Theory: Pull Plays by Brummie

What are pull plays in ultimate frisbee, how do they work, and how can we include them in our offence?

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What is a pull play?

Pull plays are ways that teams coordinate their movements when receiving the pull in order to maximise their chances of scoring quickly and with low risk. They typically take advantage of the specific nature of the pull, in that players are unguarded as the pull goes up, and
defenders are usually out of position when the pull is fielded.

I have, however, also included examples from the brick; bricked pulls are still pulls, and represent another unusual situation in ultimate in that the disc always starts in the same place, giving an offensive coach an ideal situation to start from.

A two pass goal from Brute Squad following a bricked pull

what are the objectives of this chapter?

The intention of this chapter is to analyse the way that modern elite teams use pull plays. I have therefore drawn all of the examples from the 2023 USA Club National Championships. I have taken hundreds of examples and split them into categories so you can see the similarities and differences in the way that teams approach offence, with the objective of learning how to emulate some aspects of these plays in your own game.

I have also show numerous ways that teams have found to overcome particular defensive pressures, so expect to see examples of how a pull play continues if a primary or secondary throwing option is not available for some reason. Most teams are experts of transitioning between their pull play and other offences, so you will also see examples where a team shifts their focus of attack when things don’t work as expected.

A four pass goal from Fury in horizontal stack

Caveats

The categories I’ve used are somewhat arbitrary as the cleanly drawn up plays on a whiteboard often get blurred in reality; sometimes there’s very little to distinguish a split stack from a horizontal stack, for instance.

I’ve deliberately included examples where things don’t go perfectly, including some turnovers. The objective here is to demonstrate how teams create space, and just because a pass goes off target, is dropped, or a defender makes a play, doesn’t stop us from learning from the methods displayed.

Film can limit exactly what we can see. I’ve done my best to interpret what I’m seeing, but it’s possible that the actual plans drawn up by a coach were somewhat different to what’s happening on the screen. Players are always going to play according to the situation in front of them, since “no plan survives first contact”, and it is sometimes the case that a series of individual decisions are interpreted as a higher level team strategy. I believe that, even if this is the case, teams can learn from those individual decisions being applied in context. It is also possible that I’ve missed some good examples which were too subtle for me to notice on first viewing; if that applies to your team, then accept my apologies (and also kudos because disguising your offence is generally a good idea!).

The more examples you see of a particular pattern being used, the more likely it is that the pattern is a deliberate part of an overall plan. The counter to this is that teams often deliberately mix up what they’re doing in order to keep their opponent guessing.

Categories

Enough said, let’s dive into the world of pull plays:

A two pass goal from DiG in vertical stack

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