Bruce Accuracy

[Junction Oval]

Looking to 2018, can the side afford to have such an erratic kick as Josh Bruce at CHF, especially with Nick now retired? His kicking consistency seems very poor for a key forward. Membery kicks at around 73% efficiency, Rooyey at 70% and Josh at 57%! Lots of improvement needed if he is going to make a big impact. By the way, he is not on his lonesome there.

Josh has enormous ground level energy, is a great in-air competitor, but it's goal kicking efficiency that wins matches. He must improve this over summer.

[spert]

Kicking aside, I reckon he has had an ordinary year and should have down a lot better as presence up forward.

[Junction Oval]

Spert said :
"Kicking aside, I reckon he has had an ordinary year and should have down a lot better as presence up forward."

Dreadful/inaccurate delivery into the forward 50 all year, hasn't help him.

[wolfpup]

Looking to 2018, can the side afford to have such an erratic kick as Josh Bruce at CHF, especially with Nick now retired? His kicking consistency seems very poor for a key forward. Membery kicks at around 73% efficiency, Rooyey at 70% and Josh at 57%! Lots of improvement needed if he is going to make a big impact. By the way, he is not on his lonesome there.

Josh has enormous ground level energy, is a great in-air competitor, but it's goal kicking efficiency that wins matches. He must improve this over summer.

Billings and Gresham missed heaps of goals this year. Membrey was suspended and Bruce was dropped as well.

1 Tim Membrey 38 14
2 Josh Bruce 36 27
3 Jade Gresham 30 30
4 Nick Riewoldt 29 17
5 Jack Billings 23 36
6 Maverick Weller 11 18
7 Blake Acres 11 4

[carn_sainter]

Bruce had an excellent season. True he has lacked polish but has also kicked some lovely goals.

We really can't afford to not have him in the team. Our biggest problem this year was finding avenues to goal. Bruce and Membrey are both vital for their running capacity and ability to present as marking options.

[dragit]

I think the biggest issue is that he has been massively overrated by saints fans and probably the club too.

He hasn't had an ordinary year, he's been pretty ordinary for two and a half years and has played a handful of good games in his last 50.

Expectation should be a 35-45 goal forward, yes he kicked 50 in 2015, but 16 of those goals came from 3 games against a decimated essendon and gold coast.

He may get ordinary delivery at times, but he is far and away the most common forward 50 target and the delivery doesn't explain his terrible conversion.

Yes he brings incredible energy and pressure just like Mav, but we desperately need McCartin to come on because Bruce is just not good enough to be our #1 target.

Great athlete, superb attitude, lovely hair… top bloke.

[Proph3t of egan]

I think the biggest issue is that he has been massively overrated by saints fans and probably the club too.

He hasn't had an ordinary year, he's been pretty ordinary for two and a half years and has played a handful of good games in his last 50.

Expectation should be a 35-45 goal forward, yes he kicked 50 in 2015, but 16 of those goals came from 3 games against a decimated essendon and gold coast.

He may get ordinary delivery at times, but he is far and away the most common forward 50 target and the delivery doesn't explain his terrible conversion.

Yes he brings incredible energy and pressure just like Mav, but we desperately need McCartin to come on because Bruce is just not good enough to be our #1 target.

Great athlete, superb attitude, lovely hair… top bloke.

Agree, never had the dominance it takes to be the power forward, bring on McCartin and I reckon Bruce will improve, if not, Battle and Marshall are waiting for their chance

[dragit]

Bruce had an excellent season.

This is why we are 11th. Our number one key forward kicked 36.27 and has spent time in the VFL

[spert]

Spert said :
"Kicking aside, I reckon he has had an ordinary year and should have down a lot better as presence up forward."

Dreadful/inaccurate delivery into the forward 50 all year, hasn't help him.

He has been out positioned in one-on-one marking contest regularly this season, so no excuse- if the backman can read the flight of the ball coming down, then you expect the forwards to as well

[bigred]

Far from excellent.

Add how many he kicked out on the full.

Statistically we had five forwards that really should have had around 40+ goal seasons.

our F50 entries and delivery was completely unacceptable. If this does not improve in 2018 then it is bye, bye Richo.

The finishing, especially from Bruce and Billings has been terrible. In many respects our goal kicking in 2017 made us six goals worse than we should have been, nearly every time we walked on the park. We lost key games because of our goal kicking. WCE and Port...both away are prime examples. Even our wins were shyte. 14 goals 23 against Brisbane is a highlight.

4 goals 11 behinds in a quarter against North.

2017 goal kicking was inexcusable.

[wolfpup]

Far from excellent.

Add how many he kicked out on the full.

Statistically we had five forwards that really should have had around 40+ goal seasons.

our F50 entries and delivery was completely unacceptable. If this does not improve in 2018 then it is bye, bye Richo.

