Help with colon vs comma vs semi colon trouble?

After a few games, I realized that whenever the ball crossed the mid-line to our side of the field, the defense--stoppers, sweepers, and fullbacks--would always move up toward the ball, leaving the goal almost completely open.

I like the use of dashes here. You could use commas if the titles of the positions are considered extra information. However, with already having a comma before the defense and with having commas due to the positions being items in a series, it might become cumbersome. Please note the comma after ball.

A colon can be used to basically say "note this" or to indicate a list follows. I don't think it really works in this context. Firstly, if you're using it to denote a list, you need to be pretty overt, saying something like, "The defensive players include the following:" That would be pretty awkward here. Secondly, if you use a colon to basically say "note this," I've only ever seen that done toward the end of the sentence, where the information following the colon will conclude the sentence.

A semi-colon is only used in two scenarios of which I'm aware. One is to join two independent clauses (complete sentences). That situation definitely does not apply here. The other scenario is if you have items in a series which already contain commas within those items--then a semi-colon is used to divide the items. That does not apply either. An example would be: While on tour, he visited the following cities: Las Vegas, Nevada; Madison, Wisconsin; and Detroit, Michigan.

"After a few games, I realized that whenever the ball crossed the mid-line to our side of the field, the defense, stoppers, sweepers, and fullbacks, would always move up towards the ball, leaving the goal almost completely open."

After "defense" follows a list of three positions that describe defense. This list is a nonessential phrase, meaning that removing the three positions does not change the meaning of the sentence. Therefore, "stoppers, sweepers, and fullbacks" needs to be separated from the rest of the sentence by commas, both before and after. The comma after sweepers is optional as long as you think "sweepers and fullbacks" will not be interpreted as one thing. I also added a comma after "ball", because "leaving the goal almost completely open" is also a nonessential phrase.

A semicolon can be used to separate two complete, related thoughts. For instance... "I was late for school today; my teacher gave me detention." Notice that a semicolon can be replaced with the word 'and', or the two halves can be made into two sentences.

A colon can be used to indicate the beginning of a list. For example... "I bought groceries today: milk, coffee, eggs, and flour." Usually this is used only when the end of the list is also the end of the sentence.

Your sentence could be reworded to include a semicolon. This also removes the possibility that "defense, stoppers, sweepers, and fullbacks" is interpreted as a list of four positions. For example...

"After a few games, I realized that whenever the ball crossed the mid-line to our side of the field, the goal was left almost completely open by the defense: stoppers, sweepers, and fullbacks."

I hope you find this helpful.

~Louis

Note: My father has been an English teacher for 39 years. I was raised to speak and write with flawless grammar. I can personally assure you that all information I have presented to you is accurate. I highly recommend that you take advantage of my help, because many of the suggestions all ready posted here are inaccurate.

After a few games, I realized that whenever the ball crossed the mid-line to our side of the field, the defense, stoppers, sweepers and fullbacks would always move up towards the ball, leaving the goal almost completely open.

After a few games I realized that whenever the ball crossed the mid-line on our side of the field the defense stoppers, sweepers, and fullbacks would always move up toward the ball, leaving the goal almost completely open.

Use a colon after the defense (:)

Use a comma after fullbacks (,)

Use a colon to signal the reader that a series of words, phrases, or clauses follows a complete sentence.

The semi-colon is a strong, muscular punctuation mark; it holds two grammatically complete parts of a sentence together.

Just use commas, unless the list includes two or more of something else. If the list is simple commas will do; if the list is more complicated use a semi-colon to keep it easy to read and understand. Now ask me a question about hyphens.

Commas after stoppers and sweepers.

If 'defense stopper' is one position, fine. If two different players/positions, then comma between.

As you can no doubt tell, I know little, if anything about cricket comma soccer comma rugby or squash.

What I do know is that 'and' and 'or' are conjunctions = linking words which replace punctuation (in this case commas).

Now I'll stick-around to see if somebody who DOES know something will hop on board.

Use commas where you have the (?)s and after the phrase "up toward the ball."

(And it's "toward" -- not "towards")

just need a semicolon after defense

after defense you need (:)

after fullbacks (;)