Goalkicking.

[Barry Schneider]

Our accuracy has been terrible.I heard somewhere we are the most inaccurate team in the comp.
Can anyone confirm with hard facts Robert Walls' explanation that we take most of our shots for goal from acute angles due to the forwards leading to the pocket.
Barry Hall seems to be getting the hard ones but fluffing the easy ones.
Against Adelaide we missed a series of gettable almost gimme's.
Walls theory sounds plausible but until evidence to the contrary I think our forwards are missing shots that they were getting in previous years.

[NMWBloods]

I had a bit of a look through the some data and many of our shots at goals were from 45deg or more and 40m or more.

[sharpie]

check out the score sheet from the live scores thingy on the afl website for our match against the eagles. we scored goals from all our shots within 40m that had an angle of less than 45 degrees. we missed the rest. Too many of our shots are coming from hard angles

[liz]

Originally posted by sharpie
check out the score sheet from the live scores thingy on the afl website for our match against the eagles. we scored goals from all our shots within 40m that had an angle of less than 45 degrees. we missed the rest. Too many of our shots are coming from hard angles

AFL players should still kick those goals as often as they miss them, especially from within fairly close range. There were 3 eminently gettable on-the-run shots (Goodes, Davis?, LRT) plus the poster from O'Loughlin, all in the first quarter, which weren't impossible for a team in "goal kicking form". We would probably still have been run over by the Eagles but to have even had 3 goals on the board at the end of the first quarter might have given the team a bit of confidence that they could at least be competitive after having the better of the play all around the ground in that opening term.

[Slick Swans]

Goalkicking had definatly been one of our greatest downfalls, just look at the stats from our loses so far:

Vs Kangaroos 7.17 59
Vs Adelaide 11.13 79
Vs Melbourne 11.18 60
Vs West Coast 8.11 59

And notice the difference in our wins

Vs Hawthorn 18 .10 118
Vs Brisbane 13 .9 81


In all the games we have kicked more goals than behind we have won, and all the games we have kicked ore points then goals have lost.

And i dare say that if we had kicked as straight as our opponants we would have beat the kangaroos and melbourne. Then no-one would be whinging about how bad out midfield is at 4-2

[ugg]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
I had a bit of a look through the some data and many of our shots at goals were from 45deg or more and 40m or more.

But how does this compare to the last 2 seasons? Are we just missing more from the same kind of positions that we have been more accurate with in the past?

[punter257]

its all to do with the way we are playing (not good obviously) and confidence. go up the guts!

it sounds easy to do but we just need some confidence and something to click really.

2 years ago davis, hall and schneider didnt miss and this year is totally different

[BonBon]

Goalkicking.. something we struggle to do.

[cruiser]

Originally posted by Slick Swans
Goalkicking had definatly been one of our greatest downfalls, just look at the stats from our loses so far:

Vs Kangaroos 7.17 59
Vs Adelaide 11.13 79
Vs Melbourne 11.18 60
Vs West Coast 8.11 59

vs Melbourne was 7.18 not 11.18.
Our goalkicing is woeful. So is our leading if our forwards are leading into difficult angles that they cannot convert.

[motorace_182]

The forwards have no excuses to miss. They determine where the ball will end up by demanding it on a lead. If they lead to the wings, thats their fault for not playing a hole large enough infront of goal. You always want a few to lead to a pocket if the balls coming in from the wing, enabling someone like Hall to lead up the centre or thereabouts.
Yeah you can blame the midfield for crap delivery, but we should have guys playing at Hall and Magics feet to crumb a ball off a bad kick. If the kicks are high quality, then you dont need a crumber cos you will be hittin a leading target on the tits. If the kicks are poor, cause a contest, spillage, and CRUMB!
Also, they should not be missing with a % that large, regardless of the angle. It has to be completely mental to be missing set shots from 40m on a slight angle. If they were in a pocket on a tightish angle with a real difficult shot, fair enough. But at that level they should be nailing them from anywhere, 90% of the time.

[Sanecow]

Originally posted by motorace_182
The forwards have no excuses to miss. They determine where the ball will end up by demanding it on a lead. If they lead to the wings, thats their fault for not playing a hole large enough infront of goal.

Surely the forwards have been instructed to play the way they are playing? I don't wholly blame them for the results.

[cruiser]

Originally posted by Sanecow
Surely the forwards have been instructed to play the way they are playing? I don't wholly blame them for the results.

