Analysis: Firetails: Downwind offence, WUC 2024 by Brummie and Caroline Ma

The Aussie Firetails broke onto the podium at the World Ultimate Championships 2024 with a blend of playing styles, but it was the flair, accuracy & depth of their down wind throws that grabbed my attention. Let's examine what made them so successful playing in strong wind.

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While not quite the extreme wind seen in Playing in extreme wind: Molly Brown v Phoenix, the wind was strong enough to have a big impact on the playing styles seen at the 2024 World Ultimate Championships – one game between Canada & Great Britain Open even descended into a game of 500s. Rather than trying to fight the wind, the Firetails used it to their advantage. Here’s how:

High releases

The most obvious way that the wind impacted the Firetails’ offence is the types of throws that they employed, adapting to the wind conditions by bringing more high release throws into their playing style:

When playing down wind, high releases are much easier to execute as the disc will naturally drop as the air pushes it down. In contrast, when throwing into wind, the wind gives the disc lift which is why we often see throws rise uncontrollably when the wind is strong. The Firetails used this to their advantage by popping short range passes over the mark – and over face-guarding defenders:

You will also notice in these clips how the Firetails chose not to have a reset positioned behind the disc much of the time. This is a philosophical option in that it forces throwers to be more aggressive, take on marks and make ground with every throw, rather than always having a safer option. The impact of this approach over a season – or longer – is a team of extremely skilled throwers capable of finding tiny gaps in defensive coverage, and shows how the weather conditions impact the optimal spacing of players on the pitch:

Caroline Ma & Georgia Egan-Griffiths play some give & go in the tightest of windows before Cat Phillips scores

Taller throwers also benefit from an extended reach & release points; Ma’s defender has her hands up, but Ma can still release the disc over the top to find Egan-Griffiths:

Face guarding makes these types of throws easier to execute too

Egan-Griffiths with a high push pass to the break side

When executing these high release passes, note how there’s very little wind up – since almost no power is required – and the key element is the speed of release; being able to get the disc out before the marker can react.

A high release forehand over the mark to hit an under cut

A high release backhand & a high release forehand in quick succession

I reached out to Caro who said “The high release playstyle came about quite naturally due to the fields being pretty directly upwind downwind and years of chemistry playing together, but also because Colombia and Canada played very good defence on the open side unders which forced us to be more creative on the break side, which G (Georgia Egan-Griffiths) and I especially just ended up using over and over again because it kept working.”

Low releases

But what if you want to sneak a pass under a marker’s arm? How will the strong tail wind impact the disc’s flight? A quick word on throwing mechanics with two examples; the first is Egan-Griffiths with a short backhand to an upline cut. A flat throw would be pushed down, so she chooses instead to release the disc with the outside edge up (“OI”) and lots of torque, so the disc doesn’t fly in a straight line, it flies in a curve, and is therefore less prone to being pushed down:

This time it’s Canada’s Reve Chan with an even more obvious example, thrown low to high as well as with OI:

Away cuts

The other major way that the wind impacts a team’s offensive structure is the relative distance of cutters from handlers. When playing downwind, it becomes a lot easier to throw for distance, so hitting cutters deep is more achievable. That said, it can be hard to control the flight of the disc, particularly when the disc is in front of the receiver it tends to pick up speed. As a result, to minimise the chance of overthrowing their targets, we saw Firetails throwing quite late and to receivers that were already very far from the disc; in this first example, Lucy Deller is nearly in the end zone when Cat Phillips releases the disc from near her own brick mark:

It’s worth paying attention to the curve on the disc; flat throws tend to bounce in the wind, while those with a definitive curve on them tend to bounce less and are therefore easier to read – and to control as a thrower. Throws with an outside-in edge & with the nose slightly up also tend to slow, whereas flat throws can tend to pick up speed (unless the underside of the disc is shown to the wind; I’m assuming a pure tail wind here). Take this next clip as an example: Ma throws with a clear OI edge which slows it down and the curve helps the disc to stay further from the defender, resulting in an easy goal for Deller:

