As I said above, that can help if the technique and routine is in good order (mind you if the technique/routine is all good it'll function with duress/no duress anyways). You're better off facilitating any challenging learning under more benign conditions, if done right it'll be transferable.
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Becoming the best Goal Kicking team in the league
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Yes, but his accuracy took several years to become acceptable (ok this year excellent).
So, technique always looked good, so was the change confidence or the mental application work they do now?
Boomer93
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I am 30 years old, played football almost all my life, played a few league games for Peel, and I still don't have a consistent set shot routine.
I think the reason most footballers don't have a settled, same routine every time system, is because depending on where you are inside 50, you want to hit the ball a little different. Most players can't hit set shots dead straight like say Amiss (when inform...) so require a bit of inside or outside fade.
Trying to implement a fade in your kick requires a different run up depending on whether you want left to right or vice versa, and again it requires a different run up depending on how far out you are.
Lots of players would be very successful at training hitting the correct fades and simple set shots. It's when the pressure comes on that suddenly the slight mechanic changes can impact the kick by a lot.
So at training it's hard to go and do a mechanical robotic set shot, and hit 75% of the time, when you can freely shoot how feels natural, and hit 85% of the time. It just feels wrong. But come game day the robotic run up probably wins out. The luckiest players are the ones who feel most natural doing a very simple set shot routine, but for most people like myself, it feels awkward to not adjust the run up depending on where you sre shooting from.
I think the reason most footballers don't have a settled, same routine every time system, is because depending on where you are inside 50, you want to hit the ball a little different. Most players can't hit set shots dead straight like say Amiss (when inform...) so require a bit of inside or outside fade.
Trying to implement a fade in your kick requires a different run up depending on whether you want left to right or vice versa, and again it requires a different run up depending on how far out you are.
Lots of players would be very successful at training hitting the correct fades and simple set shots. It's when the pressure comes on that suddenly the slight mechanic changes can impact the kick by a lot.
So at training it's hard to go and do a mechanical robotic set shot, and hit 75% of the time, when you can freely shoot how feels natural, and hit 85% of the time. It just feels wrong. But come game day the robotic run up probably wins out. The luckiest players are the ones who feel most natural doing a very simple set shot routine, but for most people like myself, it feels awkward to not adjust the run up depending on where you sre shooting from.
- Oct 12, 2017
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I agree.
My main point was drills that replicate pressure, with emphasis and reward for successful goal kicking.
However a few players need a couple of small changes cause they keep making the same mistakes.
That takes someone very smart, taking into a/c your points to point that out.
I doubt the current forward coach is able or most of the people that have been put forward. I used to champion Austin Robinson Jr before he died.
- Oct 12, 2017
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The idea of drills emphasising speed, patterns and especially kicking success as a team are done without defence so they are benign, while keeping all the elements of perceived game pressure for the time of the drill.
And all emphasis on success and scoring.
If it was such as easy fix it would have been fixed 9 years ago but hasn't been. And RTB's idea of players wandering down to a park to take a few extra shot, while under benign conditions not helpful at all IMO.
I think JLo has introduced drills that help, but they're not competitive enough and not enough emphasis on measuring success.
If it is a problem our players are not taking the shot from 50, start by receiving on the 50 in one of the triangle drills and kicking before getting to a stationary defender 15 m away.
You're right, it isn't an easy fix from a general viewpoint, given the widespread variables likely involved. There is a core strategy that could be applied which would cover most of the issues though. That is establishing a routine for as many individuals as you can that is accessible, repeatable and can be broken into immediately actionable components.
Not sure where the "RTB...few extra shot... under benign conditions" comes from? Sounds like you've cobbled together a bit of a mish mash there.
Still, a drill can be useful for reinforcing established learnings en masse. But they're generally a shotgun approach to individual learning. Hit and miss. Also a focus on outcomes would mostly be counter productive to keeping a focus on here and now actions.
Coaches wouldn't generally want players to have shots from 50m as a rule. It's too low a percentage shot. You're better off seting up a drill to get shots from within a triangle that extends to 30-40m out from the goal. The closer to the goals and to the centre the better. But that drill is more aimed at establishing group understanding and functioning, rather than individual goal kicking skills.
- Oct 12, 2017
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I agree with the technique elements but my focus was training drills that emphasis success under perceived pressure. I'd see that done one on one, with those that needed it.
RTB was infamous for telling players or the press when asked, that the players just needed to go to the local park to practise taking a few extra shots to solve the problem of better accuracy.
I compared that to your benign conditions which it has, but doesn't translate into game pressure situations.
Stinky Lomax
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Whoever can solve this will be set for life.
Some days you have it & somedays you don’t. It 80% mental & 20% routine, the mentally stronger you are & believe in your ability the better you’ll be. The mentally fragile players will miss more often.
Does anyone really believe JK’s stutter step is the correct technique? No but he believed it worked for him at that time, that’s mental not routine. I played a good game once in a specific pair of red jocks, then had to wear them every week for that year, that was mental.
