Running Around

Today's post is inspired by the quality thinking of Owen Shepherd over at his http://thinkulti.blogspot.com/ blog which is awesome and will be added to our sidebar here (but go read it now).

Its also inspired by a comment to Rawhide of Roger's - "lets not just turn up and run around". Now, Roger's really talking to the team about using our brains, but it got me thinking that "running around" remains important!

Regular readers will have noticed that I generally post about anything but 'on-field' stuff, so I hope you will be kind in this attempt.

Anyway, there's a lot to be said for 'running around' – at least when you're facing a fitness mismatch.

Its known that I'm old and slow and not a great user of the disc, so I am often marked by other old people (who are nonetheless often faster than me, and are much usually better throwers than I am). These are the Buzz's and J-Rays and Tony Ross's of the world (whom I hope aren't reading this).

But I like to think I'm reasonably fit and have good field sense. So when I'm marked by these guys (and not handling, and when we have subs), I go berserk and run and run and run (using my field sense not to stuff around the rest of our offence).

The results are:
a. eventually I get free because they get tired before I do (and often they are too tired to even use their superior-brain-poaching-skills);
b. if we turn it over, they are tired and
i: will often slow their team's offence down by calling themselves to pick up the disc and walking very slowly over to it,
ii: will often become predictable – a tired gun thrower is more likely to punt to the end-zone, but being tired it may not be the best quality throw,
iii: this also gives me time to be on the disc well before them, helping set up our D by calling the force loudly; and finally,
iv: they also don't tend to go anywhere fast after that.
c. Also, they will sub more, taking a potent thrower off the field for more points.

The flip mismatch is when my opponent is faster and fitter than me. I aim to:
a. if possible, swap players while they're setting their O up (this is an extra reason why picking players up quickly helps the team – you get time to trade match-ups),
b. get very close and in front of them – I am a lot to get around and they become off balance when cutting and catching,
c. treat them as an individual – what do they normally do? How did smarties like Piers/Al/Leon try to fox me last time? Perhaps most importantly – have they thrown or caught any goals this game?
d. get my head up early if I've been faked inwards – particularly so that I can quickly see and loudly call if there's an opportunity to switch onto the incoming cutter, or give my player to the long defender.

Ultimate players (particularly older ones) spend a lot of time talking about our thinking – but never forget the physicality of 'running around'!