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Two on one situations

Question:

Could you please advise as to the "recommended" way to deal with a two on one situation, i.e. two attackers versus the goalie. 1) two attackers approaching outside the circle 2) two attackers inside the circle. This situation is nearly always difficult to defend.

Answer:

I’m not clear whether you’re talking about two attackers against a defender and a keeper, or two attackers straight up against a keeper. With a defender helping, you’re basically trying to encourage the attackers to take a shot from a bad angle. You best do that by positioning your defender just below the player with the ball and in a lane between the ball carrier and his team-mate. As long as you don’t allow the ball to cross from one player to the other, you can usually slow down the attack and reduce the shooting angle.

Two attackers straight up against a keeper is a different matter. My next tip will be on slide tackling and a lot of that pertains to this situation. You need to keep a couple of things in mind when you make a decision on how to play these situations. How much time and space the two have, where your help is coming from and where the attack is coming from all impact how you can be successful in the situation. I won’t say there is a “recommended” way. You can play these situations eighty different ways and be successful with all of them, but I have a couple of things I try to do.

If the ball is outside the circle, I’ll play about ten yards off my line. I’ll try to force the ball carrier to make a decision to take the ball to a side. If I can do that, I’m going to try keeping myself in a position where I’m near the line between the ball carrier and his team-mate, while still being near the goal. If they’ve got time and space, my focus is defending the circle and trying to pick a spot where I’ve got my best chance to play the ball. For me, that’s when the ball carrier has his head down and is moving at speed with the ball off his stick, preferably, just as he enters the circle. Another good time is when his focus is on his team-mate. The biggest thing I want to avoid, is taking him on when he’s got the ball on his stick and can see me coming. I don’t want to be all the way at the top of the circle when the attack is coming in, as I won’t have any momentum if I do want to slide tackle. I’ll let them get in so I can use my whole body, and then take them within a yard of entering.

As I said, there’s no right or wrong way to play these situations as long as you keep the ball out of the net. Keep track of what you do and the result. That should give you your best “recommended” way of playing these situations.

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