Tactics in invasion games
Physical Education · Key Stage 2 · The School
Space is the whole game
Football, netball, basketball, hockey and rugby are all INVASION GAMES: get into their territory and score. Attackers create space by spreading wide and moving; defenders close it by staying compact. Once you see a match as a contest over space rather than over the ball, it becomes readable.
Principles of attack
SUPPORT: give the ball-carrier an option. WIDTH: stretch the defence sideways. DEPTH: offer a pass forward and back. PENETRATION: get behind the defence. Naming these lets a team talk about what went wrong instead of just who lost it.
Judging a tactic
Did it create more chances? Did it leave you exposed at the back? Would it work against a faster team? A tactic is not good or bad in itself — it is good against a particular opponent, and saying which is what a strong evaluation does.
Watch one minute of any invasion game and follow a player who does NOT have the ball. Count what they do: move into a gap, drag a defender away, offer for a pass they do not receive, get goal-side. On average a player has the ball for well under a minute in a whole match. Everything else they do is the attacking, and it is the part that never appears in the highlights.