Clapham v Chevron – Analysis of dominant defence leading to a footblock

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Transcript:

In this video I’ll look at Clapham’s intense defence which results in a turnover against Chevron at a critical point in the Tour 3 2017 Final.

First look at Justin Foord on the mark, forcing away from the camera. As Ben Burak catches the disc, Foord is moving quickly to cover the break side. As soon as Burak plants his left foot and shifts his balance to his right, Foord mirrors. Burak then throws a shoulder fake, which Foord moves slightly to the right to cover, staying balanced enough to be able to get a foot ready to cover the inside-out flick threat. He keeps his balance and positioning, so Burak doesn’t even pivot for the around backhand as he knows Foord is still covering it.

Burak then threatens the inside-out flick again, and note how it’s Justin’s right foot that moves first. This puts him in a much better position to be able to stop the throw, and means that his resulting balance is automatically aimed towards recovering his position to stop the around backhand break. Watch again how closely his footwork matches that of Burak’s.

From this angle, notice how Foord doesn’t kick his foot out for the first flick fake – Burak has wound up for the throw but does not pump the fake realistically, so Foord essentially winds up for the footblock, does not commit to it. This is a masterclass in appropriate reactions to a thrower’s movements – he respects and matches each move, without overcommitting at any point.

Now let’s have a quick look at Ashley Yeo, #20 for Clapham. He makes a decision to dial back his coverage of James Mead’s break side cut when he sees Burak is not going to attempt the throw, meaning the short break area of the pitch is no longer an urgent threat. By dialling back at this exact moment, Yeo makes the window behind him smaller, whilst also using his energy efficiently. Note the quick chain of events – Burak pulls out of the throw early, Yeo changes his coverage, and Parsons, #25 for Chevron, pulls out of his cut.

The two Clapham defenders on the far side maintain close coverage, forcing their marks towards the clustered area, denying any easy reset into the space behind them, and also contributing to Parsons’ decision to pull out of his cut. Ben Funk catching the D greatly increased Clapham’s chances of converting the turn, they instantly split the deepest defender and punch it in.

But what could Chevron have done differently?

After working the disc over to the break side, #50 Sam Turner gets open, albeit for a break throw. Burak should put more energy into trying to get the disc to Turner – even if this pass doesn’t happen, the effort would move the force further around to open up the inside-out channel, it would communicate to Turner that the pass wasn’t coming and encourage him to clear the space faster, and it would get his defender committing to stopping the pass, which would potentially open up a deep option to Turner.

This is a very fine point and only a narrow opportunity – at this late stage in the game, the big differences are to do with how the offensive and defensive strategies have adjusted to counter each other, and although Clapham are playing excellently individually, it’s likely a team-wide approach which has exploited the weaknesses in Chevron’s offence.

I hope you enjoyed this video, go to felixultimate.com for more analysis and strategy articles.

WUGC2016: Japan v USA – Every turnover of the match analysed

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Audio/video analysis of each of the nine turnovers in the Worlds Final from last year.

Transcript:

In this video I’m going to look individually at each of the nine turnovers in the 2016 World Championship Men’s Final between USA and Japan.

#1: Freechild layout

Keep your eye on Freechild, who will get the first D of the game. Notice how he takes the initiative to reposition as the disc moves. He’s keeping half an eye on the disc, meaning that when it is thrown for a swing, he is able to react a fraction of a second before Japan’s captain Kichikawa, and has position to get a fantastic layout D.

But wait a minute, where did Rehder come from?

Three passes before the turn, Gibson appears to be initiating a sandwich or bracketing setup with Rehder, using gesticulation to communicate this. This means Rehder is better placed to cover the break side. Like Freechild, Rehder keeps an eye on the disc and reacts very early to Japan’s attack, putting himself in a great position to clean up with a completely necessary D.

#2: Kolick poach

Kolick uses his position to keep half an eye on his mark, and half an eye on the field. It takes him one fifth of a second to react to Arakawa’s in-cut – he puts three hard steps in before getting a visual with the thrower Matsuno, who goes ahead with the throw because his view of Kolick was obscured by the force.