Surely the losing results posted above say it all. 33.59 in four games is disgraceful. That's an average of approximately 8.15 in each of those games. Its unacceptable.

[motorace_182]

Originally posted by Sanecow
Surely the forwards have been instructed to play the way they are playing? I don't wholly blame them for the results.

If they do lead to the flanks and pockets, theys hould still be hitting the targets from out there. They know where they will be receiving the ball, if they dont want to kick from there, lead somewhere else.
Also the guys are old enough now and professional, so they will/can question decisions made by the coaching staff to better performance. Its pretty simple mate, if you cant kick from where you lead, dont lead there.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by ugg
But how does this compare to the last 2 seasons? Are we just missing more from the same kind of positions that we have been more accurate with in the past?

I don't have good comparable data. In terms of angles though, I know that 57% of our shots in 2003 were within 45deg and this year it appears to be maybe half.

For argument's sake, let's assume it is 53% this year, which is 4% less than 2003. If we take 25 shots at goal per game and that extra 4% is always assumed to be a miss, this will be 1 extra miss per game.

Therefore, instead of say 14-11 per game you would instead kick 13-12. This would see the conversion drop from a very good 56% to an average 52%. It would have the effect of a difference of 110 points in scoring for the year overall, which could mean one extra win (and very possibly 2 or 3) and 5% extra on percentage.

An extra win and 5% would mean the difference between:
- St Kilda finishing 1st instead of 3rd in 2004
- Fremantle making instead of missing finals in 2004
- Essendon finishing 4th instead of 8th in 2003
etc

Currently our conversion accuracy is 45%. I believe that by the end of the H&A season we can get our conversion back up to say 52%-53%, below average but more reasonable. I think our forwards are too talented to continue to kick that badly.

As I've said before a few times, I'm still confident we will see a major turnaround in form during the season. This improvement in form will be a major factor in improving our conversion accuracy, both as cause and effect. Given our good run over the next 7 games this is when we could see it. I've experienced enough sport to know how possible it is to see major changes in confidence and momentum and what that can do for a team. Additionally, although I've been a bit disappointed with Roos' performance thus far this season, I believe Roos can still make a difference and produce some key changes.

However, I do have worries and frustrations. I hope that the turnaround will see us a play good entertaining football, but I worry that we will win games mainly through the boring, grinding approach.

For the people who say who cares how they play as long as they win, what would you say if we scored 1 point in the first minute, and then hung onto that lead for the entire game by simply crowding 18 players around the ball and locking it down, and winning 0.1.1 - 0.0.0. It's a win but certainly not worth watching.

The frustration is that as equally confident I am of us improving in form, I can see that form being just as likely to evaporate again. For whatever reason, official or unoffical, conscious or subsconscious, our goal seems to be to make finals not win them. So often when we get to finals we collapse in a heap and are comfortably bundled out of them.

2004 - Wk 2, lost to St Kilda 51 points
2003 - Wk 3, lost to Brisbane 44 points
2001 - Wk 1, lost to Hawthorn 55 points
1999 - Wk 1, lost to Essendon 69 points
1998 - Wk 3, lost to Adelaide 27 points
1997 - Wk 1, lost to WBulldogs 35 points
1996 - Wk 4, lost to Kangaroos 43 points
1987 - Wk 2, lost to Melbourne 76 points
1986 - Wk 2, lost to Fitzroy 5 points
1977 - Wk 1, lost to Richmond 34 points
1970 - Wk 1, lost to St Kilda 53 points

Since the war, we have made finals these 11 times for 5 wins and 13 losses.
Our wins have been margins of 41, 12, 2, 6, 1.
Our losses have been margins of 51, 44, 55, 68, 27, 35, 43, 76, 99, 16, 5, 34, 53.
Average winning margin - 12 points.
Average losing margin - 47 points.
Seems to support the above assertion.

I have strayed a lot from the original topic, however my thoughts flowed from the fall in conversion, why I think it will improve, but why I'm not sure if it really matters.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by motorace_182
If they do lead to the flanks and pockets, theys hould still be hitting the targets from out there. They know where they will be receiving the ball, if they dont want to kick from there, lead somewhere else.
Also the guys are old enough now and professional, so they will/can question decisions made by the coaching staff to better performance. Its pretty simple mate, if you cant kick from where you lead, dont lead there.

Often you need to lead to where there is space and where the midfield is heading to or coming from.

It's not necessarily the forwards who are totally or primarily at fault.