The Reason for Poor Goal Kicking

Jun 23, 2008
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if that is the case then why aren't there more players kicking a hundred goals a year. they should be absolutely topping the scales with goals rather than
just spreading them around ..

Because it's tactically primitive and dumb to target a single forward often enough to get the volume of shots needed to kick a ton. It's too easy for today's coaches and defenses to plan and set up for.
 
Feb 23, 2009
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if that is the case then why aren't there more players kicking a hundred goals a year. they should be absolutely topping the scales with goals rather than
just spreading them around ..
Because the game, its players and coaches has clearly changed and evolved since 20 years ago.
 

Pessimistic

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Despite the media hyperbole, goal kicking accuracy has actually continued to improve over the years (on the whole). This is of course not taking into account other factors like difficulty of shot etc.

DbcIiKVVAAAexNl.jpg

Source: https://twitter.com/neilfws

The fossils really are full of s**t. keep your 'interventions' in your pants guys
 

Leeda

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Because the game, its players and coaches has clearly changed and evolved since 20 years ago.
er yah but that is only because they have started to rely on more than one say at least five goal kickers per team and this has let the game be slowly
degraded in terms of the high goal kicker. It isn't so long since we had the two major kickers in a team on a game day that would kick on average three or four and so on each game.

I miss this and I guess that many others do too.
 
Jun 9, 2015
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The real reason is because players obviously don’t practice enough and don’t learn from their mistakes. Too many of them try to be fancy an kick in excesses snaps or checksides or dribble goals instead of straightforward drop punts. Steven Johnson started this stupid trend and the media over rated it and everyone hasn’t jumped off the lazy bandwagon
 

Carson Dial

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How can many players kick impossible goals on the run but screw up a simple set shot a la Fyfe in last weeks Derby?
 
Mar 15, 2012
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I have to ask, the graph, is it only taking in the accuracy when comparing goals to points ratio or does it keep track of out of bounds or fail to register anything shots?
Too often people pull out the stats of points to goals as a way of showing accuracy but it does not reflect the true stats. Daniher for instance usually registers 2-4 shots a game that wont even get a point and walk away with 2 goals and 2 points and someone will say he is 50/50.
I believe its compiled purely from goals and behind tallies, including rushed behinds etc. There is a possibility that factors such as the rushed behind rule since 2009, the number of shots at goal missing completely (if indeed it is actually happening at greater frequency today then in the past, which I still doubt) and the addition of Etihad Stadium in 2000 with its perfect conditions might skew the data a little, but the general trend is there and it comes from data from a mountain of games played at many stadiums.

Besides, the goals vs behinds comparison is the only way of producing such a graph objectively. Who's to say otherwise if a kick doesn't register a score that it was actually a shot and not just a general field kick that ended up close to the goals? There's no way to differentiate the two.
 

Topkent

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Despite the media hyperbole, goal kicking accuracy has actually continued to improve over the years (on the whole). This is of course not taking into account other factors like difficulty of shot etc.

DbcIiKVVAAAexNl.jpg

Source: https://twitter.com/neilfws

That's fallacy though, more shots than ever are taken from the goalsquare and dribbled over the line whilst playing conditions have never been more perfect. Old grounds were mud pits covered in water an windy as hell and it hasn't improved with the new closed off stadiums.
 

Bungeye

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Players miss goals due to fatigue and crapping themselves in front of big crowds. The accuracy would be worse if it wasn't for all the goals they kick from 0 to 15m out these days!
 
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That's fallacy though, more shots than ever are taken from the goalsquare and dribbled over the line whilst playing conditions have never been more perfect. Old grounds were mud pits covered in water an windy as hell and it hasn't improved with the new closed off stadiums.
That may be true, but there a huge number of factors which can influence the overall stats above what you've mentioned and that graph is close to the only way it can be objectively judged. There's also no way of knowing how much each individual factor skews the stats.

For example, perhaps also back in the years of the power forward, the majority of shots were taken by one or two 'expert goal kickers' on the team rather than by a spread of part-time forwards and midfielders, so were we getting an accurate sample of how accurate majority of players were as compared to today?

The only thing that is undeniable is the upwards trend seen in the graph.
 

keithrichards

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Matthew Richardson once made a point about the height of the goal posts and was ridiculed for it. There is absolutely no doubt that taller goal posts create the illusion of a harder kick. There are other - perhaps more valid - reasons, such as fatigue and lack of skill, however I would wager that this has had some effect.
I completely understand that the high goal posts would create an illusion of a smaller target.

What I don’t get however, is how aiming for a ‘smaller’ target results in more misses? Given that the target itself is not actually smaller?
 

Topkent

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That may be true, but there a huge number of factors which can influence the overall stats above what you've mentioned and that graph is close to the only way it can be objectively judged. There's also no way of knowing how much each individual factor skews the stats.

For example, perhaps also back in the years of the power forward, the majority of shots were taken by one or two 'expert goal kickers' on the team rather than by a spread of part-time forwards and midfielders, so were we getting an accurate sample of how accurate majority of players were as compared to today?

The only thing that is undeniable is the upwards trend seen in the graph.

In part that's true but I don't think anyone isn't acknowledging the death of the specialist goal kicker, that's the problem.
 
Apr 6, 2005
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Each AFL season is becoming a repeat, regarding the issues we talk about. Oh goalkicking is down... actually no it's always been like this, even worse. Oh the state of the game... Stop showing s**t teams in primetime, as of course with 18 teams standards will drop.. There is nothing that needs tinkering with the game, the more rules we add the more confusion and inconsistency are created.

It's the media driving these absolute fallacies to drive sales and talk-back. Let s**t work itself out. It's evolution. Let the game settle after the last introduction of 2 clubs, let the game itself find the balance over a 10 year period. We are way to over-reactionary due to media build ups... Got to fill in all those paragraphs and air-time.

The game is fine, let it continue to evolve. Anyway, it's far too late to go backwards.
 

Pusti

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I think stress is the biggest factor. I've noticed the most accurate goalkickers don't look outwardly stressed when lining up for a set shot. They just go back, run in, and kick the ball in the direction they want it to go, just as they would any time they have a kick. I know there's a lot pressure when having a shot, but stressing about it is never going to help. Just go back and kick towards the goals, if it goes through, good, if not, don't worry about it, just get on with your game, as stressing about it will only make you less accurate.
 
Apr 17, 2006
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They kick too close to the man on the mark. Its impacted by their run up, back in the day they'd take 4-5 steps and then kick, now they run a marathon for a run up.
 
Aug 25, 2005
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Despite the media hyperbole, goal kicking accuracy has actually continued to improve over the years (on the whole). This is of course not taking into account other factors like difficulty of shot etc.

DbcIiKVVAAAexNl.jpg

Source: https://twitter.com/neilfws
But that doesn't represent set shot accuracy.

That's all forms of scoring isn't it?
 
Aug 25, 2005
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I love this. You post evidence that the issue described in the OP is not happening. People then keep debating the reasons for the thing that’s not happening.
The OP describes set shot conversion.

The 'evidence' presented is simply a mean % of goals versus behinds (rushed included).

You could have 5 rushed behinds, and a mean % of 40%, but your set shot accuracy might have been 100%.

Similarly, you could have a mean % of 90% but your set shot conversion could be 0%.

So it's barely relevant to the OP at all.
 
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