Approaches: Almost Every 6v6 Goal Starts Here

Happy Sunday, Coach.

Welcome back to FCL’s Coaches Corner. Our quote of the day is from Jen Adams when she appeared as a guest on the FCL Podcast.

When asked if she has any tips for making practice fun while keeping it competitive, she cited two questions to ponder when running a drill:

If your players understand that the intention is to be competitive, and they understand the point of the drill, then there is room to have fun.

She summarizes this concept in this quote:

Let’s rock,

Matt Dunn & Deemer Class

(Missed the last Coaches Corner? Catch up here.)

Today’s Quick Links for Coaches:

Approaches are arguably the most important part of any defense.

How you play the ball dictates everything else. Bad approaches make it challenging to win match-ups. They also make sliding hard.

Great approaches put you in an advantageous position to win a match-up or at least give your defense clarity on where and when to support.

Today, we’re giving you a simple framework for approaches based on handedness and location.

I like to teach approaches through two variables:

1. Handedness
Which hand is the dodger trying to get to? Typically their strong hand.

2. Location
Where is the dodge starting from?

I often break this down into wings and high wings above the cage. You could have top center as well. Below GLE is very match-up dependent in my opinion, so we will not focus on that detail quite as much but similar principles apply.

Those two answers determine how we shade the match-up.

Approach the dodger square with your butt pointed to the area of the field you want to defend.

That means your hips stay parallel to their hips as you close space.

Some players “tilt” their hips more and get away with this, but learning how to play square is valuable. The farther from the cage, the more space you have to recover. In these situations you could get away with more tilt or poor fundamentals.

Shade = where your nose is positioned on the dodger’s frame.

(We are describing left/right from the dodger’s point of view. ie, shade right = shade their right hand)

Here is an example of the defender shading left hand, which is towards the middle of the field.

If the dodger’s strong hand is toward the middle, shade middle.

If the dodger’s strong hand is toward the alley/sideline, play more neutral (nose to nose).

Why?

Because we do not want to overplay middle and give up easy strong-hand alley leverage.

From many wing and alley dodges, the dodger’s strong hand is pointed:

That answer tells you how to align.

In scenario above, we see a lefty dodging from the wing. The UNC defender’s approach is square and shaded on the left shoulder. He has leverage to the middle of the field, but is not simply giving up the alley for free.

Let’s look at some other examples.

Here we see a lefty dodger, strong hand to middle.

The Loyola defender (below) shades topside. This gives him leverage to the dodger’s strong hand should the dodger go in that direction.

Notice that the defender is square to the dodger here.

Owen Duffy is a righty player in the high wing. The Notre Dame defender does an amazing job staying nose to nose on him.

If the ND defender shaded to the middle of the field, Duffy would likely be able to gain a step to his strong side.

Here, the Loyola attacker is a righty. What I love about this clip is the adjustment (the shuffle) by the Maryland defender to get his nose on the right shoulder of the dodger.

This is textbook execution and great awareness by Maryland.

When approaching a dodger at the top center it is important to be square to the dodger.

Here, you see the Maryland defender actually shade to the dodger’s right hand, even though he risks giving up the middle of the field.

Here, Hunter Smith is guarding a lefty. The ball is directly at X, and so he is square to the dodger, but shaded to the dodger’s left shoulder.

In this clip (the far corner), the MD SSDM shuffles to his left to shade towards the dodger’s strong hand. This gives him great leverage when the dodger tries to go to his strong hand.

In the next clip below, the dodger is a righty. The MD defender aims to be nose to nose, and potentially even shades a bit farther to his left (dodger’s right).

When the dodger goes to his weak hand, this leaves the defender in a perfect trail position should the dodger roll back.

There are more layers to approaching the ball, but strong hand / location framework is extremely effective.

Some other good rules of thumb for approaches:

Being a great approach team is incredibly high leverage for your defense. Regularly practice shading appropriately and keeping that leverage. Many defensive problems get solved by playing the ball well.

On ball coverage is more teachable than many believe.

Athleticism matters, but technique, skill and discipline play a large role.

Thanks for stopping by the office. If you are looking for a deeper dive, we have posted numerous videos on our Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube channels.

Stay tuned for more content and email us at [email protected] with any questions and let us know your thoughts.

This week’s freebie is from our webinar with Coach Mike LaMonica, UVA. Coach LaMonica delivered a webinar centered around zone offense and the powerplay in women’s lacrosse.

It is an extremely insightful webinar where Coach LaMonica dives into everything from team strategy to individual skill technique.

We wanted to highlight a segment where Coach Lamonica breaks where to set up in zone offense!

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