Dangers kicking

[birdmanptr]

He was definitely referring to mental toughness...not macho toughness. These guys get paid a shitload of money. Part of the job is kicking goals under pressure. If they had done their job, Port would have lost the showdown and richmond would have lost today.

So do we need a new forward coach

 

[footy4ever]

So do we need a new forward coach

the age old saying...you can lead a horse to water..

But every team has those days.

Par for the season, we had two of them in a row.

Does anyone seriously think it will go on forever?

What they need is a confident mindset more than a new forward coach.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

I got howled down earlier in the season when I suggested the coaches were stuffing around with our players' kicking techniques and trying to enforce rigid routines on people who already had developed a natural kicking style.

Now we see Dangerfield doing that ridiculous spin that he has never done before. Clearly this is a coaching directive. Some brainiac has obviously decided that he is too tense as he is running in to goal and needs to relax his arms to lose some of this tension.

Once again the cure is worse than the disease. We obviously spent all week on our goalkicking with plenty of advice from our 'expert' coaches. And what we get is paralysis by analysis. Coaches with too much time on their hands trying to justify their positions.

I hate coaches who think they're God's gift to football, who think that one word from them plus an hour or two of training can over-ride 15 years of kicking the ball a certain way. Butt out you clowns. Surely our forward line coaches have got their hands full trying to stop our forwards cannoning into each other in marking contests that they don't have time to reconstruct someone's kicking action?

Seeing one of the best young footballers we've ever had come to our club kick the ball in this complicated, convoluted manner can only mean that we have an absolute bunch of buffoons down there running the show.

 

[The Karma Bus]

I've been noticing with a few of Dangerfields kicks that as he drops the ball, he let's it topple over too far and he is actually connecting more with the point of the ball than anything else.. I'm sure it's a big part of when they spray like a few today.. That spin of the ball in his hands doesn't help with the drop and he holds the ball crooked as he runs up (of late).. Just what i noticed..

 

[Kickin_Goals]

so we are saying it's the blind leading the near sighted when it comes to kicking training?
It does seem possible, the professionalism at the club seems much more hype then substance when you look closely at a lot of things.

 

[Slippery Pete]

His kicking has always been poor, it was the knock on him during his draft year, and while it has improved a little bit it remains poor.

Where are all those people suggesting he should play off the half back flank because of his "elite kicking"?

NT Rabbit, he is an elite kick, on both sides of his body, especially on the run. The thing is, set shots are a totally different kettle of fish. All he's doing wrong is leaning back on the kick, and thus the ball drop is all over the shop (a common problem). He's been doing this since the day he arrived at the club. His set shots have always been hit and miss.

It's such an easy thing to fix for a player of his ability. Surely it couldn't be that our coaching staff haven't indentified this basic flaw.

 

[jackster83]

Our guys mostly seem to be great kicks from 50 out but dreadful from point blank range. Porps' miss in the third quarter was reminiscent of Ty Zantuck's effort against us a few years ago.

One thing I've noticed is that our guys fail to take the wind into account. Watching the showdown live, you could see all our kicks missing to the Eastern side (which was where the wind was blowing to) whereas Port would hang it out and let the breeze do the rest. The wind yesterday was pretty severe and was interfering with the ball drop but it didn't seem to bother Richmond. Maybe our guys have too high a ball drop (I know that sounds bad ).

 

[Slippery Pete]

Our guys mostly seem to be great kicks from 50 out but dreadful from point blank range. Porps' miss in the third quarter was reminiscent of Ty Zantuck's effort against us a few years ago.

One thing I've noticed is that our guys fail to take the wind into account. Watching the showdown live, you could see all our kicks missing to the Eastern side (which was where the wind was blowing to) whereas Port would hang it out and let the breeze do the rest. The wind yesterday was pretty severe and was interfering with the ball drop but it didn't seem to bother Richmond. Maybe our guys have too high a ball drop (I know that sounds bad ).

It was a difficult day, and you know it's a diffifult day when Porps is missing them too. But Danger's problems were beyond it being a blustery day - he was completely devoid of any confidence at all. He needed to be taken out of there and put in another role. To let the kid continue to erode his confidence like that when it was clear he couldnt hit a barn door was criminal. Get him in the midfield, get him to half back - just get him out of that area.

It was clear to me at half time that Danger was having a terrible day in front of goal, and his confidence was only going to get worse. What happened to him in that third quarter has the potential to scar him for quite some time.

And Neil just stood by and let it happen - and then after the game branded him and his teammates amatuerish. Sorry Neil - it is your fault mate. You're the one who left the kid there.

 

[crowman86]

Wait so your blaming Craig for Danger missing a few easy set shots? Then you blame him for leaving him there so he has a chance to have another crack and do it right the next time? If you drag him away out of the goalsquare thats going to damage him more because it shows you have no confidence in his ability and also shows that he must be a pretty weak character.

