Anatomy of a Play: Basic Key Offense

Alright, it’s been a while and I know that you’ve missed us just as much as we at the Bent Axle have missed you. We’ve been pondering what’s next for the website, and while we do intend to stir up as much drama as possible, we also want to make sure we provide some educational element, so that when you come to riot we’ll have some defensibility.

The previous Anatomy of a Play articles have primarily focused on defense, and while it is 50% of the game scores now can easily get into the 40’s and 50’s, so there’s clearly some offense happening. Despite all of the amazing defensive skills you’ve learned here, you will unfortunately also have to learn some offense. Because, let’s be frank, we’ve seen your team and you need help.

So let’s get with the help!

Today is focused entirely on the basic Key offense, running against a traditional Key with three defenders in the Key and one Chaser. This play has been in use for years, believed to have been originally drawn up by Team USA, and opens up several scoring opportunities if run correctly.

Above you’ll see Ye Olde Standard Key setup, with three defenders in the Key, and the one player outside the key, known as the Chase. If you want to know more about this, see our other article here https://www.bentaxle.com/post/anatomy-of-a-play-traditional-key-defense. I’ll be using X’s for the Defense here and O’s for the Offense, mostly because it’s easier that way.

Here you can see the four access points, or slots, that can be exploited for scoring in the key. The A slot is in the corner occupied by the defensive 4, the B slot is between the 4 and 1 person, the C slot is between the 1 and 3 person, and the D slot is the corner occupied by the defensive 3. This play is designed to be able to unlock access to several of these slots to offer multiple options to the offense.

The focus of this play is to draw the defense to one side, set up posts/blocks, and then sweep to the opposite side to open up multiple scoring opportunities. There will be options to run the ball in, or pass it, but know that keeping the ball on the ground (not passing) is the best option. We play a sport where almost everyone has bad hands, limiting passing is typically the best way to avoid turnovers. Let’s look at the initial setup.

Ideally we want everyone on the offense to be moving to the play around the same time, best communicated as you cross the half court line, or before. Also, with this initial setup we’re looking to create an imbalance. We move our 3 person to the weaker side of the key, where their 4 person is located. On the opposite side, we put our 4 person on the stronger side of the key, with their 3 person.

Our 1 and 2 are set up further back with the 1 person with the ball (indicated in red) tending towards the side of the key that the chase is set up on.

With this set up, let’s go through the most basic version of this play, assuming everything works perfectly.

Our 1 and 2 are looking to attack the side of the chaser. The 1 moves first and leads the play, with the 2 trailing slightly behind. As the 1 moves in, they make it seem as if they are going to attack the C slot, but stop short of entering the key. This draws the chaser towards the offensive 1, and away from the center of the key. As this happens, our 2 is moving in towards the back side of the chaser to try to isolate them on that side of the key.

Once our 2 closes in, they set a pick on the side of the chaser that is closer to the middle of the key, or the ‘inside’ side. As seen above, this sets our 2 person almost in line with the C slot, and causes their 1 to cheat towards them.

Once the pick is set, our 1 then swings the play to the complete opposite side of the key. They make sure to travel over the chaser, and not between them and the key. This ensures an open route and allows our 2 to maintain the pick.

Note that at the same time, our 3 and 4 are making sure to keep their corners true, and aren’t allowing them to cheat towards the middle of the key. This can be done by bumping them, pretending they’re going to open the corner slot, or chatting them up with interesting news.

From here, our 1 is aligned with the B slot, and our 2 is aligned with the C slot. Is important that they attack these slots at as close to the same time as possible. If one is earlier than the other, it can cause the defense to collapse, and reduce options for the play.

The primary way to score a goal here is for the 1 person to just drive it in across the goal line. Sorry, “try” and “try line.” During this time our 2 person is setting a post on the inside of the defensive 3, just in case the primary play breaks down.

If the defensive 4 and 1 are able to collapse on our 1 before they can score the try, then that opens up our second option. This is when our 1 dishes off a pass to our 2 to then score the try. Ideally here our 2 is our tallest player, so that when they do set the post on the defensive 3, it’s easy to get the pass to them. From there, they push forward and get that point on the scoreboard.

Those are the two primary options for scoring, and the entirety of the play should take around 8 seconds to run (which means practice that until it’s true). This short play time means if everything does turn into a dumpster fire, you should have enough time on the play clock to pull the play out, reset it, and run it again.

Now we’ll briefly cover some other options for this play.

In this set up, the defensive key is able to block both our 1 and 2 from crashing in and scoring a goal. However, this opens the A slot on the side of our 3. When this happens, our 3 collapses in and seals off the corner on the outside of the defensive 4. This allows our 1 to swing around further to the outside, and score a try in the corner.

Here’s the last set up we’ll look at today.

With this scenario, the defensive 4 and 1 are able to collapse and block in our 1 from scoring, but there isn’t enough room to safely get the pass off to our 2. Since the defensive 1 has moved so far over to one side. Our 4 person is able to swing over and post up on the inside of them in the C slot with our 2 person. This creates enough space for our 1 to put up a high pass for our 2 to grab and score the try.

These are only a few of the many many options this play opens up, so maybe we’ll get around to a part two of this before the end of the decade!

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