Practice just helps the mental application of the skill & you will never replicate the pressures of gameday.
But the best theory is you minimise the target your trying to hit, forget about trying to get it between the big sticks, that’s too big a target & has far more room for error, pick out a specific target, forget about the goals & kick at that.
I place a moveable goalpost behind the goals at sessions & get them to aim at that & forget about the big sticks. Gets good results at training & sometimes on gameday, but not always.
Some days you have it & somedays you don’t. It 80% mental & 20% routine, the mentally stronger you are & believe in your ability the better you’ll be. The mentally fragile players will miss more often.
Does anyone really believe JK’s stutter step is the correct technique? No but he believed it worked for him at that time, that’s mental not routine. I played a good game once in a specific pair of red jocks, then had to wear them every week for that year, that was mental.
Practice just helps the mental application of the skill & you will never replicate the pressures of gameday.
But the best theory is you minimise the target your trying to hit, forget about trying to get it between the big sticks, that’s too big a target & has far more room for error, pick out a specific target, forget about the goals & kick at that.
I place a moveable goalpost behind the goals at sessions & get them to aim at that & forget about the big sticks. Gets good results at training & sometimes on gameday, but not always.
I should probably read this book again for my own benefit.
www.angusrobertson.com.au
But the basic synopsis is that we all have concious and sub concious thoughts (self one, self two).Self two knows how to do things already (when throwing a ball 5m, you don't really think about it, you can just do it with about 100% accuracy) but under pressure, self one (concious thought) takes over and confuses self two. We've all heard of 'the zone' when sports people don't think, they can just achieve whatever it is they're doing.
Anyway, an interesting book and one that's relevant to sports people performing a closed action (tennis serve, golf shot, basketball free throw, goal kicking etc.)
The Inner Game of Golf by W Timothy Gallwey
Buy The Inner Game of Golf at Angus & Robertson with Delivery - <p><strong>Every golfer, whether amateur or pro, who has ever picked up a club knows what it's like to get the yips - that feeling when you inexplicably lose control of your shot, and become overwhelmed by self-doubt, tension, fear...
www.angusrobertson.com.au
Anyway, an interesting book and one that's relevant to sports people performing a closed action (tennis serve, golf shot, basketball free throw, goal kicking etc.)
DRAGONS FFC - Moderator
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Malthouse spoke about daisy thomas like this too.I should probably read this book again for my own benefit.
But the basic synopsis is that we all have concious and sub concious thoughts (self one, self two).Self two knows how to do things already (when throwing a ball 5m, you don't really think about it, you can just do it with about 100% accuracy) but under pressure, self one (concious thought) takes over and confuses self two. We've all heard of 'the zone' when sports people don't think, they can just achieve whatever it is they're doing.The Inner Game of Golf by W Timothy Gallwey
Buy The Inner Game of Golf at Angus & Robertson with Delivery - <p><strong>Every golfer, whether amateur or pro, who has ever picked up a club knows what it's like to get the yips - that feeling when you inexplicably lose control of your shot, and become overwhelmed by self-doubt, tension, fear...
Anyway, an interesting book and one that's relevant to sports people performing a closed action (tennis serve, golf shot, basketball free throw, goal kicking etc.)
Super intelligent guy, under pressure with no time, makes the right decision most of the time.
Give him time and space to consider multiple options, and he’d invariably stuff it.
Some people need time, some need to pressure, to perform at their best.
Whatever was said in the press by Lyon (vs what actually happened internally), lacks specifics and isn't really useful to constructing a reasonable argument.
Using the phrase "benign conditions" I was referring to establishing a learning environment that reduces unnecessary noise (ie extraneous and uncontrollable factors) to allow greater use of an individual's resources (eg focus and attention) on new or challenging strategies and skills being learned.
Yep, human variability is the real kicker in trying to establish consistency.
- Oct 12, 2017
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I think RTB did mean that and it was always something that really annoyed me about his coaching. I was able to watch some training sessions of his and there was almost no kicking drills, especially similar to those I described.
I understand benign conditions as being "mild and favourable", which to me does suggest taking pop shots by yourself at a park.
Drills I'm suggesting either don't have a defender or have a passive defender, but other "extraneous and uncontrollable" factors should be added in various ways. Counting scores, quick changes, reverses and restarts, for example. Active defenders can be added, but better in other drills. Would also include last minute or 2 drills to score or protect a lead.
Most AFL players should be elite or excellent kickers and not need to have to remove "extraneous and uncontrollable factors" in a training drill. I agree everyone is different and to improve or make changes or a skill needs to be relearned and is not in the automatic phase they would need more time removing "unnecessary noise".
For some and thinking of Dennis Lillee here, it may be as simple as seeing their action filmed and them being able to make their own adjustments, but realistically that's what a good goal kicking coach should be able to help with.
What we might believe is one thing, the reality is another. Likewise our "should's" have a high capacity for delusion if we're preferencing them over the "what is".
It's about having a clear line of sight on what exactly any activity is targeting. So call it whatever you like but "benign" was just a shorthand way of say clearing out extraneous elements.
