Gram's kicking

[Con Gorozidis]

I like Gram as a a player. Sells the best dummy/baulk in the AFL.

But his kicking is atrocious and someone needs to tell him.
Watch his ball drop - if you don't believe me then watch it in slow motion.
Its very very high and mostly very very crooked. He drops it a long way on a skewed angle almost every time. It cost us dearly on Friday night.

What exacerbates it is he seems to think he is a great kick and takes very ambitious options way above his abilities. Every now and then he makes ok contact and he gets some distance which feeds his (false) self belief that he is a good kick.

Grammy - handball or take conservative kicking options. FFS.

[borderbarry]

On the subjecty of poor kicking, I thought Jones has improved out of sight with his kicking.

[Ice Wolf]

On the subjecty of poor kicking, I thought Jones has improved out of sight with his kicking.

Jones kicking just looks ugly, but it goes where it is meant to.

Gram even at his best was about a 1 in 5 chance with his long kicks, now its out to 1 in 10. And even when his kicks are accurate, how they come in is rarely to advantage, they are mostly easy to spoil.

Gwilt and Dempster are much better options for long kicks, they have greater accuracy with their long kicks and they are more to advantage.

[Con Gorozidis]

On the subjecty of poor kicking, I thought Jones has improved out of sight with his kicking.

yeah good point, jones looks awkward. but he is definitely finding his targets. he kicks within his abilities and it is working for him. you can just tell he is really concentrating on it. so well done CJ. played an awesome game on Friday.

Maybe Peakey and CJ need to welcome Gram to the club of "we used to be crap kicks but now we are good kicks".

somehow i think its a club gram doesnt believe he needs to join.

[gosaints]

The one where he missed Milne?? in the centre square under very little pressure just summed up our night and in my opinion summed up Gram's season. It has cost us in bigger games than Friday night and it will continue to cost us in big games. Gram isn't the only one either.

[Ice Wolf]

The one where he missed Milne?? in the centre square under very little pressure just summed up our night and in my opinion summed up Gram's season. It has cost us in bigger games than Friday night and it will continue to cost us in big games. Gram isn't the only one either.

Yep Gilbert is shocking too, either way too low or way too high.

[borderbarry]

Maybe the selectors should concentrate on putting the better kicks into the team, but then again we need 22 players dont we?

[saintsRrising]

Maybe the selectors should concentrate on putting the better kicks into the team,

Problem is the "replacements" are mainly injured.

In 2012 inbto the team
* Gwilt
* Siposs
* Ledger
*Cripss

Plus Hayes who while not a brilliant kick uses it well in the main.

I am quite excited on how our 2012 team is shaping up.

[GrumpyOne]

The kicking form of several players has deteriorated over the past few years; Riewoldt, Gram, Gilbert are three obvious examples, whilst Clarke, Armitage, Dawson have always caused heart attacks with their disposals.

Does the type of game we play contributed to this becoming more obvious?

[Solar]

It's where the game is going, ball users have to be highly skilled because the pressure is on.

The issues are three for mine;

1) Inside midfielders can get away with bad kicking but no team can afford their outside mids to turn ovr the ball.

2) Pressure and numbers near the ball means that skills and decision making has to be very very good. We can't afford bad decision makers.

3) Gram tries to kick it too hard when he is at his best when he lowers his eyes and takes a little off it. Take some care with the drop, the kick and he will get better results. Also concur that doing the basics right is so important and is one reason CJ is a AFL standard player now.

So for mine gram needs to soften his kicking, look to better safe options and use his pace and run to break lines nt his kicking. Tell him to watch a tape of peakes running in the past 8 weeks.

Gilbert needs to become a shut down player or get dropped. Can't afford both in the side come september.

[dragit]

The kicking form of several players has deteriorated over the past few years; Riewoldt, Gram, Gilbert are three obvious examples, whilst Clarke, Armitage, Dawson have always caused heart attacks with their disposals.

Does the type of game we play contributed to this becoming more obvious?

Throw in Blake, Baker, Jones for a bit of fun… & even Ray/Peake at times… We have a hell of a lot of them…

[Saintersss]

He needs to have a talk to Peake. One of the reasons Peake has turned around his career is because he has learned his limitations. He rarely goes the difficult option now, well, because he can't. Gram looked like he had begun doing this in recent weeks, but he still goes for far too many long, difficult kicks, which never hit the target.

Same reason Jones has been good, because he knows his limitations. Gram, god knows why, still actually thinks he is a good kick.

[Junction Oval]

The Club has known about the lack of kicking skills across a number of players, for a long while now. Why wasn't it fixed during the pre-season? The arguments are :

a) you can't teach an old dog new tricks (tell that to Stewie Lowe).
b) the Fitness Gurus will not allow extra time being spent on kicking skills, because it increases the likelehood of Hammy injuries.
c) under duress in a game, players revert to their old habits.

There is no doubt that Peake and Jones have improved their kicking and resultant confidence "to kick." My question is, how has this occured and why can't the likes of Gilbert and Gram do the same thing?

On kicking, you would think that everything possible has been undertaken with Riewoldt - specialist kicking skills coaching, more practice, video taping. Confidence has a lot to do with it, especially on set shots.

Unfortunately, our poor kicking skills can now be attributed to losing us games!

[Superboot]

The one where he missed Milne?? in the centre square under very little pressure just summed up our night and in my opinion summed up Gram's season. It has cost us in bigger games than Friday night and it will continue to cost us in big games. Gram isn't the only one either.

Not only missed Milne, but also found O'Brien who Milne had momentarily shaken off.

You're right that it summed up the night. Some have argued that Collingwood kept finding another gear, but to me it was more a case of us continually finding another way to let it slip.

[spert]

Maybe if our players see Gilbert or Gram heading their way with the ball, they could quickly pull on an opposition jumper and would get a definite perfect pass on the chest every time...how's that for sarcasm!

[Junction Oval]

Spert said :

Maybe if our players see Gilbert or Gram heading their way with the ball, they could quickly pull on an opposition jumper and would get a definite perfect pass on the chest every time...how's that for sarcasm!

I can see that you are as frustrated as the rest of we supporters Spert

Will things improve - not in the short (read finals) term

[plugger66]

Gilberts kicking makes Grammy look like Robert Harvey kicking to Plugger on a lead.

[skeptic]

Jones has improved markedly over the last month or so