Agreed ... many moons ago a fairly decent kick for goal mentored some of us schoolkids . Among the lessons given was goal kicking. Apart from the mechanical aspects of good kicking there was what I suppose the mental aspects. The guidance he offered was indeed the time honoured... pick someone or something if a set shot. On the run generally to pick the middle.

There was discussion about allowing for wind.

The best advice was practice. Especially on effectively crappy days. My parents never quite understood my enthusiasm for trapsing over to the oval on windy/rainy days... or both... LyreBird in hand ( Sherrins were an unknown luxury for a kid.. though later was given a Ross Faulkner )

Practice I did... a lot. I think it paid dividends in the years after. I wonder just how much our players practice kicking ..and goal kicking....in all weather's. Or do.they think they've done enough !!

Any sport...needs continued vigilance.

Oh the bloke who taught me .... Peter Hudson

With the title of this thread I suspect the OP just wants to break the all time DL record for "number of pages in any one thread"

2 hours ago, Fork 'em said:

Fun Fact.

Petracca is rated the worst inside 50 kick in the league.
Of his 45 inside 50 entries, only one has resulted in a mark.

He is a shocker, half the time he doesn’t even look and just hits the spare defender on the chest 25m out from goal.

5 hours ago, Tony Tea said:

Whatever happened to spotting something directly behind the goals from your kick and lobbing the ball on top of whatever it is you've sighted?

Like the bullseye in the cheer squad that gets held up every set shot for eg.
No-one ever gets even close.

Edited May 16May 16 by Fork 'em

I hate it when players do a snap shot over their shoulder from short distance , little angle, set shot, but I wish Max would try it. He can't do worse.

Simple. Players can’t kick straight.

14 hours ago, Redleg said:

These are the elite footballers in the country.

It is their job.

They practice and train for 10 months a year.

There should be no excuses.

An occasional miss ok, but not the [censored] we are seeing regularly.

For a few I'd It's all psychological.

I say this because recently we have seen some players who have records of great accuracy, become very bad at set shots.

So I'm not sure in some cases if training would do a great deal.

As I mentioned in a prior post, players like Tracca and Gawn have always been terrible with this. We just take this as a given. I'm sure they have trained and trained trying to improve this part of their game but it hasn't worked. Although perhaps Gawn has improved a little. I think Max changed his style a little, with giant chip kicks. Sounds like an oxymoron but it's the best way I can describe his actions.

In the Geelong Prelim when Max kicked a record of five, most of them were quick snaps. Except his divine 70 metre drive from a handball from his other partner in crime.

It just seems when these two have to think about it, their mind reminds them of their problem and where the mind seems to go, so to, does the ball. Although in the past I sometimes thought Max didn't spend enough time looking at the goals when lining up for a set shot. I also think he could have had more of a run up. Not like BBB but just more of a body trajectory coming in.

Likewise , players like Fritta and Roo who have been great must be thinking more about missing lately. And so they find themselves in a mental rut when lining up. The more you think you will miss, it becomes a reality.

I'm sure the club has specialists in psychology that try and address this but its not working.

Or maybe they don't. So I can't imagine how you can fix the situation. I think the targets in the crowd are great but yea the problem continues.

It's quite an interesting psychological state when it spreads through a team in a particular game. Often referred to as the yips.

Maybe use the carrot and give players a financial bonus for every successful set shot.

Confidence and mental fortitude are commodities that training can't provide.

But Crikey it's cost a quite a few wins and quite possibly not so long ago, another flag.

15 hours ago, DemonWheels said:

This is what I don’t get! Every player within our team is a good enough field kick to place it within 1-2m of their intended target at a distance of roughly 40m, but when faced with the ‘goal’ they see the face of the goals as the target and accordingly they get it outside of that by 1-2m.

It’s all coaching and practice, simply need to grab a bloody designated player and put him in the middle of the goals to kick to - just kick it over his head!

With kicks of 40m I wonder how accurate the kick really is a lot of the time. How often does the receiver have time to move to where the ball is going to fall making the kick appear more accurate than it was? The goalposts don't offer that service sadly.

(I leave aside a kick to space where it is intended the receiver has to run to get the ball).

16 hours ago, beelzebub said:

Agreed ... many moons ago a fairly decent kick for goal mentored some of us schoolkids . Among the lessons given was goal kicking. Apart from the mechanical aspects of good kicking there was what I suppose the mental aspects. The guidance he offered was indeed the time honoured... pick someone or something if a set shot. On the run generally to pick the middle.

There was discussion about allowing for wind.

The best advice was practice. Especially on effectively crappy days. My parents never quite understood my enthusiasm for trapsing over to the oval on windy/rainy days... or both... LyreBird in hand ( Sherrins were an unknown luxury for a kid.. though later was given a Ross Faulkner )

Practice I did... a lot. I think it paid dividends in the years after. I wonder just how much our players practice kicking ..and goal kicking....in all weather's. Or do.they think they've done enough !!

Any sport...needs continued vigilance.

Oh the bloke who taught me .... Peter Hudson

Wow how lucky were you to have been mentored by such a great of the game.

Thanks for sharing.

Not bad credentials BB.

For reasons of confidentiality, without disclosing too much ...did you play Afl?

I think I'll read your posts with more interest and respect.

Cheers.

11 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

Wow how lucky were you to have been mentored by such a great of the game.

Thanks for sharing.

Not bad credentials BB.

For reasons of confidentiality, without disclosing too much ...did you play Afl?

I think I'll read your posts with more interest and respect.

Cheers.

Never played at that level. Just a "suburban" boy ;)

i think the ball is the wrong shape

26 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Never played at that level. Just a "suburban" boy ;)

Oh dear , all the aches and pains later with no dosh.

