Small Drill Situations to Build Defensive Footwork

with Remington Steele,
Furman University Assistant Women's Coach;
Head Coach of the New Zealand team at the 2015 FIL U-19 World Championships;
assistant coach of the Welsh Senior Women's National Team;
former goalie for the Canadian U-19 National Team

Developing defensive technique is a year-long process that requires extra work away from the practice field. Often, these skills and techniques are developed as part of individual and small-group work sessions throughout the year. Remington Steele runs a defensive practice utilizing small groups of defenders to work on the basics of individual defense: footwork, reading the ball carrier, checking, and ground ball recovery.

Learn to work these basics through a series of progressive drills that work on the fundamentals required to be successful on game day. You'll see how multiple motor skills can be added to a drill to force your athletes to multitask while performing these basics. The small group format of this practice ensures maximum repetitions of these crucial defensive skills.

Defensive Footwork Technique

All good defense starts with correct footwork. Steele explains the importance of engaging an attacker by matching their speed by using "negative steps." He also reinforces the importance of maintaining contact with an attacker once it's made, or holding your ground to defend a secondary dodge. Steele progresses through a set of small group drills that reinforce the importance of having proper body angle and shape as well as moving your feet. See how, through the use of effective footwork, you can deny an attack lane while reading the ball carrier and defending the off-ball option.

Proper Checking Technique

Women's college lacrosse is as physical as it is fast, and Coach Steele provides a skill development blueprint for defenders to check offensive players aggressively, but also legally. Steele walks you through a set of progressive partner drills starting with the basics of stick control in tight areas that work on the hand-eye coordination necessary to making checks in a game. Learn to work on these skills in a small amount of time and with maximum repetitions for all defenders.

Footwork and Ground Balls

The result of good defense is quite often a ball down. Steele emphasizes this point by making a ground ball the defensive prize as the final step of every footwork drill. Not only does this add some variety to the footwork drill, but it also gets the defender to close out the repetition with a target in mind.

If you have defensive players who are getting beat on 1v1s or aren't exhibiting the correct defensive footwork, this video is for you!.

72 minutes. 2017.