The Importance of Clearing

At the heart of any good offence is having cutters getting free regularly. Many teams therefore concentrate on cutting techniques. However, there is no point in someone beating his or her man if there is no open space to cut into to receive the disc. The concept of creating and maintaining open space around the thrower (and further up field) is realised through the practice of strong, coordinated clearing. Before a team can learn to cut, it must learn to clear effectively.

You not only need to clear after an unsuccessful cut, but also after you have thrown a pass. It is a common and fatal mistake for a thrower to idly watch their pass through to completion and then slowly move back into the stack.

Every good cut deserves a good clear.There is no point in making a great cut if you are going to stuff up everyone else when you get looked off. Bad clearing can be as much the cause of a turnover as a dropped catch.

There are basically four methods of clearing which will be addressed here:

• clearing wide
• clearing up the middle
• clearing behind the disc (“don’t clear”)
• isolation

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Clearing Wide

The idea behind clearing wide is simple - get away from the thrower as quickly as possible to leave the spaces open for subsequent cutters. This entails running towards the sideline and then up the sideline before joining the stack near the back.

The problem with this is that it can tend to cut off the sideline flow if people don’t clear very hard, or don’t keep an eye on what’s happening to the disc. If the disc is caught near the sideline you are clearing down, you should aim to cut back towards the disc for an easy ground gainer rather than running across into the stack and colliding with cutters coming the other way. Alternatively, clear harder deep looking for the long pass.

The other problem with clearing wide is that it allows the defender to flare in close to the thrower and attempt to poach on the next cut. This is why you must clear WIDE and HARD. If you keep an eye on the thrower, it is easy to burn this poach with a hammer.

Clearing up the Middle

To avoid the problems with poachers and clogging the sidelines, an alternative (but more complex) scheme is to clear through the middle.

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Don’t Clear

In the end zone, the best possible situation for the offence is to have a single cutter covered by a single defender. This should ALWAYS result in a goal, assuming the receiver and thrower have a reasonable ability, regardless of how good the defence is. As the number of defenders in the end zone increases, the more difficult scoring becomes. Six cutters with six defenders is very difficult to throw to, unless there is enough discipline so that only one or two receivers are cutting at any one time (and assuming that the defence is playing man-on-man).

This is not only true in the end zone. Anywhere on the field, the chances of completing a pass are maximised if there is only one cutter/defender pair in any area. The only reason we would want more than one receiver between the thrower and the end zone is so that if a catch is made outside the end zone, there will immediately be someone to throw to.

Isolation

In an isolation situation , one or more players are designated as potential receivers. It is everyone else’s job to keep away from the isolated players and allow them to cut as they please (as if the rest of the team weren’t on the field).

Domination

The most common instances of isolation plays are the dominator and “the man”. In the dominator, the three handlers (LP, RP & AX) are designated from the pull to work the disc the length of the field for a score. Everyone else keep clear up field, with MD offering an out if they get in trouble.

The Man

In “the man”, a single player is designated to score the goal once the disc is near the end zone. This can be done from a set-up.

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