If Goal Kicking Accuracy is about Confidence then.....

[Alibi Monday]

... could you possibly conclude that a sense of flair and ego is required to make the most of it?

I was reading the ROK interview "We Blew It", and he mentions that once a couple of guys start missing it can become contagious. I think most of us agree that it does, much like very high accuracy. When teams are nailing them from all angles, there's a friendly sense of "bet you can't beat that one mate". Obviously these individual thoughts are exorcised by the Kirk Commune on orientation day, which is fine by me, but the side effect may well be that the 'swagger' required to kick 6-0 in an afternoon will not exist.

If there was any swagger remaining at the club, you can look no further than Nick Davis. It's no coincidence that he's our most accurate kick for goal.

Leading to the big question: Should the Bloods code stop at the HFF?

[NMWBloods]

I think there is a lot to that, hence my previous comments about being well-drilled v. talented, and automatons v. flair.

[satchmopugdog]

Needed...Wayne Carey as specialist coach in "The Swagger" "and making every supporter of opposition clubs hate you" "but also kick goals".

A fairly specific job description but I'm sure he would be up to it.

[liz]

I think there is something in that for shots at goal in play. But when it comes to set shots at goal, 20-40m out and at an angle no worse than 45 degrees, it is hard to put it down to a lack of flair. That is just execution of a pretty fundamental skill.

The misses from McVeigh, Buchanan, Hall, Bolton and O'Loughlin were appalling efforts really - they didn't just miss by a bit, they were completely non-kicks of the ball. O'Keefe is just about excused because it was further out and was at least a legitimate shot that just went the wrong side of the post.

[NMWBloods]

On the set shots, one of the issues about our team is that many of the players don't appear to have great basic skills. It's as if a lot of them have taught themselves rather than learnt from scratch.

[ScottH]

It's a bit like watching Richo kick. When his on song it looks good. On Friday he kicked a goal and the replay was from in front of him and you could see the ball drop awkwardly and come off the boot strangely. Luckily it went through, sort of floated through.

[Zlatorog]

How about slashing some money of their salary? Would that improve their accuracy?

[SimonH]

I understand what you're saying, and it's quite possibly true that someone who's playing selfishly for themselves (a la Kevin Bartlett) is more likely to kick them when the team is going crap, than someone who is playing 'for the team' and so their confidence has been affected by the ordinariness of their teammates.

The argument only goes so far, though: if they really were a bunch of identically-programmed robot-like automatons, they'd be able to go back and drill it into the same spot every time, yes?

PS Nick Davis is our most accurate kick for goal when on song. Which is only sometimes. His career stats (201.119 for 62.8%) are less flattering than those of MO'L (427.236 for 64.4%) and BBBH (501.290 for 63.3%). And his real quality in kicking for goal arises not from 'flair' (MOL beats him hands-down for that) but from the fact that he has a set-shot routine that he follows every time.