Early Positioning gets the disc

Score more goals with a simple adjustment

I only coached Emma Healy for a single season, but she ranks amongst the best receivers I have ever worked with. Emma is very athletic but I have worked with taller, faster, more explosive cutters that don’t score goals with the regularity and ease that Emma does.

Side note: I adore goalscorers and I think they are really undervalued. So many cutters want the disc in their hands outside the endzone. More players need to figure out that catching it in the endzone means their team scores!

Emma executes lots of cutting skills at a very high level. One thing she does extremely well that players should watch and learn from is taking aggressive position very early on cuts.

As this disc is thrown, Emma has gained a couple steps separation, but she is heading for the middle of the endzone. The disc is not going there - it’s heading out to the right, offscreen and with too much air underneath. Even if she beats the defender to that spot, she’ll have to wait for the disc. Oh, and the defender is taller so a 50-50 contest isn’t in Emma’s favour.

Emma immediately changes her line to cut across the defender as early as possible. This is where a lot of players would focus on changing their line to where the disc is going, and then try to take position, but making it a battle.

It’s clearer in full motion, but you can also see that by taking position early - while the defender is still sprinting - Emma forces the defender to slam on the brakes. This takes away the defender’s momentum and stop them being able to use to use their size to counter a worse position.

Then it’s a good job of maintaining that position and having the composure to wait make a safe two handed catch. She doesn’t need to go to full extension on her arms or with her jump which increases her catching percentage. A goal that she made look simple, but has a lot of skill and craft in it.

Counter-Example

Emma makes it look easy so I wanted to show a counter example. This isn’t terrible offence - it’s a shorter throw so the reactions and decisions have to be executed quicker, and there’s a bigger height mismatch between the defender and Cliona Doyle.

I said this isn’t bad offence and the margin here is absolutely tiny - we’re talking a couple of cm between catch and block. As you can see from this snapshot, Cliona has done what most players would regard as a decent positioning job, keeping her full body between disc and defender.

Let’s look at what she could have done.

The red X is roughly where the disc is going to be caught. Once the disc is up and is hanging, Cliona’s thought process should switch to stopping the defender getting a run at this disc.

The red line is where she needs to ensure that the defender has stopped. This would take away the defender’s momentum, and would put Cliona in charge of when to go get the disc.

It can definitely feel strange to slow down so far from the disc. It takes practice and composure to get over the fear of putting yourself in a position where you can’t get to the disc at all.