Opinion Can't kick, can't play football

[1954]

As much as it pains me to say this I believe the tingles would have probably knocked the squawkers off last night, and by about the same margin that we lost by.

They have had absolutely zip serious injuries, and if they sneak into the top 2, and get 2 home finals, a gf berth is a very real possibility, and our worst nightmare may very well come to fruition.

 

[Fluro Boots]

with both feet, and if they can do it equally on both sides and you can't distinguish which is the preferred kicking foot... then your in. not unless your a ruckmen, you can be forgiven.

Sorry for the intrusion guys, but recruiting policies are kind of neutral territory. I think to be forgiven for not being dual sided the one side you use has to be a real weapon to make up for it like Suckling, Isaac Smith, buddy. Sorry for the hawks references but they're the best examples i can think of. Brodie Smith is one i can think of that i'd excuse cause his kicking is unreal, not sure if he uses both sides though so may be irrelevant.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Sorry for the intrusion guys, but recruiting policies are kind of neutral territory. I think to be forgiven for not being dual sided the one side you use has to be a real weapon to make up for it like Suckling, Isaac Smith, buddy. Sorry for the hawks references but they're the best examples i can think of. Brodie Smith is one i can think of that i'd excuse cause his kicking is unreal, not sure if he uses both sides though so may be irrelevant.

Left footers tend to only have one side - I know I'm a leftie - and get away with it even at AFL level.

What is noticeable about the Hawks who since about 2007 have in 95% of their games, have had somewhere between 9 and 13 lefties in each game, is that they regularly move the ball from deep in the back pocket right hand side, and using a chain of left footers either with kick mark, go back and kick and/or kick mark play on, they move the ball from the right side of the ground going leftwards each kick and end up with a mark 20 to 50m out from their goal, close to the left hand side boundary.

Those observations of mine were further endorsed when in the warm up the Hawks players kicking for goal to the southern end lined up leading to the eastern boundary ie left hand side, and practicing their set shots for goal from that pocket. Just another example of the Hawks practicing how they play.

 

[carnthemaggies]

As much as it pains me to say this I believe the tingles would have probably knocked the squawkers off last night, and by about the same margin that we lost by.

They have had absolutely zip serious injuries, and if they sneak into the top 2, and get 2 home finals, a gf berth is a very real possibility, and our worst nightmare may very well come to fruition.

Painful indeed - Don't entertain such horrible thoughts - we are already traumatised!

 

[ctpower]

Exactly - Ebert, Ollie, Dangerfield, Selwood play a game that will always result in a poor disposal efficiency.
Good, accurate kicking is essential to a successful team but I believe 'game style' has a lot to do with it.
ATM we kick to packs up forward, cant remember the last time we hit up a leading forward 40 metres from goal directly in front.

Great post tribey

 

[ctpower]

I must have missed this deficiency in Boak's game, but do we really have a captain and top 10 draft pick, who as suggested in an earlier post can't kick on his left foot?
I would have thought any top 10 midfielder would have to be at least capable of disposing of the ball adequately by both hand and foot on either side of his body.

He can't kick on his left and is an average kick on the run

 

[OneGreatClub]

As much as it pains me to say this I believe the tingles would have probably knocked the squawkers off last night, and by about the same margin that we lost by.



They have had absolutely zip serious injuries, and if they sneak into the top 2, and get 2 home finals, a gf berth is a very real possibility, and our worst nightmare may very well come to fruition.

Could happen. Imagine the hysteria. KG would do a hip. I'll just avoid the media hype until next season begins. We can't compare their season with ours or other teams. They are basically the only club to have a stable team on the park week in week out and any occass injury are to peripheral players. That is a massive advantage..massive. They would be struggling if they had to deal with what we have but that's life. One can only hope they are brought back to the pack next year if injuries bite. A good ruck..a settled back 6 and a fit settled and firing forward line they have been playing with. We have the opposite. Media and their obnoxious supporters would be unbearable but the sun will still rise.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Today's 10 page 'Tsier review of Port's season had the stats that prove if you can't kick you can't play footy - of a calibare to win you AFL glory.

It's why you can go on about so many other issues, as we do on the Port board, but if you can't get the fundamental of the game right, then you wont improve! It eats away at players confidence and has a degenerative effect on their efforts and even fitness levels when we continually burn the ball and cause turnovers and we are chaing the oppo rather than them spending petrol to chase us.

 

[Us against the rest]

Today's 10 page 'Tsier had the stats that prove if you can't kick you can't play footy - of a calibare to win you AFL glory.

