How important is the Strike?

I think it's critical - largely for the psychological reasons that Alex mentions.
Gaining clean possession [and often it's a lot cleaner than it appears to observers], for a well organised team, from the strike makes an enormous difference to the entire team - including the guys/gals in the subs area.

It isn't just 'cos I am a recidivist forward and Liam is a defender either.

This is isn't a small, easy answer, topic by any means and requires more than a few postings on a forum site.
I'll happily discuss this face-to-face with any other coach or player - 'cos I'm far more erudite in person than I am as a typist - before during or after a competition if you like. Just come up and ask me poolside.

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In Sheffield, we had three centre forwards, two of whom, whilst being kick arse players, were perhaps the slowest swimmers in the known universe. So I think it was against south africa, we lost a bunch of strikes by a fair way until Hamish got in, and we got a goal off the strike, straight up the guts. The commentator was convinced that it was a planned move, to lull the opposition into a false sense of security with pretend slowness and give them three easy goals, then BAM... just when they least expect it to bust out a spear play.

i agree with amc2 and alex,its a great psychological advantage and physical.
ever notice in some club games when you win the puck and get past the first man,your buddy is beside you and between the two. you somehow get it to the 3 metre goal mark,well the feeling of strength is immence,you feel you can go through that wall.
and as you are percieved to be making a good run,your team mates up the rythm and push in behind you.
so the pressure is on the opposite side physically and mentally.
as apposed to
going for the puck lasily,losing it,their forwards barging past and doing exactly what i said in the above paragragh.i think i´d rather the first paragraph.

but a question for amc2.
Is it worth the energy exerted to get to that puck when most occasions anything may happen when you get to the puck?

or for all of you that voted anything less than fairly important.
WHAT IF
your 2-1 down and a minute to go you have just had a time out,nothing to loose,you send out everybody straight to the puck,so thats 6 people sprinting their life out to the puck on one mission,thats to drive it through you and that goal.
would you think its important to get possesion of that puck ?
or
your happy with 2-1 and your gonna sit back just wait for the minute to clock down.

has anyone seen a situation like that ?

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top of de mornin to yeh

um... you did see in the original post to start the thread I specified generally, and used as an example down by 1 with 1 minute left as an obvious time... as well Up by 1 with 1 minute left I would argue just as important.


BTW: C'mon everyone answer the poll question!!! i'm sure everyone has an opinion lets see a bigger sample size on this. I'm really interested in the numbers.
170 views but only 15 answers...

reply for steve: it's always worth the effort - you might win the strike very cleanly for any number of reasons. oppn striker might lose a fin, oppn strikers might be confused about who was supposed to go for puck and none of them do.
even if the oppn get to the puck first you will still stop them getting further down the pool than they would have managed if you had just strolled out on the strike with the premise that you'd just take the puck off them at your leisure.
call me crazy, but back when i was young and pretty [cough cough] i always went full bore on the strike - i always thought i could win it and i always trusted my team-mates to do the right thing once we got there.

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Andrew, thank you for that post. I had just typed up the following stuff, before seeing this last one, and was wondering while posting what your thoughts on this point might be.

My question really originally formed because I was re-watching a few of our games from Sheffield, and something I had noticed was the damage that was done from a mistake on the strike was costly and dramatic; much more so than what may have been gained from executing the play well. When both teams attack hard, and both teams execute well the stronger team will usually have the advantage, but not by much (if they are at least somewhat competitively close not NZ vs. Japan, but say US vs FRA), and the advantage quickly disappears into regular back and forth play. BUT when a team makes a mistake, it appears they are in position to be crippled, even more so than at some random point in the game where the puck is around mid pool.

I’m not sure if this is always the case, and good teams will always punish mistakes, that is part of what makes a good team good, and even good teams can make a mistake or two during a game; and it appears to me that on a strike play it is not usually the team that executes better, that gains much, but rather the team that makes a mistake that loses on the play.

I could very well be wrong, but it seems a more conservative approach to the play might be a better choice in most circumstances, then as nicky pointed out when its called for blast one straight down the gut.

BTW, I this is a big change in opinion for me because I used to be the arrogant forward who thougtht I could win every strike and just trust my teamates would be following me. Older, slower, less fit, ?smarter???

faint heart never won fair maiden
i prefer to go apesh1t all of the time on the strike.
and not just bash it up the guts apesh1t - carefully considered and well executed apesh1t that moves the puck 6 or 7 metres [about 6 or 7 yards for you anti-imperialists in north america still using imperial measurements] into the oppn 1/2
creates a bit of the old psychological advantage steve likes.

maybe i just like to see defenders panicking. some people are just natural born strikers i guess.

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...you have to also consider tuck, that sometimes you dont know what the striking team is trying to achieve.

they might be trying to execute something specific or merely not lose ground and end up on a wall.

blasting up the guts against a team that has very strong defence but prefers to counter-attack slowly (ie will just defend the strike to the wall if you blast them) is just as good a way of getting the puck to a wall as trying to take it there yourself, or let the other team win and try to defend it there.

...would you rather defend in your corner or in theirs? etc etc.

as a specific example, in one game i saw in sheffield one team was down to 4 players in a crunch game, won the strike with one forward and went up the guts. took the initiative away from the team with 6 and ended up with (semi)controlled play in the middle rather than getting bashed on defence or trying to go wide across a forward line with a 2 man overlap. plus... the unexpected!

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it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

oups...sorry about that tuck,i didnt read that so well.
tks amc2,tuck and atapene,all very interesting comments.
im really glad this topic is up here.good call tuck

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top of de mornin to yeh

In womens eleit, Striking is very inportant to Australia and to me as I am a Strike/Center.
We had the ability to score off the strike with 1 team breath with in 5 to 10 sec, against some very tough teams and win games with this tactic. This plan for us worked at least 3 times resulting in goals at crutichal stages in some games in Shefield.
The strike is a very powerful thing if you have fast, fit, strong frowards and a plan. Like any plan, dont ware it out!
Cheers
Belle
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