Footskills.....does it make a 3 goal difference?

[saintsRrising]

Footskill.....does it make a 3 goal difference?

with the saints = YES!!!

Last night we again only put in a one or two quarter effort and went down by less that 3 goals.

LACK OF EFFORT OVER THE WHOLE GAME (and yes this can be due to the player and lack of motivation from the coach or both)...and POOR FOOTSKILLS are to me the two main areas that the saints are lacking in to be a good team.
In this thread I am going to talk on our poor footskills.

Throughout the night poor footskills shown through.

Time after time we gave the ball back to the Pies.

Now all teams make some turnovers, but we make way too many.

Now this was not a one week aberration from the Saints , and is not just due to a dip in confidence.

We would have to be the worst team in the AFL when it comes to footskills.

While many rave on about JB's great recruiting, this is the real legacy that he has left us.

Now while an AFL footballer can have a range of skills from Harvey's "jinking", to marking, to gut running, to reading the play and many others one criteria which was either ignored by JB, or wrongly weighted, is kicking.

Now sure you might take some players with poor kicking skills because they shine in other areas.

But as a GROUP, virtually ALL of our players are poor to average kicks.

In the John West salmon adds they boast about only selecting the best salmon and that others use the salmon they reject.

Well in our drafting I think JB had fallen into this trap.....that he has picked up players that other recruiters have discounted in their weighting due to their poor footskills. Other perceived strengths has seen him pick up players that other recruiters would not at that pick.

Over time this has seen us gain more and more such players in comparison to other teams that have selected well.

Lenny Hayes is an elite player in all ways except his kicking. He misses goals each game that other good mids kicks and fails to hit marking targets up forward on the lead.

Gram is very good in many ways...but his kicks are sprays..

Gilbert is a dreadful kick.

CJ is one sided, but has improved.

Now all of the above (though Gram was a trade) could be said when you look at it at first god pick ups for their acquisition cost.

But when you go through most of our list you get a team chock full of poor, to average at best, ball users.


This costs us dear.

Last night, just this one aspect (even though there were other poor aspects too) cost us a win in itself.

Another of my pet hates with our poor kicking skills is not just the kick, but where it is kicked to.

* We must kick to a stationary player more than any other tea,. An opposition player can run a long way in the time that the ball is in the air and the result of kicking to a stationary player (rather than kicking it so he has to keep running) is that the ball is spoilt or marked by the opposition. This happens way too often.

* Take the passes to Roo. He leads well often, but about half the time he has to slow his run or stop and prop allowing the oppostion to spoil. His great leap recovers some of this, but not all.

With Kosi, a less gifted player, the result is the opposition spoil it more often.

Now sometimes yes the forwards have not created the right space, but often they have but the kick is poor.

How often to we say see our forward with his opponent on his left..but our kick instead of going to his right (and hence to his advantage) instead goes to his left and to his opponent.



I have been watching AFL/ VFL for about 4 decades now.

Over that time the skills of players have vastly improved with footskills being one such. Their kicking is better and most players can now kick with both feet.

Better kicking has also allowed the coaches to change the way the game is played ....that plus obviously learning off soccer, basketball, hockey etc.

But last night found me at times thinking that I was watching a St Kilda team of 4 decades ago..the kicking was just as poor...and often the ball was simply kicked downfield to a contest rather than to a team mate in space.




Now as of last year we have a new head recruiter, I for one a hoping that his "weightings' are different and that we can at last start to gain some players that can actually kick to advantage.

[saint patrick]

Good post SR ..on the money as usual.

Our butchering of the Ball last night was the difference no doubt..

Gifted the ball to Collingwood many times for goals...

Starting with Grams handpass to an opponent in the first minute resulting in an easy goal...

Thought from that moment Collingwood's tails were up and we were up against it.

Disposal skills must be the number one priority next year...the ball is too bloody hard to win without handing it back as we do far too often

[QuestionOfAccuracy]

Yeah good post SR.

I often wonder how much more highly Roo would be regarded or how many more goals he would kick if we had players that could kick to his leads properly!

Interestingly - I look at the stats this morning and according to champion data Collingwood had 1 more clanger than we did (52 to 51). Now...that may be correct but i don't think that stat covers all aspects of poor disposals or mistakes. For example, how many times do our players kick to a leading player above their head - in turn giving the opposition an opportunity to spoil the ball - which they often do. This probably isn't counted as a clanger kick so i think that stat doesn't cover our poor disposal (particularly foot skills).

One thing to take into consideration is pressure. I thought collingwood applied more and better pressure on us last night. That is not an excuse for our poor foot skills but it did have an effect on it last night.

[Red]

I think the real problem is we don't have any real run.

If it wasn't for Harv's we would have had none at all.

When you have run from behind the game opens up making it easier to

hit targets as your not trying to pin point the ball.

Personally, I believe teams know that if they stop Fisher than we lose

a lot of our run. We need to find another medium sized defender to free

Sam up.

[saintsRrising]

Yes running is a problem too..

But in the Pies game we at stages saw Lenny, Gram, Gilbert and Dal all on the run...and then waste it with poor kicks.

[Otiman]

Footskill.....does it make a 3 goal difference?

Maybe they need some new boots?

[saintsRrising]

Footskill.....does it make a 3 goal difference?

Maybe they need some new boots?

Well I have a vested opinion there...but anyone can use them...

[Verdun66]

You got it right in the title ....Footkills....

I couldn't believe the amount of 'helicoptors' and shanks our guys were kicking....some under pressure, many not. If we'd hit even 30% more targets we would have won.

Not to mention the static way we moved the ball.

Some of it was like watching footy in the 60's, take a mark, go back, have a good look around, and kick it down the line. Only thing missing was the pulling up the socks. Collingwood were constantly switching, playing on, mixing it up. We were very predictable, and then we kicked badly. Sometimes not even to a 50:50, but a nest of Black and White.

Very disappointing night. Still feel gutted.