It's why you can go on about so many other issues, as we do on the Port board, but if you can't get the fundamental of the game right, then you wont improve! It eats away at players confidence and has a degenerative effect on their efforts and even fitness levels when we continually burn the ball and cause turnovers and we are chaing the oppo rather than them spending petrol to chase us.


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Yeah that's not good at all, Sydney's stats are interesting.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

The other tables of stats from that Tsier article which look for ugly reading but the 2 kicking ones above are the most important. Its called Football, not handball, not running ball, not bash and crash ball, not middle distance athletics its called Football for a very good reason, you have to use your foot and feet well when kicking the ball.

If we could get ourselves to 8th spot on those 2 kicking table spots, Ryder comes back and changes the way we ruck and therefore win the clearances and automatically climb up those last 2 table say to 8th spot then we could make significant improvement. The question is is it too late for most of our blokes to improve their kicking to be at AFL average efficiency of 66.6%?????????

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Yeah that's not good at all, Sydney's stats are interesting.

Look at the other tables and you can see why Sydney get away with poor kicking. There also is a slight SCG postage stamp size ground factor for them.

 

[Us against the rest]

Look at the other tables and you can see why Sydney get away with poor kicking. There also is a slight SCG postage stamp size ground factor for them.

Contested possession seems to be the main key hear for the Swans.

 

[Dalphonso]

I have said it before here, learn to kick with both feet and handball with both hands.
How can you be a professional footballer and not be able to do this?
Bonner is going to be important for our future.
Krakouer, Pittard and Polec (+Dixon and Schulz in terms of goal scoring accuracy) are our other accurate mainstays in terms of kicking ability, although I think only Pittard is trying to develop a 2 sided capability.

I was a shite footballer but I could kick both feet,handball with both hands and bounce the ball running with left and right hand.Most kids could to some degree because all we did was practice.These blokes train all day so I don't know what they are doing?Cooking classes and home economics along with finance?

 

[Finest of Wines]

The other tables of stats from that Tsier article which look for ugly reading but the 2 kicking ones above are the most important. Its called Football, not handball, not running ball, not bash and crash ball, not middle distance athletics its called Football for a very good reason, you have to use your foot and feet well when kicking the ball.

If we could get ourselves to 8th spot on those 2 kicking table spots, Ryder comes back and changes the way we ruck and therefore win the clearances and automatically climb up those last 2 table say to 8th spot then we could make significant improvement. The question is is it too late for most of our blokes to improve their kicking to be at AFL average efficiency of 66.6%?????????

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The Swans show that even having poor footskills, you can be successful if you are being coached a gameplan that suits the players. The high risk, go at all costs gameplan we have falls down if skills aren't executed at a near perfect level and then opens us up defensively. If ken were really about defense first he surley would have looked at what Sydney do to combat their poor footskills and apply it to our group

 

[Cam1870]

If you watched training, they'd all hit their targets almost 100% of the time. How much of this is that were "bad" kicks and how much is we either 1) have guys kicking under more pressure because of blocking, midfield set up etc or 2) poor movement up the ground giving poor targets?

 

[ctpower]

Today's 10 page 'Tsier had the stats that prove if you can't kick you can't play footy - of a calibare to win you AFL glory.

It's why you can go on about so many other issues, as we do on the Port board, but if you can't get the fundamental of the game right, then you wont improve! It eats away at players confidence and has a degenerative effect on their efforts and even fitness levels when we continually burn the ball and cause turnovers and we are chaing the oppo rather than them spending petrol to chase us.


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I agree REH. I've never thought our fitness was an issue.
Did you hear Hinkley on AA the other night when he asked what our number 1 problem to fix was he had no hesitation in saying skills.
When asked about Our fitness he was equally adamant that our fitness was not an issue.
I think some people have taken comments from KT and others about getting our pre season wrong but I think they are referring to the fact that not enough work was done on skills.

 

[Kablamo]

I wonder what effect being over trained has on skills? Not sure if that's the case but might explain why on game day our skills are poor. Think hard running Brad Ebert running both ways and when he does get a kick running down a wing his legs are heavy and the skill level is off 10%. Just remembering Burgess' comment about AFL footballers being able to be trained harder and the possibility it leads to less fresh players and what effect that has on skill level?

Also the possibility of our midfield constantly flooding into defense to assist our young defenders having an influence on our skill level.

Wonder how GPS running stats compare to skill level across our side over the years? Did we run further but maintain a better skill level in 2014 for example? If we did then perhaps we have recruited less skilled players or are unable to develop their skills to the required level. If we didn't maybe we are being over trained?

