Frisbee seminar: understanding the force
This week, we will be talking about the force and marking, two fundamental defensive concepts. We discussed both of these concepts last year, but since we have some new people (and since some people might have forgotten) here's a rundown of how this works in a real game situation.
To start off, you should watch the following clip from a semifinal game at 2016 mixed club nationals. Watch from 44:05 (when the disc is tapped in at the endline by Minneapolis Drag'n Thrust, in blue) to 44:48 (the score by Boston Slow White, in white).
There are two hucks in this clip (reminder: "huck" means "long throw"). One of them is easily defended by the other team, and the other one is a score. There are a few reasons why the second huck works and the first one fails, but right now I just want to focus on one: the force.
The basic idea of the force is that it's really, really difficult to play defense against a person when they have a lot of different options for places to potentially catch the disc. So, the "mark" (the person on defense defending the person holding the disc) positions his or her body to prevent throws to a specific region of the field—limiting the options of the offensive players downfield and making the defenders' jobs easier.
So how does this actually work? Check out a still from the clip you just watched:
The mark (the person standing next to the thrower) has positioned his body to prevent throws from going to the vaguely triangular region of the field directly behind him. Notice that the mark is mainly stopping throws towards the sideline at the top of the screen, and is basically giving the thrower free rein to throw towards the sideline at the bottom of the screen (we call this side the "open side" or the "force side.") This is called "force flick" or "force forehand," since the open side is on the right side of the thrower's body and it's a lot easier to release a forehand on that side.
A few throws later, we can see even more clearly how much the defense is trying to prevent the offense from throwing on the left side of their bodies (i.e. preventing them from throwing backhands):
Notice how hard the mark works to prevent the thrower from passing to the player circled in green below (and how much effort it takes for the Minneapolis thrower to hit him with a backhand pass). Downfield, the defense is still working hard to say on the open side of the players they're guarding (again, the open side is towards the bottom of the screen). Also watch the clip to see how, when the green-circled player gets the disc, the blue-circled player immediately positions himself to again prevent backhand throws.
Now the first huck goes up, and it's easily caught by the Boston defender. Why it is it so easy? It's partly because the throw doesn't go far enough. But also the defender can easily make a play on the disc because throughout the entire play, he's staying on the open side of the receiver. You can see the defender (#5) who makes the play circled in blue, below:
Watch the huck again, but this time, pay attention to the defender instead of the thrower. The main point: because the mark is forcing the thrower to throw on the right side of his body, the defender is able to anticipate which side of the field the disc will be thrown to, and he can easily play defense by staying closer to that side of the field.
Now watch Boston play offense to see what happens when the defense doesn't have that advantage. As the Boston offense sets up, the Minneapolis defense also sets a flick force. In this image, the mark is preventing throws into the red triangle, so that now the open side is towards the top of the screen:
Unfortunately for Minneapolis, the Boston thrower manages to get a throw off right into that red triangle—and what's worse for Drag'n Thrust, the defender doesn't set a mark. Check out what this looks like:
All of the downfield defenders are on the open side of the people they're guarding, because they're expecting the guy circled in red to prevent throws towards the bottom sideline. But the first throw into that red triangle catches that red defender in a bad position, and before he can get there and set up a good mark, the thrower launches a nice backhand for his receiver to run onto.
To really drive home how important the force is for the defense, take a look at person defending the guy who ends up scoring the point. Only moments before the scoring pass is thrown, he's actually standing very close to the person he's guarding—in fact he's actually touching him!
But it doesn't matter. The defender is standing on the open side, so the Boston player easily gets to the disc before he does—because the mark failed to do his job and prevent that throw.