Hockey: Positional Roles - With and without possession

This set-up will see your team playing with a sweeper behind the back 3. The advantage of this system is that there is always a covering player to support the back 3 defenders.

Your back 3 can play this 2 ways:

1. Man to man back 3, with players sticking with the same player or
2. Zonal defending. Players stay in position and mark any player that comes into their area.

With this system you would look to attack using the width from the back.

When to use:

This system is good when:

• You have a slow back 3 players who keep being out run by forwards.
• The opposition is better and keep beating one of your back 3
• The opposition throw good long aerials landing in your 25.

The difference between the Full Press, which puts pressure on the specific areas on the pitch (wide areas in the opposition's 23m area) and the Full Court Press is that pressure is apllied on all areas around the pitch. Each player marks their man tightly and looks to step in front of their man.

When to use:

When you want to keep the opposition as far away from your goal, and to prevent the opposition's backline from playing the ball around (ideal when the opposition's backline are skilled at passing the ball out).

The basis of the press is that no player commits to the ball but a team screen is set up in the decided territory of the pitch. The aim is not to try and steal the ball from the opposition, but instead to make the opposition give the ball to you.

By pushing up you are trying to make the opposition make a mistake in trying to run or pass the ball out of these areas. After intercepting a bad pass your team should be looking to break and score.

When to use:

The Full Press should take place only if:

1. The opposition has a free hit in one of the 2 zones shown in the diagram.
   
   
2. Or a player in possession in the 23m area is given a very bad bobbly pass to their reverse stick side. However, this is slightly harder to read as all players need to react, because of this this tactic is probably not worth exploring to begin with.

Your team's press should prevent all lateral (sideways) passes across the pitch. All other passing options are easier to close down if you use the side lines to your advantage.

The 1/2 court press is again a team effort and relies on all players joining in and being disciplined.

The 1/2 court press is a bit like space invaders - players must move as one unit, from side to side in front of the ball.

It is very important that once the ball has gone into the zone, past the highest defenders, the team goes in to full court press mode. But when the ball is played back out of the 1/2 court zone the 1/2 court disciplines have to be adhered to once again.

The advantage of the 1/2 court press is that it is easier than taking the initiative, also less agreements need to be made compared to the full press.

When to use:

The Half court Press is very good for the underdog team that is not able to create chances from their own possession.

So using this system you choose to let the opposition have most of the possession and wait for them to make a mistake.

Your team will create lots of break opportunities because with every loss of possession the opposition will leave a large amount of space behind them which your side can exploit for the break.