Man on the crease

[PMac]

What are some of the advantages of having a man on the crease on offense and what are some simple plays and setups that you can run from this?

[johnboy07]

I just started playin crease yesterday, Im really small, 5'5 115 lbs. I scored twice. You cant really set up a lot of plays from there, basically, form the formations we do, you set picks, you make cuts, you shoot and score.

[SoCalCoach]

A man on the crease is a good thing to have against a man defense that slides from the crease (as the vast majority of teams in the world do as it's one of the simplest defenses to put in).

It's especially effective when driving from X (behind the goal). The driving attackman draws the slide by beating his man, and then dumps it to the attackman who is open on the crease (since the crease defender was making the slide). The slide will usually come as the attackman nears the GLE, which is perfect, because the goalie is still looking behind the goal at that point and will have to reset when the pass to the crease occurs.

When you do this, you are depending on the backside midfielders to forget that they have responsibility to cover the crease in the event of a slide (they almost always forget since they are either ball-watching or have tunnel-vision for their own man). It can be effective with driving middies from up-top, but LP defensemen tend to be more in tune with the back-up responsibilities, and the creaseman won't get open as often as when you drive from behind.

Just tell your crease attackman (or middie) to follow the slide and to move to open space with a passing lane to the driving attackman.

Two men on the crease can also be effective (1-4-1 and 2-2-2 formations) when they pick, screen, roll and pop with each other trying to get open.

Simplest advice for a creaseman is make eye-contact with the ball-handlers and then cut to space.