To be fair ...
... coaches keep things very simple for young players, getting them to focus on very simple, singular objectives. It helps the player deal with the awe of the occasion, and it gets the player into the mode of “playing their role”.
Fair chance Macrae’s instructions would have been something along the lines of “don’t worry about tackling or kicking goals, your sole job is to ...”. When Macrae goes through his tape with his coaches this week, they’ll be focusing on how well he followed instructions, rather than how well rounded his game was.
By contrast McCreary’s task last week would clearly have been to apply pressure in the forward line - tackle count being just one measure of that. The goal he kicked was clearly an opportunistic one.
As players develop and get more games into them, their role will expand and become more well rounded.
To illustrate the point, even a player of Scott Pendlebury’s experience strives to add further layers to his game each year.
these players have been training full time in their roles for months, do you think during that time they only have 1 very basic instruction to follow and that carries to their afl game? Do they learn the full role but when they debut they stripe it all back and tell them to forget about what they’ve been taught and only focus on 1 part?