It'd be interesting to see GPS total running distance stats and skill level stats from 2014 to 2016.

 

[Doctor Feel]

The other tables of stats from that Tsier article which look for ugly reading but the 2 kicking ones above are the most important. Its called Football, not handball, not running ball, not bash and crash ball, not middle distance athletics its called Football for a very good reason, you have to use your foot and feet well when kicking the ball.

If we could get ourselves to 8th spot on those 2 kicking table spots, Ryder comes back and changes the way we ruck and therefore win the clearances and automatically climb up those last 2 table say to 8th spot then we could make significant improvement. The question is is it too late for most of our blokes to improve their kicking to be at AFL average efficiency of 66.6%?????????

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lol how did we even finish 9th or whatever.

 

[Andre]

lol how did we even finish 9th or whatever.

That's the positive side of things. With shit disposal, clanger kings, an empty forward line and a kick out 'strategy' so predictable the opposition could stop with their eyes closed we finished mid-table. I think that's what frustrates the most, you can see if the bleedingly obvious flaws that shouldn't exist were fixed we'd be a top 4 side and a real contender. God knows if we'll ever fix them (and each year it looks less likely) though.

 

[Lord Flasheart]

Much of the problem is our gamelan/structure and not having a good option to kick to, but a significant percentage of our mids (wines, boak, gray) that deliver inside 50 have flawed techniques, and nearly always kick the ball too high, allowing defenders to close in too easily. Always thought Dixon would help but even a guy his size is going to struggle when the ball is always 3 feet over his head. Dont think there is a solution unless players are willing to admit they have a problem and can try and change their techniques

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

lol how did we even finish 9th or whatever.

Yeah as Andre said there is a positive side to our team despite being at the bottom of those kicking tables. If we could get to mid level ie AFL average at least, in all those tables, then we could have a real impact on the competition, cause if we can win 10 games with being at the bottom or near bottom in everyone, then there is hope that if we change some things, and some personnel, and have a decent run with injuries to key players and suspensions.

 

[Byrons Firen]

Contested possession seems to be the main key hear for the Swans.

Imo it's a reflection of coaching prowess. Not the bak n forth in the backlines more to link up from defence to shots on goal.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Last night was another prime example where our poor kicking combined with poor decision making cost us, because of poor goal kicking and poor entries inside 50. We went the bomb inside 50 too many times and Charlie and co. got hammered when it was 2 or 3 of them onto 1, or 3 or 4 of them onto 2. Passed it to Robbie Gray and he couldn't catch anything last night, when we went low passes, many times it was straight to the oppo.

We won enough footy to have won that game, but rat shit kicking cost us time and again, not just delivering the ball inside 50 but all around the ground.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

OneGreatClub in late 2015 mentioned an article from 2012 about the Hawks skills acquisition coach David Rath. I said to myself I would dig that up but it took me over a year to dig it up and read it.

I knew Rath was some sort of specialist but it wasn't until June last year when I went thru all of Clarko's assistants over his 12 years at the Hawks and listed them and discussed them all of them Here that I started to look closely at Rath. As I wrote in that post - Clarkson pinched sports scientist Andrew Russell from Port but he also appointed another sports scientist from the AIS, Dath Rath to be a general sports coach, including his teaching skill acquisition talents. Rath like Russell, is still at the Hawks.

Now everyone knows that the Hawks are a great kicking side and that last year Clarko before a game against Sydney said he didn't give a stuff about winning the contested football against Sydney and a lot of people have presumed that the Hawks have been like that for all of Clarko's coaching tenure. But that isn't the case.

Remember Clarko's words at the presser after they lost the 2011 Prelim Final to Collingwood by 3 points when Ball snapped a goal to put Collingwood in front with a couple of minutes to go after the Hawks had been in front since early in the 2nd quarter..... "We just wasted opportunities..."The bottom line is we weren't tough enough, hard enough for long enough. We learnt a pretty fatal lesson as a result of it.".....

In 2011 the Hawks were 5th for Team/Opponent average difference for Contested possessions - Link, in 2012 the went to 3rd - Link and in 2016 to 18th - Link

Why did they change?? Part of it is they got older but part of it was their kicking efficiency got even better because of the work Rath started doing after the 2011 PF loss and the drive by Clarko to improve everything.

This is the 2012 article. This is the bloke we have to go and pinch from Hawthorn and if we can't do that, this is the sort of bloke we have to go and find the equivalent of, because our kicking and goal kicking just isn't good enough if we want to make a serious assault on the flag.

