Felix takes a look at the new Ultimate Frisbee computer game Disc Space, available for free on Steam, and picks the Top 3 Plays from the Grand Final of the DSL Inaugural Tournament.
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Check out Villanueva’s Meta Analysis
5th and final part from the Spectrum of Defensive Coverage in Ultimate series. In this video we look at how flexagon defence combines principles of switching and surrounding the opponents in order to complicate situations and gain advantage from offences which focus on clustering players or running set plays.
Full video – Every Turn + analysis: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44251596
Felix provides quick analysis of the top 3 most notable turnovers from the USA Ultimate Frisbee 2019 Men’s Club Nationals Semi-Final between New York PoNY and Chicago Machine.
Take a look at this copy of the 1st edition (?) of the rules – given to me as an MVP prize by a long forgotten team, after a game at Paganello many years ago. Loads of quirky and interesting things within, including travels being turnovers, “this sport can be played with as many as 20 or 30 per team”, and the suggestion that hills or rivers are used as natural sideline boundaries.
Sustained poaching is the technique of covering a space on the field that is particularly valuable to the offence. If an offence makes disproportionate use of deep throws for example, then a poaching defender in the deep space can increase the difficulty of a deep throw, and force the offence to make shorter passes. The deep poach also allows 1 to 1 defenders to take away the under aggressively in the knowledge that the deep poach will help if they get beat deep. Similar tactics can be used with a poach in the open side lane, with other defenders aggressively covering the deep space, or a combination of a sustained under poach and a deep poach, often seen utilised against vertical stacks.
Combatting sustained poaching comes in two main styles. Either an offence continues to create options in the poached area by running through that space and drawing the poaching player out of position, leaving the space free for a cut. Alternatively the offence can look to use other areas of the field to work the disc up to the endzone. When a team uses a sustained poach it also requires other downfield defenders to switch off their mark and onto the poached player when they make a cut, which requires communication and field awareness. If the defence chooses not to do this when the poached player cuts away from the poach, they generate a large amount of separation and the space is left exposed.
In the 2019 EUCF final CUSB La Fotta used sustained poaching against Clapham to take away both the deep and under space at different parts in the game. Here you can see Justin Ford cut deep only to see a deep poach and look visibly frustrated, and here is a near poach d from Bruno Mine as he lingers in the under space. Check out full analysis of the game in 4 part series on the felixultimate channel.
Latest training video from the How to Train Hex series available to $8 patrons and above – 7 videos are now available in the archive:
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Brilliance Box Drill
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| Training players ability to throw’n’go in a game-like situation – accelerate out of their throws, decelerate into their catches, and change direction with the disc in their hands. A progression of the drill also introduces dribbling with 2 active players. Watch video. | |
The Brilliance Box Drill trains players’ ability to accelerate out of their throws, decelerate into their catches, and change direction with the disc in their hands. A progression of the drill also works on misdirection, and 2-person dribbling. Full video available to Training Tier patrons.
Flash Poaching is the technique that’s the first step away from purely marking players that teams use to generate turns. Aware defenders flash poach ahead of a cut when they believe they know which player will imminently be thrown to. A flash poaching player can dive into that space early to discourage the throw or late and potentially get a D. Flash poaching is great for adding a bit of chaos into your defence that throwers need to consider when deciding if a player is free enough to throw to; a more difficult task than deciding if a 1 to 1 marked player is free.
Flash Poaches do however leave a player with separation that can cut away from the flash poach and get very free. Flash Poaches also require a lot of field awareness as flash poaching an option that wasn’t going to be thrown to has no upside and means the player poached off of is even more likely to receive the disc. Flash poaching can encourage watching the disc to determine if a cut will be thrown to instead of keeping focus on your match-up, which can add a split second to a defenders reaction to their match-up cutting.
New York Pony are a team that have used flash poaching very effectively, specifically in the 2018 season, leading to wins at the Pro Championship Finals and USAU Club Nationals. Pony’s defence was excellent at recognising when their match-up was inactive, surveying the field, and attacking the space where an active player was cutting into. More analysis of Pony’s defensive strategy can be found in this analysis video from the Pro championship finals and these livestreams with coach of Pony, Bryan Jones as we go over Pony’s nationals win in 2018.
