Offensive Plays

There are a number of offensive plays which will be used during any game but the most common are:-

a) The counter attack
b) Screen (sometimes referred to as the player check)
c) Man Up situations
d) The Centre Forward and Double Centre


a) The counter attack

For the counter attack to be effective, you have to start with a solid defense which in turn can be turned into attack as quickly as possible. Let us take as an example, that we are defending in an M Zone defense as explained in previous blogs. For the counter attack to be effective, you need to be alert at all times and know the right moment to start attacking. If you leave too soon you might give your opponents that extra second to score and if you leave too late, then the counter attack will not be effective as the opposing team will already be retreating too.

Once on the “break”, the defender who was on the outer right hand side opens up after a few short fast strokes to get the ball from the goalie. In the mean time, the other front four start swimming fast towards the opposing goal. Just after the half way line, the second player on the right breaks away to their right to receive the ball. By this time, the middle player would have swam up to the two meter line, while the outer two have reached the five meter line and so now, it all boils down to 2 picking the right pass to the “free” player and scoring.

These types of plays are practiced all the time during a training session. You can start with 3 on 2 then 4 on 3, 5 on 4 and finally 6 on 5, all the time using a chaser coming up from behind. A chaser is the defending player furthest back who tries to catch up with the group to close down a counter attack.

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