Give-and-Go Four Line Shooting Drill
Use this is simple, standard shooting drill to teach your Box and Field players to move their feet and get open without the ball for easy goals if you can catch the Defense "Ball-Watching"!
Keep your drills and games simple, fun, and active.
We are looking for easy ways to keep our players busy in small groups with limited contact right now, working on combined fundamental skills, foot work, and teaching game situations all at the same time, plus keeping things FUN! So we are going back to some simple skills that we haven't practiced in a long time- the basic "Give-and-Go!" or "Back Door Cut". We can't practice a lot of dodging and contact right now, so we are teaching our players how to work smarter, not just harder.
"Cut when you see the back of your Defender's Helmet!"
The Give-and-Go is so useful and effective, especially against inexperienced Defenders, every player needs to know it. It's a classic move in every sport. The traditional advice used to be, "Cut when you see their laces," back in the days when helmets had shoe laces in the back. For our female players, we say, "Cut when you see her pony tail."
If you can catch your Defender "Ball-Watching", even for a second, that's a good time to move behind them, where they can't see you, and get open. This happens all the time when you pass the ball. Your Defender will almost always follow the ball with their eyes. So, "Give", and "Go!"
Stick Skills, Footwork, and Game Situations, all in one!
We love this drill right now because we can build in complexity as necessary to match our players' skill level. Our younger players need practice just passing, moving, catching and shooting. Our more advanced players can work on side-to-side ball movement, multiple types of cuts, and we can include pieces, or "Chunks", of our offensive concepts and field locations, so our players recognize them on game day. We always want skill drills that mimic and translate into game situations.
- Related: Check out this "Pass Down, Pick Down" Offense we got from Box Lacrosse that we are now using with all our Field teams.
HERE'S THE DRILL:
Do this drill with or without a Goalie. We like to do most of our shooting drills without Goalies so that we can really maximize the number and speed of the reps and touches on the ball each player gets in the drill. This gives us a chance to really focus on our Goalies at the same time, instead of just letting them get beat up in shooting drills. Take care of your Goalies!
Start your players in four lines, with balls up top. These four lines could be your top two Midfielders and two Wings of the standard 2-3-1 Formation, or if you run any kind of Pairs Offense, Open Set, 4-2 Formation, etc.
Figure 1.) Blue 1 will "Give!" or pass the ball to Blue 2 on the wing, then "Go!" to the Goal! It's that simple. Each player will get one pass and one catch every time they are in the drill. Combine skills to increase your players' rate of skill acquisition.
We run this drill on both sides of the goal to keep the drill and lines moving as quickly as possible, keeping all our players busy at all times. In small groups of four or five, your players will really be working hard.
