Opinion Butcher

[Portia]

I watched Butch during his warm up, had 4 kicks for goal from about 35-50 metres out on a 45 degree+ angle.

All four went straight through the middle. I can't wait for him to get his head right, as he has everything else going for him.

I think it might be 50% head, but 50% fitness and not managing to centre himself/get his adrenaline/heart rate down after running around like a madman.

Fixing it with a mad amount of set shot practice as some has suggested is an OK idea, but as TSW said above, Butch can already kick fine when he's not worn out. Its probably more useful if goalkicking practice were to be combined with two or three minutes of leading before each kick, with a shot clock per kick.

 

[simmo_bc]

if you were new to the country and picked the PAFC to support, if you listened to some of our supporters speak, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the fella is useless - clearly, this isn't the case.

People are allowing his set shot performances to cloud their judgment on his ability as a whole. To use another sport as an example, Shaquille O'Neal was one of the worst free throw shooters in the history of the NBA but was also voted into the top 50 players of all time by the NBA.

Butch will be at the club in one form or another next year, I still think he will get a one year contract. He has shown enough in the latter part of 2015 to make people second guess themselves and for the list managers to be unwilling to take the risk that another club picks him up and he becomes a bona fide AFL player.

 

[Hong-Kong Phooey]

So you actually have quantified this. Can you please enlighten us?

Dixon

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2015-05-02/charlie-gets-the-chocolates-against-lions

http://www.goldcoastfc.com.au/video/2015-07-05/game-breaker-charlie-dixon

http://www.afl.com.au/match-centre/2015/23/syd-v-gcfc

Butcher

take a look at the mark of the year for the past few weeks. Read back in theis thread, im no butcher fan. But the amount that he has grown over the past few weeks has impressed me. His kicking is still woeful, but his arial ability in contests cant be questioned.

Dixon - Reported 3.5 mill over 5 years plus what we will lose at trade table
or
Butcher / Schulz and the extra year in our youngsters

.... ill take the latter any day.

DOnt get me wrong, i want dixon. But not for what we would have to pay.

 

[finbarr]

 

[The Smaller Warrior]

I think it might be 50% head, but 50% fitness and not managing to centre himself/get his adrenaline/heart rate down after running around like a madman.

Fixing it with a mad amount of set shot practice as some has suggested is an OK idea, but as TSW said above, Butch can already kick fine when he's not worn out. Its probably more useful if goalkicking practice were to be combined with two or three minutes of leading before each kick, with a shot clock per kick.

Yeah I actually agree with this.

I do know, Butch practices his kick more than anyone at the club by a long, long margin.

During training, at the club and during practice his kick is fine - not perfect but it's far better than what we have all come used to seeing. I think the confidence can continue to come through games, and fitness will come through another full preseason.

 

[OneGreatClub]

Getty Images love da Butch

Well we want to play entertaining footy. Right?

 

[Coobk001]

Butcher's kick is never fine, under no pressure kicking around a field of course he might hit some targets, but so would my girlfriend. At the end of the day he is hit and miss because the fundamentals are wrong and hence it is unreliable. Put pressure on him when lining up or when running around the field and his chances of nailing the kick drop dramatically.

He could hit 7 perfectly one day. Kick 7 goals.

Next day he could have 8 shots and only one might cross the goal line.

Butchers kicking is indefensible. It's not just slightly bad, it is the worst kick I have seen at SANFL or AFL level in my 33 years.

The saddest indictment on his coaches is the fact that he now has a 6 step run up. NEVER, EVER, EVER was/is/will that work for a player. It is stupid and is making his chances worse. You dont go play golf and just find something that seems to work, you find the structured methodical way you're meant to swing and you try to perfect doing it the correct way. You dont try and perfect chaos.

 

[OneGreatClub]

Butcher's kick is never fine, under no pressure kicking around a field of course he might hit some targets, but so would my girlfriend. At the end of the day he is hit and miss because the fundamentals are wrong and hence it is unreliable. Put pressure on him when lining up or when running around the field and his chances of nailing the kick drop dramatically.

He could hit 7 perfectly one day. Kick 7 goals.

Next day he could have 8 shots and only one might cross the goal line.

Butchers kicking is indefensible. It's not just slightly bad, it is the worst kick I have seen at SANFL or AFL level in my 33 years.