Most of the drills rolled out (year after year) at footy clubs don't really have much precision in design.
In looking at the effectiveness of any teaching method, I'd want to see how it goes against a few continuums like Direct/Indirect, Controllable/Uncontrollable and maybe even Observable/Non- Observable.
So if we run your idea of measuring the goal-success in a drill through the Direct/Indirect continuum for example, what is it doing exactly? Just a few discrete processes (off the top of my head) that get caught up in that measure include:
- Ball grip
- Ball drop height
- Ball drop accuracy
- Leg movement direction
- Leg movement power
- Body alignment to goals
- Attention to task/action
You'd have to say a pretty indirect measure if you looking to pull the right lever for improvement. I mean what do you with that data you're measuring? I'm assuming provide feedback? Is that feedback "you 'should' have elite goal kicking skills, you 'should' not be missing"?
- Apr 1, 2018
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Voss holds the ball too high up, always going to lose control on the ball drop - easy fix
Amiss runs too close to the man on the mark and with too little momentum- easy fix
Fyfe leans back too far rather than gaining forward momentum- bit more practice required but fixable.
A decent kicking coach could have them sorted in a few weeks.
The last few weeks have reminded me that Treacy’s kicking style is remarkably similar to Dardy’s (from memory only, haven’t gone back to look), both very reliable.
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Amiss runs too close to the man on the mark and with too little momentum- easy fix
Fyfe leans back too far rather than gaining forward momentum- bit more practice required but fixable.
A decent kicking coach could have them sorted in a few weeks.
The last few weeks have reminded me that Treacy’s kicking style is remarkably similar to Dardy’s (from memory only, haven’t gone back to look), both very reliable.
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We disagree what benign means and I don't agree that "most of the drills rolled out at footy clubs don't really have much precision in design". If that is true, then that is a big problem.
It is assuming by being only a few hundred players in Australia to be on an AFL list, kicking skills are at autonomous levels of skill acquisition. That is, there is little or no conscious thought in how to execute the skill by having to break it down to the cognitive stage with the discrete components you are talking about.
I'm not talking about teaching methods on how to kick, but competitive goal shooting drills adding "extraneous and uncontrollable" factors as mentioned, to replicate some perceived game pressure. AFL clubs have many resources to make changes one on one to identify and work on individual kicking technique.
Goal kicking success is a measure of success in goal kicking drills and as HP's example shows, a benchmark to measure improvement.
As I said, I used "benign" as a shortcut to describe a certain set of conditions. It's not so much that we "disagree [on] what benign means". Getting hung up on the word itself sidetracks the discussion into irrelevant territory. It's whether the conditions are more beneficial to learning or not.
It's demonstrably evident that most footy drills wheeled out aren't technically precise in design from a learning science perspective. It's not necessarily a "big problem", just that the coaches implementing them may not be getting everything they want from them. Good enough vs best practice (a continuum thing, not an either/or).
Similarly, using goal-accuracy measurements are demonstrably imprecise, as illustrated above.
Perfect Purple
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My partner and I were early for the Sydney game and watched Tom Papley practising his kicking on goal. It was a pretty depressing exercise for us as the man didn’t miss a shot regardless of the angle or distance he kicked from.
To our surprise though he missed a pretty easy shot during the game so we can assume that pressure was the key factor in his miss, albeit to only a minor extent.
I don’t know how the Club can reverse the current sad state of our goal kicking with easy shots that are missed then becoming a contagion as the game progresses. Son Son’s idea that they just stick to their basic technique doesn’t really allow for the dramatic drop in confidence which occurs following each subsequent miss during the game.
Time for the Club Psych to get to work!
To our surprise though he missed a pretty easy shot during the game so we can assume that pressure was the key factor in his miss, albeit to only a minor extent.
I don’t know how the Club can reverse the current sad state of our goal kicking with easy shots that are missed then becoming a contagion as the game progresses. Son Son’s idea that they just stick to their basic technique doesn’t really allow for the dramatic drop in confidence which occurs following each subsequent miss during the game.
Time for the Club Psych to get to work!
Shoeless Joe
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It is difficult to believe such a class act as Fyfe has not been able to improve his set shot accuracy after all these years in the system..especially given how professionally he goes about his preparation
He seems to have lost all confidence at the moment and when this happens its deflating for the team
He seems to have lost all confidence at the moment and when this happens its deflating for the team
In the crowd as well whenever he gets a set shot. There's not even a glimmer of hope that THIS is the one that will finally go through.
This is possible as watching him over the past few games his kicking with his right foot is of a little league standard. Perhaps there is something wrong with his leg.
A number of years back Mick McGuane was having injections prior to playing and his leg looked like a string of sausages with a boot on it. Kinda funny at the time.
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Which implies it's more than just a few suggestions to improve technique, that many posters on here can indicate the technique improvements.
I think JLo brought some training ideas from Collingwood when he first came but with the appt of Graham, who doesn't seem to have made improvements in scoring and scoring percentages over the last few years, it needs more than that.