Point of note – Kickikawa and Tanaka’s close positioning here means Kolick and #24 Sefton have the opportunity to gain advantage through sandwiching and switching. Sefton should have covered Kolick’s mark as he drifted deep, as this would have allowed Kolick to make his poaching bid without exposing any significant vulnerability if the bid was not successful.

#3: Gibson layout

This is an incredible athletic block from Kurt Gibson. It’s possible he was able to be particularly tight due to anticipating Kichikawa was going to change direction when his first move was aimed towards a teammate. Just before the disc is released, Gibson is accelerating towards the exact point an accurate throw would be aimed at. His tightness keeps open the options of going either side of Kichikawa in the case of an inaccurate throw.

From the other angle, it looks as if Gibson is about to commit assault, with one hand either side of Kichikawa. Critically, he has already committed his body mass to passing on the right hand side, and his athleticism truly comes into play as he pulls his left arm well back and twists his body to keep contact to an absolute minimum. To continue to bid with his left hand here would be a clumsy, dangerous play. coughcanada

#4: Katsuta poach

#88 Katsuta sets up a sandwich (or bracket) with Arakawa when he sees their marks are close together. Playing heads-up, he sees Rehder’s under cut, checks if the disc will be thrown, and actively repositions. Making full use of the freedom given to him by the deep coverage of sandwiching setup, he’s sees Gibson’s up-line move, and simply needs to build on the momentum given from his active repositioning in the sandwiching setup to go and get the interception.

#5: Matsuno overthrow

As Matsuno catches, Arakawa sets off deep for their classic crossfield break flick huck connection. Russell Wynne puts a bid in on the force, as Matsuno releases the huck less than one second after catching the under pass. Slightly less angle or slightly less power and this would be a goal, but as it stands, it’s an execution error on Matsuno’s part.

#6: Kurono high D

Japan’s defence is looking very zonal after several turnovers in this point. #6 Kurono doesn’t fully commit to cover Nathan White’s deep cut as he can see Matsuno is helping out, and the window which White could receive an uncontested pass in is actually very small. This has to go down as a decision error by Trent Dillon, who had a wide open under pass available. White retracts his foul call after discussion, in a great display of normal spirit.

#7: Kurono overthrow

Arakawa cuts diagonally deep to the break side again, but slows up early because the thrower – Kurono – hesitates on the throw. When Matsuno throws to Arakawa from similar positions, his catch-pivot-release is always smooth, so when the thrower hesitates, Arakawa mistakenly believes the throw won’t come. If you watch Arakawa’s steps after the hesitation, you can see he slows and then speeds up. Tom Doi was close enough to have a bid on any throw, so the turn goes down to a combination of miscommunication, execution, and decision making.

#8: Komori poach phantom D

Japanese defender Komori chases the disc as soon as it is released in order to cause trouble downfield, getting a phantom D on Beau Kittredge’s infield pass to Cassidy Rasmusen. Phantom blocks, where a defender does not touch the disc with their bid but is rightly responsible for the turnover, break the catcher’s concentration as they start thinking about the potential interception, as well as often giving a visual distraction by changing the background to the catchers view of the disc. Point of note: If Beau had inverted his pivot – gone to the disc and turned to his right instead of his left – he would have seen the poach arriving.

#9: Japan miscommunication

Sad turnover to end on, but some interesting stuff nonetheless. When this stall-9 disc is released, neither Jimmy Mickle nor Josh Markette have the thrower in their field of view, which means #3 Takahashi just needs to put the disc out to space. Kurono had the easier catch, but Koike wasn’t leaving anything up to chance and committed to the layout. His first fake is excellent, and when Mickle bites he should ‘cash in’ on the fake by passing to Kurono, who has an easier shot at the Japanese player downfield on the far sideline. Instead he breaks the flow somewhat by faking the inside-out backhand, putting energy into a full fake which doesn’t accomplish much, and which didn’t seem like a realistic throwing option. He turns to Takahashi and – oopsie – puts the disc out, as he moves… classic miscommunication error.