The saddest indictment on his coaches is the fact that he now has a 6 step run up. NEVER, EVER, EVER was/is/will that work for a player. It is stupid and is making his chances worse. You dont go play golf and just find something that seems to work, you find the structured methodical way you're meant to swing and you try to perfect doing it the correct way. You dont try and perfect chaos.

Get Lloyd

 

[Alberton Proud]

I'm genuinely surprised at the Butch love

Yep the pack marks are great but ....

- He's had 300 weeks to do nothing other than get his kicking right from both a psychological and mechanical perspective and what's changed ?

- His defensive pressure in the forward 50 is virtually non-existent probably due to the fact that he reads unfolding plays so poorly

- Whilst the crowd loves him they are openly laughing when he inevitably screws up

For me he's a liability that fortunately hasn't cost us in any important games ... yet

 

[OneGreatClub]

I'm genuinely surprised at the Butch love

Yep the pack marks are great but ....

- He's had 300 weeks to do nothing other than get his kicking right from both a psychological and mechanical perspective and what's changed ?

- His defensive pressure in the forward 50 is virtually non-existent probably due to the fact that he reads unfolding plays so poorly

- Whilst the crowd loves him they are openly laughing when he inevitably screws up

For me he's a liability that fortunately hasn't cost us in any important games ... yet

When you love someone, you just do. You can't really explain it. It's about how they make you feel.

 

[Alberton Proud]

When you love someone, you just do. You can't really explain it. It's about how they make you feel.

Does she have to be that ugly though

 

[simmo_bc]

I do know, Butch practices his kick more than anyone at the club by a long, long margin.

they said the same thing with Tredders back in the day, "he doesn't miss a set shot at training...", I am confident he can convert his set shot from unsatisfactory to something more acceptable and an acceptable conversion rate may be something from 40% to 60% for Butch.

If he is never going to have a high success rate in front of goal, he NEEDS to be quite outstanding in the other areas of his game to offset his (lack of) goal kicking ability.

lets not forget that arguably our most skillful player, Mr Robbie Gray, is prone to miss easy set shots at goal - granted, he repays the club back in spades for other areas of his game.

 

[Smartys Power]

He could hit 7 perfectly one day. Kick 7 goals.

Next day he could have 8 shots and only one might cross the goal line.

You've pretty much summed up goal kicking. Not just Butcher's but everyone's.

 

[Shaucob_Burjan]

For all this mental thing about Butch, the one thing he actually does is kick pressure or clutch goals.

Bizarre.

I do have a theory for it in home games though.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

- His defensive pressure in the forward 50 is virtually non-existent probably due to the fact that he reads unfolding plays so poorly

I dont know what game you are watching when you have watched Butcher play but the one thing I have never faulted for is his defensive pressure. He is always chasing, harrassing, tackling and pressuring defenders. His un-co actions means sometimes the defence can get past him relatively easily but he is always putting pressure on defenders. I will give him about 12 out of 100 for his kicking but I'd give him 85 for his defensive efforts as a forward.

 

[FallingLiefs]

Dixon

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2015-05-02/charlie-gets-the-chocolates-against-lions

http://www.goldcoastfc.com.au/video/2015-07-05/game-breaker-charlie-dixon

http://www.afl.com.au/match-centre/2015/23/syd-v-gcfc

Butcher

take a look at the mark of the year for the past few weeks. Read back in theis thread, im no butcher fan. But the amount that he has grown over the past few weeks has impressed me. His kicking is still woeful, but his arial ability in contests cant be questioned.

Dixon - Reported 3.5 mill over 5 years plus what we will lose at trade table
or
Butcher / Schulz and the extra year in our youngsters

.... ill take the latter any day.

DOnt get me wrong, i want dixon. But not for what we would have to pay.

Go back to the injury argument, at least it had merit. Saying Charlie isn't worth what has been bandied around on talent is false.

 

[TeeKray]

You dont go play golf and just find something that seems to work, you find the structured methodical way you're meant to swing and you try to perfect doing it the correct way. You dont try and perfect chaos.

This is spot on. I don't get the 'well, he kicks them at training/in the warm up' argument. The pressure and fatigue of an AFL game is part of the gig and your kicking needs to stand up to that in a technical sense. Anyone can see his ball drop and run in is fatally flawed.

