Match Defence & Forcing
The Basics
In this diagram, everyone in matched up to an offensive player, but the defence are not working together.
As a result, many throws are available to the handler. To try and stop this, we use forcing.
The force positions themselves to stop throws to the left side of the pitch, which we now call the break side. The other defenders can position themselves on the right (open) side of the person they are marking.
Against a stack, it would look like this. The idea is that anything to the break side is blocked by the force, and anything to the open side will be reached by a defender first.
Here is an animation of how it might look in game.
The down-field defenders are now working together with the force, which is a big improvement on what we started with. However, more can be done. The next step is to get the down-field defenders working with each other as well as with the force. To see how we can do this, go to switching & surrounding.