While the camera angle isn’t great to show the flight path, this next throw is an example of an extreme curve: Cat Phillips starts her cut to Caroline Ma’s right hand side and runs in a fairly straight line down the middle of the pitch. Ma’s forehand loops out to the right hand side of the field, over Phillips’ right shoulder as she turns her head to look for it – slowing as it reaches the peak of its height – then picks up speed before being caught in Phillips’ left hand. A disc that travels in an arc will take longer to arrive at it’s target than one thrown in a straight line, so this is another method of slowing down the flight of the disc to allow the receiver a better chance of making the catch:

Ma hits Phillips in stride

A word from Caro: “Our throwers in Aus also just tend to favour an OI huck/away throw style, so we have a lot of practice reading those types of throws knowing they will likely have a fade towards the breakside as it comes into the receiver.”

These next two examples are lasers, thrown hard & fast to receivers very far away, but the edge on the disc makes them slow towards the end of their flight, giving the receivers a relatively comfortable catch:

Egan-Griffiths throwing a perfectly weighted huck to Olivia Carr

Deller with a bullet OI forehand to Alexandra Paterson; in this example, the curve on the disc also helps to keep it further from defenders, who have no chance at a bid

Finally, a rare exception: a disc thrown in front of the receiver which slows down and sits up nicely; the definitive outside-in edge on the disc is clearly visible. A superb pass that’s much harder to execute than it might appear. Notice how much closer the receiver is to the thrower than in the other examples though

Under cuts

Of course, if all of your cutters are positioned a little further downfield and their defenders have to respect those deep cuts, then it means they will be much further from the disc when they start their in cuts. In both of these examples the cutters are off screen when the disc goes up and the throws are executed with pace, allowing the offence to gain the most possible field position on each occasion. Notice how these throws differ from the others we’ve discussed, as each is thrown flat and fast:

A ~20m gain

A ~25m gain on a single under cut

Conclusions

Effectively, this is an offence focused on breaking marks pushed to the absolute max, focused on hitting tiny windows that most defences can’t cover. Watch back those clips above and you’ll see fantastic defensive positioning, and the areas that the Firetails are catching the disc aren’t normally a target for the offence because they are usually too hard to hit. With the tail wind, suddenly they become a more legitimate target, particularly when thrown with an outside-in edge to help control the flight of the disc. A tail wind also means that cutters can be further from the disc while still being legitimate deep threats, allowing the offence get bigger gains on the unders with more conventional flat passes.

The Firetails use a variety of techniques to score here, including some fast tempo movement against poaches - and a few high releases to break down the defence

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that this is the final game of a week-long tournament in hot conditions. Switching the focus of the offence to use throws to hit undefended spaces means less running for the cutters on the downwind points, something that helps to keep them fresh for the upwind points.

Firetails with the winning point in the game for bronze; notice how they zip the throws to those under cuts, gaining maximum yards on each pass

A word from Firetail’s coach, Steve Wright

“We put a major emphasis on understanding disc dynamics, speed control, and edge control in our throwing practice throughout the past two years (including the AOUGC campaign).

I thought you might be interested in another element of wind play in that game, which was at the toss.

You might have noticed we started the game pulling upwind and assumed we had lost the toss. After all, all week long at Worlds every team that won the toss was choosing to start downwind, and the other team responded by choosing defence to avoid the potential of an immediate break.

However ahead of this game we decided that if we won the toss we would choose defence rather than picking downwind. This decision followed a warm up period adjacent to Team Canada where we identified clear signs of low energy and lack of focus in their team. We strongly believed them to be vulnerable to an immediate break at the start of the game regardless of the direction of play.

So anyway we won the toss and chose defence, and Canada picked downwind. We then immediately broke – upwind no less – on the first point of the game. Of course with us now pulling downwind this also created an opportunity for a double break. We weren’t able to convert that straight away, but after an upwind hold on point three we then got the second break on our second pull going downwind on point four. This initial two break lead put us in control of the match and I feel changed the entire dynamic of the way the rest of it played out.

Of course as coach I believe in my players and think that we would have won regardless – including for the reasons you identified in your article. But I just thought as a fellow ulti nerd you might be interested in this little snapshot into the intersection between playing the conditions and the mental game!”

Canada turned over on the first pass of the game, which would lead to a crucial upwind break for the Firetails

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