Defenders

1. Passive defender- Instead of the red cone in the middle add a passive defender. They are allowed to move from blue cone to green cone and present their stick sideways and forwards, but don't allow any tackling at this stage. The semi-circle on the diagram shows the rough tackle area. 1.) Players should look to practice both the v-drag and pull back against the passive defender. As there are two skills the defender won't know which one is going to be used or the direction the player is going to go (the v-drag could be right-to-left). The coaching points for the skills are the same as above but it is just added pressure to the attacker to spot if they could do it in a game situation or further practice in isolation is needed. Hopefully by the players doing the moves quickly and exaggerating the movements they will see that the defenders are thrown off balance and could then be beaten. Once they have done the skill, they should drive forward hard into the space as they would do in a game. Do the passive defending for around 5 minutes. 2.) The active defender can close the player down and move themselves to make a basic block tackle, but they aren't looking to jab tackle or shave tackle the ball ball of the attacker as they haven't learnt any of those skills yet and it could be dangerous. Attackers are looking to use both the skills to beat the defender; it may be they have to do one followed straight away by a second to get around them. However, experimenting is the key thing for them to try and do at this stage. Do this for around 5 minutes (in pairs they should be defender for 2 minutes roughly each before switching).