There were only 9 turnovers in this match –

  • Five of them were caused by a defender switching, sandwiching, or poaching;
  • Two and a half turnovers were primarily decision or execution errors;
  • Two were mostly due to incredible athleticism – Freechild’s also counts as a sandwiching D due to Rehder’s necessary follow-up;
  • And one and a half turnovers were due to miscommunication.

I hope you enjoyed this video, obviously it’s been quite critical as the subject is turnovers, I recommend you check out the full game on YouTube and go to felixultimate.com to have a look at my other analysis pieces on this match, including a breakdown of Japan’s unique team defence, and a comparison between how each team approaches fielding the pull.

Japan v USA – Analysis of USA defensive confusion allowing Matsuno score

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Trying out a new style of analysis which I hope to use more in the future. Japan move the disc away from the end zone they are attacking; defensive confusion ensues.

WCBU 2017: Playing for GB Men’s Masters

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Catching in traffic for a score vs USA

I returned from the World Championships of Beach Ultimate 2017 a couple of weeks ago. The journey started back in September last year when trials were announced. I originally signed up for the Mixed Masters as well as Men’s Masters teams, and the first trial was actually playing with Men’s Masters at UK Beach Nationals. We came 3rd, beating the Grand Masters in the 3v4, and Hex came 1st in the Mixed division. Feeling out the vibe for the Men’s and the Mixed teams I made my decision to stick with Men’s, passed the further trials, and then trainings began! We had several months to prepare for heading off to Royan in France for WCBU 2017 in June.

We’d meet up every month or so on Bournemouth beach to play vs the Grand Masters. We had intended to go to a warm-up tournament but couldn’t get into Copa Tenga (which I really want to play in next year), so it turned out that our only training was playing against the Grand Masters – they were great. That team is made up of absolute legends of UK Ultimate, and every single person was a challenge to mark. They beat us overall – probably winning about 75% of the games we played over the various weekends. At the end of it all we were very aware that our training had been limited to playing against one team of players who are all older than us, so things might be very different at Worlds.

 

GB Men’s Masters average face

The vibe on the Men’s Masters team was great throughout the whole week in Royan. We didn’t get all the results we wanted – losing in sudden death three times where we felt we should’ve taken the wins (once vs Netherlands, once vs Australia, and finally in our quarter final against Spain after having the disc to win 3 separate times!) – so that was fairly gutting, but at the end of it we all had each others backs and it was a very enjoyable team to be a part of. By the end of the week we were down to 10 players for various reasons, which made the final few games tough, and we finished 8th. After the last game we all voted on MVP – overall, offence, and defence. I was very happy to win the overall MVP (and a prize of #10 Japan jersey!), Dave “Thrash/Stobbo” Stobbs won offence MVP, and Ewen Buckling won defence MVP.

I did pretty well in the stats – coming 3rd in the Men’s Masters division. I feel like I’m a better player now than I was before – playing regularly against the Grand Masters has helped a lot, but also the fitness work… finally I have been motivated to get out running in the hills regularly, and not letting myself slack off for a week at any point.

I got to play against the USA in the power pools, and it was clear they were operating at a different level to the other teams – one that I recognised and felt familiar to me, but not one which I’ve been having to play against for what felt like quite a long time. Instead of just doing the hard yards, you had to be very smart about where and when you are moving, as you can be sure they are thinking about it just as much. It was a good experience, despite the USA being quite ‘hands-on’ with their defence – I had to tell them a few times not to touch. At one point Voodoo hucked it to me and this guy (Barrs Lang) caught up and got a sick layout D over my shoulder – I thought he wouldn’t reach and that I had enough time for a safe clap catch, but that was a foolish thought! Someone captured a good photo of it:

Won’t make that mistake again! When playing the USA, catch the frisbee as early as possible, because the chances are that defender will catch you and their bid will make contact with the disc.

Overall it was a great time in Royan – would have liked to come away with a medal from Worlds, but fun times were had, and it’s inspired me to try out again for GB Masters teams in the future.

I got to meet ‘little Felix’ – Bex Forth’s second child