 

[simmo_bc]

I've had a quick look at Butchers conversion rate and compared him to some other forwards in the competition:

Bruce - 68.7%
Butcher - 67.9%
Stringer - 63.9%
Kennedy - 63.7%
J. Riewoldt - 63.1%
Petrie - 61.7%
Jenkins - 61.6%
N. Riewoldt - 60.7%
Cloke - 55.2%

Points to note:

- random sample with not all players comparable to Butcher and his role in our forward half.
- some players have a larger sample size of set shots over a longer period (Riewoldt, Cloke et al).
- does not take into consideration set shots at goal which do not make the distance, are kicked out on the full or are genuine shanks.
- Butchers conversion rate, when he gets good purchase on the kick, is actually not too bad.

 

[Alberton Proud]

I dont know what game you are watching when you have watched Butcher play but the one thing I have never faulted for is his defensive pressure. He is always chasing, harrassing, tackling and pressuring defenders. His un-co actions means sometimes mean the defence can get past him relatively easily but he is always putting pressure on defenders. I will give him about 12 out of 100 for his kicking but I'd give him 85 for his defensive efforts as a forward.

I still think you're being very generous REH

 

[Coobk001]

You've pretty much summed up goal kicking. Not just Butcher's but everyone's.

No, Butch is the worst kick I've seen. It is only summing him up.

One day a player make kick 5.5 and the next 6.4, but Butch will go from 10 shots 8.2 to 0.1 (with 9 misses)

 

[simmo_bc]

No, Butch is the worst kick I've seen. It is only summing him up.

One day a player make kick 5.5 and the next 6.4, but Butch will go from 10 shots 8.2 to 0.1 (with 9 misses)

as highlighted above, his set shot conversion 'when' he strikes the ball effectively is pretty good.

however, the conversion rate I highlighted does not take into consideration the shanks - if the shanks can be eliminated, his set shot performance would be more than acceptable at AFL level.

 

[Smartys Power]

No, Butch is the worst kick I've seen. It is only summing him up.

One day a player make kick 5.5 and the next 6.4, but Butch will go from 10 shots 8.2 to 0.1 (with 9 misses)

But this could happen to any forward. It just happens to be a better chance with Butcher. It was just a bland statement.

 

[Coobk001]

as highlighted above, his set shot conversion 'when' he strikes the ball effectively is pretty good.

however, the conversion rate I highlighted does not take into consideration the shanks - if the shanks can be eliminated, his set shot performance would be more than acceptable at AFL level.

Maybe, we aren't just talking about bad kicking though. We're talking about kicking that is as bad as it can possibly get. Stats may be telling a story but it only takes one look at Butcher kicking the ball to know that the stats are lying.

Ultimately out of the ~46 players on our list, and out of the ~800 players in the AFL I would chose Butcher to take my set shots last. Hell I'd probably chose him last out of all the players in the SANFL, including SANFL reserves as well.

He is just that bad, there is no point sugar coating it. His kicking is horrendous. Geez I like everyone hope someone can fix it though because the guy can play.

 

[simmo_bc]

so Ultimately out of the ~46 players on our list, and out of the ~800 players in the AFL I would chose Butcher to take my set shots last. Hell I'd probably chose him last out of all the players in the SANFL, including SANFL reserves as well.

He is just that bad, there is no point sugar coating it. His kicking is horrendous. Geez I like everyone hope someone can fix it though because the guy can play.

True, that's just the reality of the situation for Butch that is perpetuated by his shanks.

For me, it's just the shanks, not the lamb variety, so if he can eliminate the shanks we should be all a lot more pleased with goal kicking output.

perish the thought of Butch lining up for an after the siren goal in a GF for a 1 point lead.

 

[Malibu#27]

Yeah I actually agree with this.

I do know, Butch practices his kick more than anyone at the club by a long, long margin.

During training, at the club and during practice his kick is fine - not perfect but it's far better than what we have all come used to seeing. I think the confidence can continue to come through games, and fitness will come through another full preseason.

I mentioned much earlier, but what he's going through is not as rare as some may think. The only way he can work through it is to keep kicking for goals in games..... the training will help with technique, but until he can line up for goal and not have the self doubt/negativity floating around its always going to be there.