Happy Friday!  For all of our US subscribers, Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you’re gearing up for a great hockey weekend to work off all that turkey, getting started with this week’s Playbook.

I came across a corner routine I really loved this week on Instagram.  It teaches us a lot about both how to score from Penalty Corners and the game more generally.  Have a watch below and then we’ll dive into it in more detail.

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So the team was not mentioned in the caption or on the account so i’m not sure who this is, if any of our readers know, please reply to me and I will make sure I credit them when I repost this on our website.

What I love about this routine is the way this team uses simple skills, but with such outstanding execution - that it creates a very deceptive and tough to defend sequence.

A great corner routine does not always have to be about shooting or flicking power.  If 4-5 simple skills are executed flawlessly in a row then you will usually create a good scoring opportunity.  Let’s break this routine down.

1. A very good injection. Flat, fast and accurate.  Ee talked about this in The Playbook Episode 1 - the key technical requirements for a good injection.
2. Then the stopper does a great job, initially with a perfect dead trap right on the spot.
3. Next, the fake sweep looks authentic, a big powerful looking swing that simply goes over the top of the ball, this is the easiest skill of the lot but the timing and execution are again flawless.   This is a really important step in the sequence as it adds the deception needed to eventually give the ball striker space to generate ball speed at goal.
4. The stopper continues her excellence with a very well weighted roll across the circle. In this instance she uses a reverse push.  Another option for this pass that is available to all you stoppers out there is, after trapping it dead, you can rotate your right wrist backwards nice and fast - this flicks the ball forward at an easy speed to be struck.  However this push was of course very effective.
5. A simple right foot push pass comes after this, again a great weight, flat and onto the striker’s open stick.
6. One touch out of her body and then an accurate flat sweep towards the back post.  Again simple, but performed just right.
7. Lastly, a lovely low left hand on the turf, holding the stick at a slight angle leads to devastating deflection into the roof of the net.

Don’t get me wrong, when I describe any of this as simple I don’t mean it is easy.  This sequence contains seven skills executed perfectly in a row!  This is hard…but with practice it is possible.   Dragflicking at 90mph is not possible for a lot of teams, but this is.

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To create real excellence, what we have seen is high level trapping, push passing, sweeping and deflections plus some clever deception at the right time.

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Now….you could take that last paragraph and apply it to many phases of a game of hockey and get a similar excellent result.   The wider conclusion we can take from this, is that as a team, if we are able to perform the basics to a high level three, four, five times in a row - we will generate some elite hockey.

More than one or two moments of magical or breathtaking skill (i.e. a 90mph dragflick) you’ll win a lot more games by stacking together series of basic concepts & skills, executed at a high level.