Roast Goalkicking accuracy

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TassieSaint

TassieSaint

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Oct 5, 2007
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I'm sure after the last two weeks this is at the forefront of everyone's mind.

Here are some stats:
  • St Kilda currently leads the league in behinds with 40 goals 54 behinds for the season over 3 games, 12 more than the next 'best' team on 42.
  • Our current differential of +14 behinds is significantly worse than Hawthorn (+9) Collingwood (+8) and Freo (+1). All other teams have more goals than behinds.
  • Last week we had 6 more scoring shots but lost by 19. This week we had 25 (!) more scoring shots but only won by 31 points.
  • Of our goal kickers today, only Riewoldt had more behinds than goals. Our other forwards had Weller (2.3), Bruce (1.4), Gresham (1.3), Membrey (1.3), McCartin (0.1) and Lonie (0.1).
  • Current season stats for the above: Weller (4.6), Bruce (4.4), Gresham (5.7), Membrey (3.4), McCartin (2.4) and Lonie (3.4).
  • Worth adding in Billings, who hasn't hit the scoreboard much this year (1.2) but finished with 6.12 in 2016.
  • Once maligned for his kicking, Nick Riewoldt is a shining light this year with 7.2 so far.
  • Of the above forwards, all have been lauded at various points for their footskills and demonstrated goalkicking accuracy either earlier in their careers at AFL level or at underage level. Bruce, Membrey and Weller in particular have been highly reliable set shots at times. Gresham and Billings are theoretically two of the best by foot at the club.
In conclusion, WTF is going on? How can we be kicking so poorly for goal as a club? How have formerly reliable goalkickers lost their skills? Is this purely a technique issue? Is it mental? Is it conditioning related? Is it a coincidence thing? Interested to hear peoples thoughts.

Personally I suspect it is conditioning. We all know it is a lot harder to kick accurately when you're out of gas, and we have looked sluggish this year (particularly against the Dees but also other games). Add this to our other main problem, the inability of our mids to accumulate and turn it on in the fourth quarter which also reeks of poor conditioning and I think some serious fitness work needs to be done. Also worrying this is happening right after pre-season where the boys should be fittest.

Guarantee we will not make finals if we continue to kick like this. Any close game is going to go against us. Don't be surprised if next week we go down 10.15 to 15.10 or something like that.
 

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Cooksen said:
Some players are going to close to the man on the mark and their kicks are off rhythm and this causes a big miss

They are rushing their actions when goal kicking imo, look at all the great goal kickers and they had a slow and methodical action
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I agree there's some technique issues, but what's strange is that for most of our forwards this is recent. Membrey kicked 44.18 (70%) last year, Bruce kicked 50.24 (68%) in 2015 before dropping off last year etc. the others have all been reliable kicks at one time or another. Just odd to have it drop off across the board like this. Do we have a goalkicking coach? If so what are they teaching them down there?
 
TassieSaint said:
Do we have a goalkicking coach? If so what are they teaching them down there?
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ray_charles_cm.jpg
 
Club's most behinds in a game since 1996.
 
I think its important to divide the behinds into "gettable shots from in front" and "tight angles with low conversion chances".

Tonight we suffered mostly from the former, with about 6 or so in front shots just being kicked poorly. I dunno what we can really do about these kinds of issues as it really seems to be a mental thing with players. I mean hell, Membrey is a dead eye kick and missed two terrible shots tonight.

The latter is more an issue with our leading patterns and inside 50's. I wont bemoan someone's kicking accurracy from 50 out at the boundary but we have to get better at making those opportunities in front, which is actually what we did a fair amount tonight which then led to issue 1.
 
I think it wouldn't hurt to use Savage a bit more for the odd long shot similar to what Brisbane do with Rich.
 
Savage used to burst from half back and kick inside 50 in 2015.

I have not seen him do that in 2016 or 17

We are not using his kicking skills instead using him as a small defender.
 
There was one where Bruce had it on 50 on the wrong side for a lefty, Newnes ran past him for the feed and long kick on his right and Brucey didn't give it. I really think he should be giving those off, he probably had a 25% chance of making the shot and subsequently missed.

The easy ones from 20-40m out in front are mental I think. A few need to iron out their goal kicking routine. It's been a pretty major issue so far and we need to iron it out; good sides are clinical.
 

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Remember if we kick the early one that was a deadset dolly the ball goes back to the centre and it all changes

We kick one of the missed dozen or so and we might not have many more missed shots.

This whole thing about commentators saying if we kicked those five in that qtr instead of spraying them the game is over early......well no its not, kick the first one of those missed five and the whole situation is now completely diff
 
PoppedCorn said:
Remember if we kick the early one that was a deadset dolly the ball goes back to the centre and it all changes

We kick one of the missed dozen or so and we might not have many more missed shots.

This whole thing about commentators saying if we kicked those five in that qtr instead of spraying them the game is over early......well no its not, kick the first one of those missed five and the whole situation is now completely diff
Click to expand...
I get what your saying, but if we were kicking those goals then we would be building pressure and momentum which would arguably lead to even more shots than we already had.
 
PoppedCorn said:
Maybe....
Maybe the opp team gets the next two clearances

One is not more likely to happen compared to the other
Its all probability


There is no kicking of them goals
Just one that was kicked changes everything
Mightve not had another shot for 15 mins...mightve had 20.
Click to expand...
And if a butterfly beats its wings in Kyabram.......

I think you're applying chaos theory a bit too intensely on this.

It is reasonable to suppose that until we were so far ahead that we changed our tactics (or they changed theirs) that the flow of the game that allowed us to have more shots in the first place would continue. At what point when we were ahead this would happen I don't know however because we missed shots we didn't get to that stage.
 
On one of my trips to Crown Casino in Melbourne I was deal pocket jacks (that is, two jacks) four times in a row. Statistical anomaly but it was what it was.

Our goal kicking will even out. Pretty hard to watch at the moment though.
 
I don't like those on here who say "if we had kicked straight we would've thrashed the Lions". This issue isn't a once off, we've generally been poor in front of goal for a while now and it's not an issue that can just be brushed aside because one day this issue will cost us a final.

It should be something that is taken really seriously - we can't just brush it off and assume the wheel will turn and/or the players will just naturally improve. We should be relieved we weren't up against a GWS or an Adelaide on the weekend otherwise the result would've been very different.
 
George said:
I don't like those on here who say "if we had kicked straight we would've thrashed the Lions". This issue isn't a once off, we've generally been poor in front of goal for a while now and it's not an issue that can just be brushed aside because one day this issue will cost us a final.

It should be something that is taken really seriously - we can't just brush it off and assume the wheel will turn and/or the players will just naturally improve. We should be relieved we weren't up against a GWS or an Adelaide on the weekend otherwise the result would've been very different.
Click to expand...

Let's hope they're doing a lot of work on it.

"The more I practise, the luckier I get."
Gary Player.
 
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