FFS its the AFL not amatuer league, if you cant handle the heat get out of the kitchen.

 

[beartoo]

Roo said in the 'tiser this morning that players are not sticking to their kicking routines. On the one hand we have people on this board blaming coaches for imposing routines on natural kicking styles, on the other hand we have a former captain of the club saying this.

 

[Slippery Pete]

Wait so your blaming Craig for Danger missing a few easy set shots? Then you blame him for leaving him there so he has a chance to have another crack and do it right the next time? If you drag him away out of the goalsquare thats going to damage him more because it shows you have no confidence in his ability and also shows that he must be a pretty weak character.

FFS its the AFL not amatuer league, if you cant handle the heat get out of the kitchen.

If a guy's having a nightmare in front of the sticks, get him into a different role. Change things up. Dangerfield was experiencing his own living nightmare yesterday. Anybody who's played football knows the answer is not to have more shots at goal - the answer is to get away from it for a while.

Having said that - he does have a flaw in his set shot technique that has gone unaddressed. Yesterday he was leaning back so far he was nearly bloody horizonal.

 

[NTRabbit]

NT Rabbit, he is an elite kick, on both sides of his body, especially on the run. The thing is, set shots are a totally different kettle of fish. All he's doing wrong is leaning back on the kick, and thus the ball drop is all over the shop (a common problem). He's been doing this since the day he arrived at the club. His set shots have always been hit and miss.

It's such an easy thing to fix for a player of his ability. Surely it couldn't be that our coaching staff haven't indentified this basic flaw.

So he's an elite kick but... sorry, the instant you add the but there, it defeats your entire argument. An elite kick is an elite kick, not an elite kick except under this certain condition or that certain condition.

 

[Slippery Pete]

So he's an elite kick but... sorry, the instant you add the but there, it defeats your entire argument. An elite kick is an elite kick, not an elite kick except under this certain condition or that certain condition.

Robert Harvey was an elite kick, and couldn't kick a goal to save himself.

Field kicking and goal kicking are two completely different skill sets, my friend.

 

[Baron Winds]

Watching the slow motion replays of his goal kicking, to me it looks to be a lack of concentration.

Oh and be blowed if i know who they are trying to see in the stands as they are running into goal but our forwards really need to start getting their head over the ball instead of watching where they want the ball to go... This aint cricket

 

[TheLeftFist8]

Field kicking and goal kicking are two completely different skill sets, my friend.

Totally agree with that Slippery.

I'm not sure if it's the angle of trajectory over a man on the mark, the height the ball is often kicked, or the psychological pressure, or the change in run-up leading into the kick, or the stationary target...or whatever it is, but they are certainly two different skill sets where players utilise differing biomechanics and psychology to kick.

Now i wouldn't call him an elite field kicker but Nick Gill was an example of someone who was a very competent kick in field play but was Russian roullette in front of the sticks.

Along with the simple technical suggestions well mentioned by others, as an overview i wonder whether trying to minimise the difference between field kicking and goal kicking may work for some players.

Somehow they need to be able to focus their mind down to the simplicity of kicking and eliminate the other pressures they seem to be carrying like a gorillla on the back. Maybe far less time is needed. Go back and run in as if you are going to kick a 50m pass to a lead, pick your target zone and just do it!

That leads to the biomechanics of it. This up and under, lean back, pop it up high in the air and poke it through style is crap (In fact, some of the poorer kicks in the side do this in their field kicking...need to eliminate the proportion of these players). I can only see 2 reasons why a flatter, penetrating, 'kick to a lead' style with less pre-kick routine would not be the preffered option...getting smothered and making the distance (not getting a flatter trajectory touched on the line).

These can be overcome by 1) kicking from a little further back from the mark and 2) kicking through the ball like you are drilling a 50m pass. This style which minimises changes to the natural (and far more automatic and therefore less likely to crumble and change under pressure) kicking actions of the players should be suitable for any kick from ~<45m, depending on the players kicking length.

The season is over. Maybe the guys should try a revolutionary approach for a couple games...could we do any worse???? Take your mark, give yourself plenty of distance from the man on the mark, pick the spot out that you wanna kick it to, then forget all else...just run in as if you are going to drill the pass in field play and hit the spot. If your natural style involves an arc in the run up (ala Franklin) or unorthodoxy like kicking it around the corner a bit (ala D Jarman), then stick to it and practice your normal kicking until the basic skill is automatic. Don't add a 10 stage unnatural routine.

It's either this or an extremely robotic exacting routine that never ever changes in the aim of building consistency (though I'd argue that its departure from 'normal kicking' which is reinforced much more as a skill makes this extremely difficult). Be a natural or be a robot but don't follow the useless hybrid approach that we currently have.