The finishing, especially from Bruce and Billings has been terrible. In many respects our goal kicking in 2017 made us six goals worse than we should have been, nearly every time we walked on the park. We lost key games because of our goal kicking. WCE and Port...both away are prime examples. Even our wins were shyte. 14 goals 23 against Brisbane is a highlight.

4 goals 11 behinds in a quarter against North.

2017 goal kicking was inexcusable.

yep. if gresham and billings as well as Bruce had kicked a bit straighter we may have won some more games

but its one of those coulda woulda shoulda situations.

[carn_sainter]

Imagine the team without Bruce.

Far worse.

He can't just magically turn into Roo or Carey, he is Josh Bruce. He plays his guts out, executes he role really well, excellent in fact, is consistent in that we know what we get from him.

He is not a close to home goal kicking forward. Yes, he missed goals he should have kicked, i agree, but that's a small part of his role, the rest of which he executed really well

[Sainternist]

I noticed Bruce's overhead marking had improved recently. He (and other forwards) needs to improve his kicking for goal tenfold, however. It is just unacceptable. We also need McCartin in the fold next year.

[perfectionist]

Those stats show, Mav Weller & Jack Billings are the worst by a mile, although I reckon Luke Dunstan has hit the post more times than anyone in history in proportion to the number of goals kicked.

[wolfpup]

Those stats show, Mav Weller & Jack Billings are the worst by a mile, although I reckon Luke Dunstan has hit the post more times than anyone in history in proportion to the number of goals kicked.

Luke Dunstan 10 goals 9 in 17 games

You are right, hit the post 5 times during the year

[GregPackhamsHeadband]

Bruce's kicking seems symptomatic of the whole team. From average to poor over the past two years. It's not just the number of misses, it's where he misses them from. For a main forward, it's soul destroying for the team to see a player of his status and responsibility to continually miss sitters or bomb it out on the full. Maybe a move back to CHB and Jake forward might be the answer.

[bigred]

After maybe round seventeen I was of the opinion that it was a lost cause and we just needed the season over so we could start anew.

Wasted season this one. Didn't really even blood any noobs into the side.

[Gershwin]

I quite like this site which rates all players performances each game. You will see that Bruce only had two 7/10 games in the season and the most common comments are 'ran hard' and 'kicked poorly'.
http://www.aflplayerratings.com.au/Rati ... Josh-BRUCE

[David-Lee]

Bruce had an excellent season. True he has lacked polish but has also kicked some lovely goals.

We really can't afford to not have him in the team. Our biggest problem this year was finding avenues to goal. Bruce and Membrey are both vital for their running capacity and ability to present as marking options.

Sorry but Bruce did not have an excellent season. He underperformed. I like him and do not want to get rid of him but he was AWFUL. The stats that matter were almost all down this year. He took more marks inside 50 but his contested marks almost cut in half. His kicking for was just wrong. His tackling dropped badly. He did improve on clangers and got more frees. But what counts as a forward taking contested marks and kicking goals he was flat. His 1 percenters dropped for the second straight year. I hope 2018 improves!

[Teflon]

Bruce = St Kildas Casbalt ...

[dragit]

I quite like this site which rates all players performances each game. You will see that Bruce only had two 7/10 games in the season and the most common comments are 'ran hard' and 'kicked poorly'.
http://www.aflplayerratings.com.au/Rati ... Josh-BRUCE

Yep so averaging 4.85/10 on 500 clams.

[MickThomas]

Bruce is a mix of tragedy and comedy.

He keeps inventing new ways of missing easy goals.
Hitting the post or missing on the run from 3m out
having a bounce and can't collect the ball

He looks and behaves like Basil Fawlty ffs
We just need Manuel running out with a water bottle
so Basil can point to the goals and scream at Manuel for missing the goal

[skeptic]

Geeeeeez some of you guys...

One player that has delivered well beyond what you can reasonably expect is Baroose

Undersized ruck forward, relying on awful delivery in a team that's been switched off in half the games they've played... and he's played the hardest position the ground and been our best forward in most of them.
Sometimes like against Adelaide, our only shining light

[terry smith rules]

Never read so much rubbish as on this topic, obviously written by people who have never had to compete athletically at any level.

Here we have Josh Bruce not a huge forward by any standard who every week has to take either the number 1 or 2 defender. So he has to compete against very good strong players and then in most games about half way through the quarter he has to go into the ruck and compete against giants for another 5-10 minutes and then return to have another go forward.

So in other words physically he would be more exhausted than I would imagine every other player in the team, yet he still competed to the very last minute.

Then he gets a shot for goal and in less than 30 seconds try and get his body to settle enough (that is get his heart rate down) to kick accurately.

I believe he is a great Saint who plays his heart out and given a different team set up will be a star

fqf

[barwon saint]

Terry smith rules spot on.You are the only one that puts your point of view
across with balance.Most of critics of Bruce not dont know what they are talking about.