I remember talking to a physio once who's said after grand final weekend, she was inundated with middle aged blokes who after a belly full of beer, went out and played kick to kick at halftime.😀

28 minutes ago, ghost who walks said:

i think the ball is the wrong shape

Evil genius who designed it with a wicked sense of humor. Probably the same person who invented Finska.

Probably 50-60% of our current list are not naturally great kicks, from their U18 years through until now.

Lack of concentrated method in goal kicking routine. Have a look a the routine of Jack Reiwoldt or Jack Watts. Simple, repeatable, methodical, technically very very good.

Spinning the $%#&ing ball in their hands 2 seconds before starting the approach.

This is a discussion I can't be bothered having anymore. Its been here forever and a day and we all try to figure it out but I'm done with it.

We've gone over extra practice, correct practice, fatigue, set shot positions on the ground during games, psychology and so on. I really don't think there is some new thing that we've all completely missed.

The fact of the matter is that AFL and club pathway, development and training systems don't value it. We as fans are insignificant when it comes to this, we're just morons who watch the game and then turn up to work on Monday and tell our collegues that we played well but just didn't kick straight or token lines like 'bad kicking is bad football' and then bemoan why they don't take this issue as seriously as we do. Meanwhile in the coaches meeting one brave soul might suggest ab extra 30 mins of set shot training onky to be shouted down that we'd be taking away time from the sports science guy or valuable conditioning time. Sure, a dedicated forward could hang back for 30 mins after training and just kick shot after shot to get ahead but in a full time footy world full of the above plus meetings and other community commitments? I don't think so.

This is the way it is. I know it seems like MFC is the only inaccurate team around (and yes we are probably one of the poorer sides in this area) but nearly every team struggles with this problem.

It's like wanting to fix climate change, we know it's an issue but who actually wants to fix it and as if you want to be the PM that puts their hand up for the challenge. This is the way it is, my advice is get used to it and just be happy if we can pop through 50% accuracy week to week.

On 14/05/2025 at 17:31, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

Try the Hogan stutter.

Not to be confused with the Josh ‘twinkle-toes’ Kennedy routine. What a great KPF he was.

It's now clearly become a confidence thing as well, because if you see the Casey result today, with a huge number of Melbourne players on the ground, you see it's flowing through the group.

I know Ben Brown has a new job, but is it worth getting him down? I know he was there last year, but have him actively coach all the players in their routine. It doesn't mean they have to have a 558 step walk in routine, but use whatever works for them.

Clearly the message they have had for the past however many years isn't getting through.

3 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

Evil genius who designed it with a wicked sense of humor. Probably the same person who invented Finska.

and the lawn mower that wont start on sunday mornings

3 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

Oh dear , all the aches and pains later with no dosh.

I remember talking to a physio once who's said after grand final weekend, she was inundated with middle aged blokes who after a belly full of beer, went out and played kick to kick at halftime.😀

i spoke to a physio once to . HOW MUCH

21 hours ago, beelzebub said:

Agreed ... many moons ago a fairly decent kick for goal mentored some of us schoolkids . Among the lessons given was goal kicking. Apart from the mechanical aspects of good kicking there was what I suppose the mental aspects. The guidance he offered was indeed the time honoured... pick someone or something if a set shot. On the run generally to pick the middle.

There was discussion about allowing for wind.

The best advice was practice. Especially on effectively crappy days. My parents never quite understood my enthusiasm for trapsing over to the oval on windy/rainy days... or both... LyreBird in hand ( Sherrins were an unknown luxury for a kid.. though later was given a Ross Faulkner )

Practice I did... a lot. I think it paid dividends in the years after. I wonder just how much our players practice kicking ..and goal kicking....in all weather's. Or do.they think they've done enough !!

Any sport...needs continued vigilance.

Oh the bloke who taught me .... Peter Hudson

Get yourself down to training @beelzebub on a Tuedsay or Wednesday.

Within a week we have had:

MFC kick 7 14

Casey kick 6 17

What just crossed my mind is I don’t remember, playing around 200 games of very ordinary suburban footy, sides I played in racking those scorelines very often. It did happen but usually the scores were more 50/50 equal goals to points, maybe 40/60 but often much better. I am talking 70/80’s suburban footy I know but when it comes to set shots on goal from inside 50m suddenly all things are very equal. Whether it’s a 195 cm ripped professional athlete lining up for the goal vs an overweight 180 cm plumber lining up, they both are equal at that point in time. The full time professional can do everything 10 times better than the part timer, except for some reason, slot a ball through 2 uprights. It doesn’t make sense that professionals are missing set shots from 20 to 40 meters basically in front of goals when part time weekend warriors can slot them.

41 minutes ago, Earl Hood said:

It doesn’t make sense that professionals are missing set shots from 20 to 40 meters basically in front of goals when part time weekend warriors can slot them.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit" Will Durant.

Our forward craft is amateurish and has been for some time. Habits and or coaching, take your pick, one and the same.

11 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

Maybe use the carrot and give players a financial bonus for every successful set shot.

Or the carrot could be kick goals and you might get a game next week !!

We average 22 scoring shots a game which is essentially what we managed last week against a good Hawthorn side.

I wonder what would happen tomorrow if we pay a bit of respect to our set shots (after the player has had a 20 second breather) and end up with a scoreline of 13.9.87

I would imagine we‘d be looking at a very exciting last 10 minutes of the game.

11 hours ago, monoccular said:

Or the carrot could be kick goals and you might get a game next week !!

Or the carrot could be rammed where the sun don't shine for repeated ineptitude...