EUC Women’s Final 2023 by Ian French

What a game! It was really hard to try and summarise what happened in this one – go and watch and enjoy. I have so many notes I couldn’t get to because I would be writing this forever. Would love to hear from you on the aspects I missed out on.

Congratulations to Germany on a dominant season, and also to GB for a fantastic season, putting GB Women’s teams back amongst the top teams in Europe after a down year in 2019.

Breakout Performances

One of the great pleasures of watching Euros is seeing players emerge as international stars. I wanted to highlight these two young athletes in particular – to see them play with such poise and skill in a game this big was so enjoyable. Hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot more of these performances in future from these stars.

Charlotte Schall

I highlighted on Eurozone after Windmill that Charlotte Schall played a big role handling the disc with security, freeing up Anna Gerner to run riot. We then saw her play fantastically at U24s for the bronze medal winning German women’s team, marshalling their D line offence throughout the week.

In both those tournaments there was a senior handler shouldering the main responsibility on offence – Gerner at Windmill and Ava Mueller at U24s. Schall’s role at EUC started the same.

Then Anna Gerner dislocated her knee (good luck to her with her recovery), and Schall was parachuted into leading the German offence. As a young player it’s not always easy to step into a bigger role in this way but Schall made it look easy. Her statline tells you nearly everything 5 assists/2 goals/1 block in a Euros final at that age is incredible.

However, I think you really need to watch her full game to appreciate how much she was in control of the game. She is a supreme athlete who never stops moving and being available, seemingly is free at will despite drawing the incredibly tough matchup of Molly Wedge all game. She has every throw you could want, and most importantly, has real grit to go along with her skills.

This point at 13-13 sums her up. Always available to recycle the disc, and when the team is not moving forward and under pressure she produces a bit of magic with the disc. A breakside huck like this in this situation is brave and it was inch perfect*.

Hannah Yorwerth

After GB won Tom’s Tourney in impressive fashion I pointed to some of their established names as key piece – Hannah Brew, Rachel Naden, Karen Kwok, Molly Wedge. All of those played fantastically in this game too, but if you are going to step up in level as GB did here you need a less established player to make a leap forward. I wasn’t familiar with her game beforehand but she jumped out immediately as someone who was ready for this moment.

Sometimes when watching a game live a player can catch my eye as having a good game but when I dig in and look through the details later it’s apparent that they only played well in some moments and not in others, usually particularly in the moments they aren’t directly involved. That wasn’t the case here: the more I watch and rewatch the more details I spot that I absolutely love. I’m such a big fan of Yorwerth’s game now. I’m excited to see what’s next for her.

GB initiation and Yorwerth’s positioning

GB used this initiation quite a bit in the first half – Yorwerth fielding the pull then immediately taking off deep. I like this type of initiation against a team that wants to poach and switch like Germany – this big move from a threatening player draws a lot of attention and creates a lot of opportunities for mistakes from the defence**.

It highlights one of the unusual aspects of Yorwerth’s playstyle. She’s essentially a hybrid moving between the handler spots and downfield, but most threatening when moving the disc around the back. We see plenty of these hybrids and they normally live somewhere close to the disc, hanging around the handler spots or shallow downfield with the occasional deep strike to keep defence’s honest.

Yorwerth approaches it differently. When inactive she is quite often the furthest player from the disc – surveying all the field from there and when she sees the play start to break down she uses her lightning fast sprint to get to the disc. Despite cutting from these deep positions she rarely makes any yardage, which is fine because the idea is just to get the disc in her hand so she’s happy to go all the way to the backfield to get it.

Later in the game when GB switch to a spread offence it’s noticeable that she struggles to get involved in the same way, with the lanes being occupied she often gets sealed out by teammates.

Lethal in short space

As mentioned, her speed and awareness means that she shines in the short spaces, keeping the momentum of the play going and moving the disc laterally.

Throwing breaks

Yorwerth is a dangerous break thrower – having a lovely balance between a lethal low forehand and a high backhand which makes the prospect of stopping her throws a particularly daunting one.

Defensive Prowess

She also uses her speed and awareness on defence – registering two blocks in the final. For both of these she’s a little out of position but uses her jet-powered acceleration to get the disc.

The second block was particularly impressive as it tied GB back up with Germany at 13-13. Clutch block, but in that situation to also have the awareness immediately after getting it to find a GB player to move it forward to is crucial***.

First half

GB picking defence

I’m firmly in the camp of picking offence unless conditions force otherwise. I don’t think it’s a mortal sin to pick defence, but it’s especially questionable against a team that has only been broken 7 times (in 9 games) in the tournament to this point. Don’t.

O lines hold

Neither O line gets broken in the first half! Despite that there were some nice defensive moments.

GB produced two excellent, clean, layout blocks. Leila Denniston and Kate Gibson taking smart early lines that allowed them to get hands to the disc.

Germany relied more on using poaches and switched against GB’s vertical stack. It produced a couple of blocks, but not really a lot of pressure in other points as GB’s offence line looked comfortable for most of the half**.

