Derby Spotting: Pack Speed

For part 2 of Derby Spotting I'm going to deal with Pack Speed. One of the most common chants of fans at bouts is 'Speed up!!' 'Slow Down!'. Now most people understand speed up, but why would you want them to slow down? Derby's a race right? Wrong! Derby is about helping your jammer whilst hindering theirs. So derby girls are always ready for situations which require them to change the speed of the pack:

1. Your team is winning by a LOT of points.
Speed up! If you’re winning, a great way to hold on to your lead is to tire the opposing jammer out. Yes, your jammer will get tired too, but all you need to do is hold on to the lead you already have.

2. Your jammer is in the penalty box.
Speed up! Your only concern in this situation is to get away from the opposing jammer. If she doesn’t even make 1 pass through the pack then so much the better.

3. You’ve caught the opposing jammer in the pack.
Slow down! If you’re doing a great job of trapping their jammer behind a wall then you probably want to slam the breaks on. This breaks her momentum making it harder to get past & at the same time allows your jammer to fly round with ease. This often happens when you have more blockers on the track than the opposing team.

4. The opposing jammer is in the penalty box.
Slow down! In this situation you want to almost come to a complete stop giving your jammer a chance to score lots of points for as long as possible.

The reason it’s possible to speed up or slow down is because there’s a rule prohibiting ‘intentionally destroying the pack’. If you deliberately speed up or slow down so much that there is no legal pack, you get a penalty, so both teams *have* to stay together or there’s a ‘no pack’ situation. If the refs shout ‘no pack’ no one on the track is allowed to help or hinder anyone else until they’re all back together again. So if you need the pack to slow down & you gradually glide to a meander the other team have to stay with you – they can’t just race off. If you want the pack to speed up, you have to get the opposing team to chase you as you race off in to the sunset.

A more sure-fire way of getting the pack to slow down is to catch one of the opposing blockers behind a wall & slow down in front of them. This is known a catching a ‘goat’. Check out this video of Sun State Roller Girls Vs Victoria:



Skip to 1.15 & watch the Sun State blockers (yellow & black) forming a wall, trapping an opposing blocker behind them. Because they are the largest group of blockers from both teams on the track, they are the pack & the Victoria blockers must either stay with them or help their trapped blocker to escape. Meanwhile, the Sun State jammer is able to get round a lot more times than she would if the pack was moving at a much faster speed.

You can find more info about Manchester Roller Derby at our website www.manchesterrollerderby.co.uk