Strategy Our Kicking Inside 50

[RegHickeyStand]

Something has got to be done. Kicking it blindly into the 50......straight down the throat of an opposition backman is by far the highest percent outcome. And I mean straight to the opposition. Shit, they don't have to move most of the time. We don't have the forward pressure players in the team to just blindly bang it in.

Hawkins looks lost here. I think he has given up leading. Why bother.

My questions are:

do the wrong players end up with it in their hands?
not enough teamwork within the midfield to take the pressure off the kicker?
are we just not skilled enough?

This isn't about forward structure. Because I'm looking at the highest inside 50 kicks %age tonite (by far) were kicks straight to opponents. Straight to them. Our forwards never had a chance most of the time. Buzza's mark in front of goal required him to go around 2 players to get the ball..... so WTF was our kicker kicking it to?

 

[winty]

Don't think tonight's game should be viewed in isolation as there was so much pressure in the midfield both teams struggled in this area. I think combined there were over 100 inside 50s combined, but only about 10 marks inside 50. You'd usually see each team have at least that many each in a game.

 

[RegHickeyStand]

Fair enough. But isn't that what separates the premiership teams from the also rans?

 

[catempire]

System.

Press.

Empty or full forward line, nothing in between.

It's not the kicking.

 

[Mad_Hatter]

Some of the problem is the lack of genuine dangerous tall forwards who lead.
Hawkins doesn't lead, he stands still waiting for a ball 2m from him, problem is some defenders are better at reading the ball than he is so get to it first, saw this so many times last night it was driving me nuts.
Then we have no-one else. Buzza is a leading forward but can't expect much from him.
Menzel in the first month of the year provided it but has gone missing recently in that respect.
But I'd also lay some blame on the midfield, I saw Guthrie 3 times blinding bomb the ball inside 50 straight to a GWS player, Menegola did it atleast once, likewise Dangerfield. Lower the eyes and atleast kick to a contest...
Of course looking at last night you are talking about the best defensive transition team in the comp, they have loose men back as sweepers constantly, so can't take ALL that much from it.
We wouldn't be talking about this had we have won, and we would have won if a Stewart or Selwood played.

 

[RegHickeyStand]

System.

Press.

Empty or full forward line, nothing in between.

It's not the kicking.

From last night I could get you a dozen times where we kicked it straight to the opposition. There was no contest. Straight down their throats. Some were blinds kicks, but plenty were out and out skill errors. I'm not talking intercepts, either.

 

[DanA]

There's no targets across the HF line is the problem IMO. Hawkins is fine at what he does but we need a Reiwoldt type foil. Unfortunately that's near impossible to find.

 

[catempire]

From last night I could get you a dozen times where we kicked it straight to the opposition. There was no contest. Straight down their throats. Some were blinds kicks, but plenty were out and out skill errors. I'm not talking intercepts, either.

I disagree and maybe the view from the ground helps. A few sloppy kicks inside 50 for sure (that's probably "normal" out of 50 or so i50s) but the vast majority that we turned over were due to either:

1. Congestion (hard or impossible to find a target with 30+ players i50)

2. Emptiness (transition from D50 to F50 before our forwards had time to get back and GWS playing a spare)

I was disappointed a few kicks i50 weren't smarter - either lowering the eyes to hit up a shorter target or kicking away from the spare. But I don't generally think the skill of kicking is the issue.