Beating Poaches in Side Stack

Beating Poaches in Side Stack: Have a handler, 1, in the middle of the goal line marked by D1. The remaining offensive players all stand on one side of the…

Initial setup. Have a handler, 1, in the middle of the goal line marked by D1. The remaining offensive players all stand on one side of the field, no further than 15m from the disc.
If they do poach. Have the first cut engage the under poach and the 2nd cutter fill in that area that is open.
3 engages the defender, aiming to run past the poach, D4, while sealing the lane. The poach D4 therefore either: a) stands still and gets beaten to the space, which means 1 can throw beyond the poach into space. b) maintains a buffer from 3, freeing up space for another cutter to fill. See related drills: https://www.flikulti.com/theory/essentials/cutting/sealing-the-lane/ https://www.flikulti.com/drills/up-under/
If D4 stands still, 3 can run straight past them and 1 can throw into space. This throw should go as soon as 1 knows 3 will get open; i.e. it can happen before 3 is beyond D4, so long as 3 has sufficient momentum. It is therefore vital that 3 runs fast and with conviction. See related drill: https://www.flikulti.com/drills/downfield-lateral-cut/
If D4 maintains a buffer, then 3 continues their cut to “drag” D4 out of the space. Meanwhile, 4 starts cutting deep.
Now that the poach has been moved, another cutter - in this example, 4 - can move into this space. 5 cuts into the space and receives the disc from 1. The rest of the stack move downfield, being sure to avoid running near the disc when possible. See related drill: https://www.flikulti.com/drills/cut-underneath-break/
An alternative approach, if there are lots of poaches, the situation is messy, or the offence is struggling, is to have all the stack clear out of the stack side leaving one isolated person to get the disc.
Now isolated, 1 can easily throw to whomever is left.

View and animate this Ultimate drill on Ultiplays · part of the free Ultimate Playbook.