Hawthorn's secret weapon - a mad scientist in shorts - pushes the boundaries
HE will walk around the MCG boundary line tomorrow night, almost unrecognisable to even the most ardent Hawthorn fan.
But in the context of the Hawks' phenomenal field kicking, there may be no more important figure than David Rath.

The man this week affectionately dubbed "a mad scientist in running shorts" has had the club under his biomechanical spell since his appointment to Alastair Clarkson's original coaching panel in 2005. Almost in secret, the Hawks' high-performance coach has analysed, and largely perfected the players' techniques, sometimes at the painstaking rate of 200 frames a second. Using a specially designed football simulator in the bowels of Waverley, players would kick into a soft screen, showing recordings of real-game situations. "It was like one of those indoor golf simulators where you look up and the screen is showing the first fairway at Augusta," a source said. "Instead, they would be kicking out from full-back and you'd see 30 blokes from both teams running all over the place. The player would kick into the field and be asked why they picked that target and what they saw."

Captured on film, each movement could later be pored over, helping mould the Hawks' legion of left footers, such as Matthew Suckling, Grant Birchall and Luke Hodge into what one analyst described this week as "probably the most lethal kicking side the game has ever seen". Midfielder Brad Sewell and key forward Jarryd Roughead were other project players. "For all his strengths," an insider said. "Brad was a poor kick when he came into the AFL. "But Rathy helped him become an acceptable kick at AFL level." As uncompromising as his sides have been around the hard ball, Clarkson identified immediately when he took over Hawthorn that kicking efficiency was vital to premiership success. In the past 13 years, nine of the flag-winners had a kicking efficiency ranked in the top four. In 2004, Hawthorn's was ranked last. But in four years under Rath and Co, was top of the AFL. Remarkably, Hawthorn has maintained the No.1 position in three of the past five campaigns.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport...91eeded73?sv=bcc9d5c731304ecd05b490a972ca720b

This sounds familiar doesn't it?

"Early on we were good at getting the ball. We just kept giving it back," Hawthorn legend Shane Crawford recalled. "But when Clarko came in we looked at a lot of video analysing how to fix things. "Whether it was through your core, or ball drop or over-balancing, those little things obviously work. "Hawthorn has gone from a side which turned the footy over a lot to a side quite amazing the way it uses the footy and dissects the opposition." The Hawks declined the Herald Sun's requests to speak to Rath this week.

I've said many times we should raid the AIS and state sports institutes for the best people. Let the government train them up in fantastic institutes and then we go and pinch them.

After eight years at the Australian Institute of Sport, Rath joined the Hawks as one of four assistant coaches. Gradually, his role began to span into game analysis. With Clarkson, the biomechanics guru is understood to have played a key role developing Clarko's Cluster - the rolling defensive grid that was a cornerstone in the 2008 premiership. "He is a very lateral thinker," former skipper Richie Vandenberg said.

This is key, a great relationship between Coach and assistant and a world wide quest to learn from the best and implement best practice.

"He would go over with Clarko to the UK to the Bolton soccer club and that's where the whole press came from. "It was extraordinary you could pull that from another sport, implement into our game and see where it is now." Crawford said: "He's Clarko's right-hand man. The way they look at the game and attack certain things, because he was heavily involved in the way Hawthorn zoned in 2008." Luke Hodge's sweeping defensive role that year was partly inspired by Rath's study of 1960 and '70s German soccer legend Franz Beckenbauer. "He looked at other sports so closely," someone close to Rath said. The short, accurate passing in lacrosse and the repeat contests in rugby union were also examined. "He was talking about rolling mauls, like what you see in rugby union, two years before anyone else was in the AFL," a colleague said. His bond with Clarkson is said to be incredibly close. "He has a good ability to challenge Clarko and to be able to challenge him constantly and still maintain a good relationship," Vandenberg said. More recently, the low-profile specialist has invested heavily in computer game-tracking and analytics, resulting in some "outstanding" work around the game's future direction.

This also is a key, don't try and re-invent the wheel, but put some quality air in the tyre.

But, as familiar as the Hawks' masked man is with the kicking analysis technology, the beauty of Rath's teaching to the players was its simplicity, an observer said. "He was just very meticulous in the degrees of improvement in his kicking analysis with the guys," he said. "He wasn't trying to re-invent the wheel. It might just be a 1cm or 2cm change in your elbow position or something like that. "A lot of the time he was just stating the obvious and repeated behaviours became habitual."

 

[LFC2010]

Our set shot kicking this season would have to ranked in the bottom half this season, I'd be shocked if it wasn't.