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AFL Player # 5: Elijah Tsatas
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People are saying that it’s extremely hard to fix your kicking action and also that if he hasn’t fixed it by now he won’t. If it’s so hard to fix maybe he just needs longer?
Also posters have said that they haven’t personally been able to fix their own kicking action when they tried to. But I don’t think that these posters are elite athletes who were picked top five in the afl draft based on their talent and had an elite kicking coach working with them personally specifically on their kicking. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Also posters have said that they haven’t personally been able to fix their own kicking action when they tried to. But I don’t think that these posters are elite athletes who were picked top five in the afl draft based on their talent and had an elite kicking coach working with them personally specifically on their kicking. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I think there is a lot of cross over, in the discussion, of different ideas I would summarise as:
1. players whose kicking improved but whose actions were within a range of what is reasonable for an AFL player and who improved their kicking to an averge AFL level (e.g. Jobe). These are the players who are not good kicks;
2. players who had genuinely flawed actions whose kicking improved while maintaining the flawed action but who would never have been more than the lower side of average (e.g. Hooker and possibly BZT but I think he's more of a category 1.5)
3. players who changed their flawed actions and who improved but are still not good kicks (e.g. Draper whose action / ball drop appears to have changed and tightened this season);
4. players who changed their flawed actions and became good kicks (e.g. ??);
5. players whose actions were a mess, barely functional, and it never changed (e.g. Dylan Clarke).
Has anyone ever changed the fundamental mechanical action and become a good kick? Almost certainly not. My impression of the players who change their actions is that it's not really that the action changes, it is that offensive and unnecessary movements are removed from the action, so that there are less things that go wrong. The basic mechanics do not change. Draper, for example, is no longer spilling the ball onto his foot, as he was in the last few years, and his action has been shaped so it can be consistently reproduced removing the sprawl of limbs that used to be part of his kicking. But even then it's not a remodelling as much as it is shaping and restricting of the movements, and the shape of those movements, and, I suspect, concentration to ensure that he is actually going through the kicking action each time. Compare and contrast with Hooker, for example, who developed a way to make his action work but whose basic shape was always the same. This is almost certainly what we are aiming for with Tsatas, not a remodelling.
What people should not lose sight of is that this is not about Tsatas becoming just another AFL player. If he can get it 37 times at VFL level he can almost certainly do it at AFL level, this week. AFL fans needs to get past this idea that a player can play because he can get the ball. Basically anyone that gets into the U18 system as a midfielder 'can play' because he can get the ball if played in a role that allows him to get it. How do have of these slow, never in contention ball magnets get selected for U18 if they don't display the ability to accumulate in the suburban leagues, etc? The reason players get on to AFL lists, unless you're running Essendon's recruiting and list management, is based on what those players do with the ball and how that differs from everyone else who can play.
Think about how absurd it would be if it was regularly the case that a player who 'can't play' made on to an AFL list. As in, a guy is selected because he is a midfielder but he never displays the game sense to be in position to accumulate the ball. Making it onto a Cat B list, or a really raw athlete who 'could never play' being taken speculatively or even being experimented with at VFL level, sure. But that is a vey different thing. It's not like it takes 3 years to work out whether the ex-basketballer can't play, everyone knows he can't play, he gets 3 years to show that he can (or that he can learn to). It's a more absurd criteria the higher up the draft order the player is taken.
For Tsatas, it is not just kicking but also with his ability to absorb pressure inside to be able to be multi-faceted because he can set up play using hand ball. Is he breaking out of stoppages? Is he evening displaying any running game?
We don't need C and B grade players. Becoming C or B grade is also, in no way, a vindication of the investment.
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Our future Bontempelli.
Both wearing their draft numbers. It is to be.
Both wearing their draft numbers. It is to be.
Kong
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Reminds me of playing under 15s and being taken off with one of the coaches to practise my left foot kicking.
For an insecure kid, gee that was humiliating.
Can only imagine what it's like for a professional, on their preferred.
TheGreatBarryB
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May have been Elijah's choice to practice on his weakness which is what you want to see.
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Well he’s A grade in areas surely, putting aside your theory that every midfielder at state level or above has identical accumulation abilities. A grade accumulation, A grade hands, A grade burst speed, A grade size, D grade kicking. Get his kicking to C or C+ and he’s about an A-. That would be great.
his size is largely irrelevant as he has no physical presence and doesn't use it.
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He’s already A grade if you take the median
Thought the video on the right looked better than the left.
Guessing the idea behind the pole in the 2nd vid would be... for him to not hook his kick? Hook his leg? Not sure, but it looked a little better.
First video his ball drop just looks like his controlling hand (his right) just sort of gives up and lets it go from so high rather than actually trying to put the ball towards his foot.
Cue more in-depth analysis.
that's what she said
ant555
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Well it was not at speed with someone bearing down on him . If we can set up a perimeter fence around him he will be fine
Well it was not at speed with someone bearing down on him . If we can set up a perimeter fence around him he will be fine
Me and my mates used to run a play at C-grade Monday night domestic basketball.
4 players would each set a screen around our best shooter, forming a box around him so he could comfortably get a shot off.
Something for Brad Scott to consider.
His draft footage has him kicking left footed. Don't watch.
I think he's showing good signs in the VFL and the best way for him to learn all of this is just to go out and get heaps of kicks. He does some good kicks and some ordinary ones, but his action isn't as bad as some of you are making out. I've certainly seen worse.
Patty Dangerfield can't kick and he's had a decent career....
ant555
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Dangerfield was never Tsats level bad . Ever. He can kick it 50 . It is more a rushed ball drop with Danger when he is under pressure or at speed .
ant555
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Set shots are a different beast . I have watched Dangerfield since he was 16.
Daniher is a magic field kick but an average set shot .
Zack Merrett is not always the best set shot.
It is a different situation.
When you have been to training and watched his kicking get back to me .
No one has suggested that
You do know our draft history? It's trad, we bust.
Might not be Zac Merrett but gee he haa a good work ethic
ant555
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Was not Brads choice . He had been in the job for 5 minutes when we picked him. Like I have said many times. This bloke was totally a RFK pick.
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