Whether you’re coaching junior players, a club first team, or preparing for a big league match, your session design and tactical focus set the rhythm for everything your team accomplishes in possession. If there was one thing to take away from the recent workshop with Russell Coates on outletting, it’s the non-negotiable importance of creating plus-one situations when building from the back. This isn’t theoretical. It’s the mechanical heart of structured modern hockey—regardless of your style or your squad’s strengths.
The plus-one principle is simple: when you are outletting, ensure your back-line and immediate support always outnumber the closest wave of opponents by one. If an opposition presses with two strikers, set your build-up with three; if they send three, match them with four. This isn’t just for the sake of theoretical numerical advantage; it’s about functional safety and the ability to manufacture high-quality possession through the lines.
Why This Principle Matters—and How Coaches Should Apply It
Nothing slows down an attack, disrupts a rhythm, or amplifies risk like being matched for numbers at the back under pressure. Without a plus-one, you invite interceptions, forced errors, and reluctant recourse to hits or aerials—inviting chaos. By systematically designing your sessions and in-game structures around guaranteeing the plus-one, you:
Teach defenders and midfielders to recognize pressure triggers,
Encourage smart scanning and movement to create open lines,
And, most crucially, engineer confidence to keep playing through lines even when pressed, rather than defaulting to hopeful clearances.
How can you implement this tomorrow? Start at training by making your first possession drill, whether it’s a rondo, four-corner exercise, or tactical small-sided game, specifically focused on the outnumbering philosophy. Set up a 5v3 or 4v2 build-up; as Russell Coates described, Russell Coates Insist on shape over improvising—players need to instinctively create, maintain, and exploit that extra body when play restarts or transitions occur.
When moving to full-pitch phases, make these numerical overloads the tactical rule, not the exception. Use post-training video review to highlight both the oasis and absence of plus-one moments. Finally, don’t focus solely on the back line—work on translating that overload through midfield to ensure it isn’t neutralised after the first pass.
Why You Should Watch This Session
The subtleties of outletting—the scanning, movement off the ball, adjusting for opposition press structures, when to switch to a three- or four-man backline, and when to hit the aerial for relief—can’t just be learned from a diagram or a quick talk. Russell Coates illustrates these realities with real match clips (some showing mistakes as well as successes), shares the why behind drill variations, and answers advanced tactical questions from coaches in the audience. If you’re serious about field hockey coaching, these concepts—and especially their practical applications—need to be seen and revisited, not just read in a summary.
That’s why, if you want the full value—down to concrete exercises, key coaching points, and answers to pressing questions from experienced coaches—you’ll want to dig into the full session. The rest of this post goes in depth on the three major takeaways and offers practical coaching detail, including adjustments for different age groups and formations.
