Murphy Family Reunion

We split into teams before anything happened and the white and dark team then warmed up seperately.

First up was 10 backhands and 10 forehands in pairs with a team mate. Turnovers by team were counted at the end the team with the most had to do push ups. Swap sides and do the same again. Again, the most turnovers had to do push ups.

Next was a dump swing drill off the side line as used by Paddy Murphy throughout the summer. This involved four spots which each had different things to focus on:

Thrower:

Look upfield for a few seconds and then turn your body to engage the dump receiver.

Dump Receiver:

Get into position level with the thrower so you are in a position to go up the line or back down the pitch.

Wait until the thrower turns to engage before making any cuts.

When you receive the dump, look to throw a swing pass immediately so as to keep the disc moving.

Short fill:

Starting at the front of the stack, when the dump receiver is about to catch, make a cut toward the opposite sideline to receive the swing pass.

Upon catching, throw a continuation pass towards the side line to a cutter coming from the back of the stack.

Deep Cutter:

Starting at the back of the stack, time an angled cut towards the side line to receive a continuation pass from the short fill.

The deep cutter then becomes the thrower, the thrower becomes the dump receiver, the dump receiver becomes the short fill, the short fill joins the stack and a new person becomes the deep cutter at the back of the stack.

The point of this drill was to get into the habit of dumping away from the side line and swinging the disc accross the field immediately.

After this drill we played a series of games, each of which had a modified rule as follows:

Game 1: Dump - Failing to turn to dump by the count of 6 is a foul. Two such fouls in one team possesion is a turn over. Also, once a player turns to dump, they had to stay committed this dump person until they got their pass off. Turning back upfield was an automatic turn over *.

Game 2: Clear wide - Using small cones to mark tennis-esque tram lines (roughly 6 or 7 paces from the side lines) anybody who was behind the disc could only move up field by running outside these lines. Running up the middle was a foul and two such fouls, as above, was a turn over.

These tram lines were to force players to leave space in the middle of the field for cutters and to not put a thrower in a position of staring at the back of their team mates heads.

Game 3: Poach - Each team nominated one player to poach at some stage during the possesion. The team on offense had to identify who was poached and get the disc to them as quickly as they could. Players who had been poached off were encouraged to go away from the poacher - initially to the break side and then either towards or away from the disc so as to force the defender to react to them.

Game 4: Defence has to block - a turnover only counts if a defender touches the disc. An incomplete pass was returned to the thrower. This allowed throwers to try new things and forced defenders to get a block and not just sit back and wait for the offense to turn over.

These modifications can be used as part of a training session or an individual can try to follow them on their own as much as possible.

* - A fear that not being allowed to turn back upfield would lead to stall outs led to me offering 1 euro to anybody that got stalled out as a result of this rule. I am very happy to say that no one got stalled out through out the day and so I did not have to pay any money!