Defensive tips for Netball Shooters

Sharelle McMahon and Natalie Medhurst are fantastic all-round netball shooters. They’re both fast, extremely agile, have quick hands, can jump high, fake pass, use a variety of moves and shoot accurately. They’re also brilliant at sticking tight on their defender and putting extreme pressure on the opposition down the court.

To be a great all-round netball shooter and real asset to your team you must learn how to defend. Not only defend, but you want to be a real pest for the opposition.

Working as a team, full court defence is the best way to put pressure on the opposition. This means that all 7 of you on the court have all your players covered. All 7 of you are relentlessly attempting to intercept each pass. You persistently put hands-over pressure on the person with the ball.

From personal experience it is much easier to score a goal if the ball is worked down the court in 3 or 4 passes. Making the defenders and mid-court players work hard to bring the ball down the court forces those players to have patience. You’ll find more often than not that this forces an error whether it’s a spilled ball, bad pass, or held ball.

If the opposition has the ball and you’re a GS or GA your job is the same as everyone else’s in the team – you MUST stick to your GK or GD and work extremely hard to get the ball back. Here are some little tips to help:

• Learn how far 3 feet is. The second your player receives a pass, jump back 3 feet and immediately put your hands up to pressure the next pass.
• Once your opposition player has passed the ball, step forward and try to block their next drive.
• Talk it up – lots of talk and shouting directions to your fellow team-mates is helpful (i.e. If your player is driving to the left and you can’t reach the pass you can yell at a team-mate to run there instead). Talk also serves to distract and add more pressure to the opposition too.
• If you’re a GA you must defend both two thirds… no slacking off in the goal third! If it’s the opposition’s centre pass make sure you defend your GD tight.
• Learn to switch from attacking mode to defensive mode quickly. The second you throw a bad pass you must recover and work quickly to get the ball back/shut down the opposition play.
• Fitness counts! It takes a high level of fitness to constantly hound your opposition player.
  

Note: Your style of defence may vary, depending on whether your coach sets a zone defence down the court, or strictly 1-on-1 defence.

Focusing on getting the ball back helps with netball shooting confidence. If you miss a shot,you’re your heart into winning the ball back. This prevents your mind ticking over and worrying about the missed shot.

Work on your defence – there’s nothing better than watching a shooter grab an intercept. It truly inspires a team!

Leanne Hughes is a former international netballer who was written the Up and In netball shooting e-book for up-and-coming shooters and their coaches.