Offence – L Stack Isolation Part 2

Following the first article on the L Stack this article looks at the flow of this offence in more detail.  As stated before, the L stack is a flowing offence that is best suited for advanced teams where any player can be a lane cutter or handler.  That being said, it doesn’t mean that every player needs to be equally good at lane cutting or handling, but the gist of it is that if you watch any top level team you’ll notice every player can huck, break the force, cut, dump and get open.

The L Stack can form the long “l” on any side of the force, the demonstration below shows the stack forming on the open side.   By forming on the open side, the handler must make a break force throw to the first lane cutter who should have a lot of room to cut.   From the first break it will be very hard for the defence to adjust, unless they are already practicing a high degree of poaching.  The animation below shows the perfect scenario where the first break, leads to an easy second break pass up the field.  Following this, the stack adjusts back into the L formation still leaving the defence in no position to cover an end zone goal.  These passes must be run at a very fast pace such that the defenders are scrambling to reorganize and keep the force away.

The animation above demonstrates the perfect scenario, one single break force throw leads to a complete breakdown in the defence where they cannot stop the quick gains up the field.  As mentioned, if the defence catches on, which is very likely, poaching will stop the breakside from occurring.  In this instance, the open side throw should be made.  If you can imagine, the first cut is shut down due to poaching, player 1 or player 2 on offence could cut open side easily.  The L stack can adjust and flip to the other side or they can continue to force the break side option.  Another option is for handler 4 to make a cut up field which would give the player a stall count or two to throw a breakforce throw.

Key Points:

1. Focus on isolating a space of the field for cutting and less on the formation.
2. Every player must be aware of the cutting player to isolate the lane.
3. Every player must have the ability to throw and lane cut.
4. The breakforce throw should be first priority.
5. Up the field cuts open up easy throws as the defender will be scrambling to get a mark on.