St Joseph's University Head Men's Lacrosse Coach;
First coach in St. Joseph's Men's Lacrosse program history;
His teams have made the playoffs every season in its existence;
Mount Ida College Head Coach from 2004 to 2018;
8 NAC Conference Championships while coaching at Mount Ida College;
3X North Atlantic Conference 'Coach of the Year';
2011 GNAC Coach of the Year;
played for the University of HartfordIn this information-packed instructional coaching video, St. Joseph's Andrew Fink offers a unique and aggressive philosophy for using man down to quickly turn offense to defense. Man Down Defense is one of the most-important components of your overall lacrosse program. Typically, man-down situations have been viewed as a time of survival, but Coach Fink is teaching the players on his teams to view it as an opportunity.
Coach Fink offers practice drills and several teaching progressions that you can immediately use to set the foundation for your overall man down scheme.
Using in-depth instruction that showcases Fink's approach to non-traditional man down sets, you'll also be able to prepare your team to defend many man-up formations.
Coach Fink also pulls back the curtain and takes you through a practice with innovative stick skills-work that relates to the man down philosophy, including a ground ball progression that's designed to get players to think about a quick transition to advance the ball to the offensive end.
Defensive Footwork
Coach Fink also walks you through a variety of cone-to-cone footwork drills that improve the quickness and agility your players need to utilize to play successful man down defense.
The footwork-progression segment ends with players attempting to knock down or intercept passes made with tennis balls while executing real, game-like lacrosse movements.
Man Down Sets
Offering three non-traditional base sets, Coach Fink offers the details and coaching instruction you'll need to install each one into your program. Each of these man down sets are designed to pressure the ball to create turnovers and poor shot selection. Fink then adds offensive players into the practice mix to show how these man down sets can be adapted to defend many different man up formations.
Utilizing more than 14 drills total in this video, Fink provides on-field instruction that helps you teach these concepts to your players.
In a highly valuable segment on clearing, Coach Fink shows how goalies can make a save and then outlet the ball to a cutting defender. As the defender receives the pass, he is met by one of the coaches, who uses a pool noodle to check the defender's hands. This example provides an excellent demonstration for teaching players to protect their stick and transition the ball quickly.
Fink's unique system is a terrific way to get players excited about playing man down defense. The philosophy of getting the ball back quickly and pushing the transition to offense puts opponents on their heels and forces them to make subbing decisions.
Finally, the instruction and concepts are relevant to all levels of lacrosse. You can utilize the entire package or take parts of it and tweak them to fit your team!
100 minutes. 2024.
