Tactics

Several tactics are unique to water polo, including:

The Centre forward/centre back battle

Watch how the centre back trys to stop the centre forward from scoring without committing a major foul and being sin binned. In fact the centre back will try to commit ordinary fouls deliberately , because the centre forward cannot shoot from the resulting free. Centre backs should themselves be large, strong, and skilfull. They should have powerful legs, so they can jump around the centre forward to get at the ball. Notice how often smaller, less skillfull players get scored off, or have to hold onto the centre forward and therefore get sin-binned.

Cross passes

In soccer the cross is a basic tactic, so too in water polo. Good defenders will try to prevent them; good attackers will try to create them. Notice too that an attacker will occasionally take the ball down the wing, and close to the goal line in order to defeat the off-side rule.

Extra man play

In ice hockey when a player is sin-binned, the defending team retreats around the goal, and sets up a zone defence. The attacking team trys to defeat this zone by setting up a fairly static attack which relies on quick passing, rather than player movement to out manoevre the defence. In Ice Hockey this is called a Power Play. In Water Polo, extra man play decides nearly all close matches.

Inside water play

As in most sports, attackers try to get closer to the goal than their defenders. When this happens in Water Polo, the player is said to have `driven to inside water'. An attacker with inside water is very dangerous, because any small foul which prevents a shot usually results in a penalty throw. At the same time, it is very difficult to shoot with a player 'on your back', so drivers have to be well drilled at getting a 'push' shot away in close.

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