

Practice:
---------

I don't think we should mix practice time and game time. A lot of
people (including me) look forward to a good run and game on
Wednesdays and Saturdays. Instead, I think those of us who want to go
to Arizona should arrive early on Saturdays and practice for 30-45
minutes before joining the game and trying out what we have been
working on.

Playing together as a team: maybe those going to Arizona should start
playing together against those not going. I still think that a full
size field with 6-8 players per side gives the best games anyway, so
it shouldn't be too hard to set that up...

Strategies:
-----------

Although a lot of people already know and do this stuff, I think it is
a good idea that we are all on the same page about what we are
practicing. So I thought I'd lay out the basic strategies as I
understand them. Feel free to chime in if you have improvements or
suggestions.

Offense:
--------

As Jean and Shaun and others have been saying, the basic strategy is
to put the defence under pressure by running straight at them with
several quick cycles of:

- run straight at defence

- anticipate and make the touch

- place and roll ball cleanly at the mark

- dummy-half collects ball at speed

- dummy-half runs a couple of steps and hands off to first-receiver
(who should be ready, close by, and at full speed)

- first receiver runs straight at defence, makes touch, and
repeat...

I think there are a couple of things we can work on here:

- Clearing after the roll: the person placing the ball should take a
couple of steps forward and to the side, so that he/she gets out
of the way of the dummy-half (DH) who is trying to come through at
speed, and doesn't want to run into the dumper's ass! Maybe we
should choose one side to clear, e.g. always clear to the right,
so that the DH knows what to expect

- Clean place and roll: Andy told me my strategy of placing the ball
instead of rolling it makes it more difficult to pick up and avoid
running into the person placing it. Point taken. According to the
rules, the ball can't roll more than 1 meter, but it can roll, so
we should work on a clean place and short roll to help the placer
clear out of the way quickly.

- Working in groups of 3: I think this touch, place, pick-up
strategy works best when 3 people work together:

- the first person (the ball carrier) makes the touch

- the second person (the dummy half) should be tailing the ball
carrier ready to pick up the placed ball, after which he/she
takes only a few steps, and then passes to

- the third person (the first receiver), who should be right
there ready (and calling) for the ball, and can then make as
much ground as possible before being touched (note this
first-carrier can be touched without turning over the ball)

- at this point either the original ball carrier or the
original dummy half becomes the new dummy half, and the cycle
repeats.

It is possible for just two people to work together as the
ball-carrier and dummy-half, with the ball-carrier quickly falling
back to become the first-receiver, but usually it ends up with the
two getting tangled up as the person dumping the ball tries to
fall back.

- Advanced Strategy I: it's often better to run between two players
rather than straight at a defender. That a) prevents the defender
from pushing off you to get back 5 yards and b) pulls in two
people to the first touch. Just make sure you initiate a touch on
one of them. Then, if the dummy half sort of rolls to the outside
of one of the those first two defenders that got pulled in then
you have the makings of an overlap, which hopefully pulls in a
third defender. The key is that the dummy half has to lay off the
ball at the perfect time.

- Advanced strategy II: after clearing the ball, the original ball
carrier can try to fall back to become a second first-carrier
option for the dummy-half, but only if he/she clears properly so
that the DH has a clean pick up and run.

Hitting the Gaps and Running Off the Ball:

After a couple of cycles of the above, the theory is that the defence
will be in disarray, so that the ball can be passed to someone running
at speed into a gap. So another thing we can work on offensively is
running into the gaps and running off the ball. A lot of people tend
to wait until they get the ball before attacking. We should be looking
for and trying to anticipate gaps and then running into them, even
before we have the ball. After a couple of cycles, the ball carrier
will be looking for options (people to pass to who look like they have
a gap). The more options the better. This is why running off the ball
is important. If there are runners left and right, then the defence
has to spread to cover both options, which often opens things up
enough for one of the runners to make his gap. Sure, someone running
off the ball may be disappointed not to get the ball this time, but
by running off the ball, they may have created a gap for someone else.

Defence:
--------

The basic strategy on defence should be the following:

- Everyone come up in a flat defensive line (or fall back quickly to
form a flat defensive line)

- Count from the outside: if you are the third man from the outside
in defence, then your man is the third offensive player from the
outside.

- Don't switch when the offence switches: if your are third, and it
looks like offensive players 2 and 3 are setting up for a switch,
then slide sideways (squeeze) towards your defensive teammate
(second from the outside) anticipating the switch, but if it
occurs, don't switch --- your man is still the third man from the
outside even if it is now a different player. Think of it as
squeezing in towards the switch, and then bouncing off your fellow
defence player to keep covering the third man from the outside.

- Don't break the line (tempting as it is to dash up and touch your
man, don't do it, because if you miss, or even sometimes if you
don't, you will create a gap which the offence can exploit)

- Slide: if for some reason the defence is out-numbered
(short-handed or someone slow retreating, etc.) then everybody
should slide out so that the outside man is covered, and again the
defence counts inwards from there. Your teammates should be
sliding in from the inside to cover their inside players. You
should count on them doing that, and your first priority should be
to make sure you have your number covered, and to shutdown the
outside option.

- Talk: tell people who your man is, call for people to slide over
if there is an overlap, tell those inside you that you have the
outside man, etc.

Substitutions:
--------------

I think a good strategy will be to substitute in groups of
three. There are six on the field at a time, so if we work on the
three person attack cycle, then it is likely that groups of three
people will find that they work well together and understand each
other's play.


Mike