D lines offensive struggles

Both O lines did turnover, however D line offences were unable to convert.

Somewhat surprisingly, both D lines played horizontal offence while their O lines (in the first half) played vertical. Both D lines ran into classic horizontal problems of not being able to cleanly generate the first options – horizontal really demands the threat of the deep bomb to open up space and neither team looked to have the ability to produce those throws, with GB coming closer to converting on a couple of hucks to open receivers that drifted out the sideline.

Missed opportunity for Germany

Once Germany converted for 7-6 I think they missed out on an opportunity to push for a break before half.

I don’t like the decision by Germany to go zone, or to not call a a stacked line. I think the best decision here is call your strongest power line to look for the break and use one of your two remaining timeouts to rest if you don’t get it. Pulling at 7-6 with half at 8 with a timeout in hand can be a really strong position to be in if you recognize it.

Second half

D line successes

The second half was a reversal of the first half – O lines turned fewer times, but when they did they got punished.

GB actually got turned the same number of times in both halves – 4 in each. However they recovered all their turns in the first half and their first turn (in the first point) of the second half. After that, every turn resulted in a break.

Germany turned just 3 times in the second half after 5 in the first. After recovering all 5 turns in the first half they only recovered one in the second.

What made the big difference here? Well it was surprisingly straightforward – the location of the turns. It makes logical sense that the higher up a pitch you force a turnover the more likely you are to get it back but it’s very unusual to see such a stark contrast.

• GB’s D line offence went 0/6 from blocks in their defending half and 2/2 from blocks in their attacking half***
• Germany’s D line offence went 0/5 from blocks in their defending half and 3/3 from blocks in their attacking half

GB’s Offensive Switch

GB turned over on their first offence point out of half in their vertical set. They got the disc back and scored, but the seeds of these turnover can be seen towards the end of the first half with the German defenders on the resets and at the front of stack taking noticeably more aggressive underneath positions, forcing the reset cuts upfield and challenging GB to hit those tight windows. Here they aren’t able to, and you can also see for the first time that there is a lack of movement elsewhere in the stack – no moves to provide any sort of bailout option at a different angle.

After this GB switch to a horizontal stack on offence.. This is an exact switch I have made many times coaching so the thinking here was sound. But it didn’t work. GB immediately gave up two breaks, both of which were a direct result of cutters running into the same spaces.

After these two breaks GB did stick with and hold cleanly using this horizontal stack three consecutive points, before getting broken again in the final point after more issues with crowded space.

Power Lines

With the championship on the line we saw some power lines called as the game swung back and forth. I think both coaching staffs did a great job timing these in this half. Here’s some specific notes:

German power line great timing after regular D line gets a break to make the game 10-9. I like the decision here to push for the second break and give themselves a cushion – one they ended up needing. It can be tempting to put the exact same line out twice in a row in this situation, good call to mix it up. Then another good decision to go back to regular D line and let the O players rest.

GB made a good decision to call and O power line after the conceding the second break. Molly Wedge really took control of that point and kept GB in the game.

Then another excellent decision by GB to call a defensive power line after that hold, then the same again after getting that break. That line got the first break and then put incredible pressure on which only Schall’s magic (see her backhand huck above) bailed them out of.

Germany’s decision to not crossover any O line players at 14-13 was also a good call. It can be tempting to try and finish the game off, but it was a better decision to play the D line and let the offence rest. Huge bonus that the D line were able to get the break anyway.

3 decisions for GB to think about

These are some inflection points in the second half that would be rattling around my brain (forever – I have an EUC silver medal and I think about it and my decisions ALL THE TIME).

At 13-13 do you call a timeout to give the power line players a break? The likes of Wedge, Yorwerth, Denniston have just played two very intense points in a row. You definitely want them back on the pitch – does a break benefit you or the Germans more?

At 14-13 down, do you call the power line that scored last time out on O. The offence had been struggling in the second half, do you send out the regular O line or do you need that power line?

What offence do you choose? Stick with the horizontal offence that got broken twice but you have scored cleanly with since, or go back to the vertical stack offence that didn’t give up a break?

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*A shoutout to Kate Gibson’s bid here too. An incredible bit of athleticism but also of spirit – so easy with a EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP on the line to make a slightly more desperate bid and cause contact but she does absolutely everything possible to get to the disc while avoiding contact. Everything you want to see from an ultimate player.

**watch Rachel Naden at 5 second into the clip pointing to Kwok to make the cut – not realising her defender has completely left her to cover Yorwerth’s deep strike

***I complained in my Open Final review about in point timeouts and it’s quite fashionable to get the block and call timeout without looking around you, walking off as if you’re cool. The second after an O line has turned is the absolute best time to push forward – giving an O line time to mentally reset and focus on defence during a TO is not smart.

***You can argue about the location of the final block GB got – Yorwerth’s run through block on Binnewies to make it 13-13. The camera position isn’t ideal to see, looks roughly halfway to me.