Foot skills

[peter_pies4ever]

Our foot skills are letting us down badly at the moment. Woewodin missed a shot from 30 metres out in the first quarter against the swans and in the 3rd quarter Burns missed the same shot from the same angle. Also McGough is having trouble hitting a target. Why are our foot skills so bad we miss shots form 30 metres out?

[MissMagpie_20]

Its confidence. Weird stuff starts to happen when confidence is down and expectation and pressure are high.

[angel]

It is not only confidence. We must face the fact that we have many players whose footskills are sub-standard. These include Johnno, Licuria, McGough, Lokan, and Cloke. We have been under more pressure lately which means this will become more greatly accentuated.

[freddie foxx]

I think in the past 3 games, the younger players inexperience has been exposed. People tend to forget how young many of the collingwood players really are. For instance, Mcgough, Cloke, Fraser have made some dodgy kicks of late and it has indicated their age and level of experience. However there are some anomilies within the senior list as well.

[foxy]

well said freddie.

and angel, i actually think lokan's a pretty decent kick. some of his kicking while running at full pace can be superb.

[Whitey]

In my opinion not enough risk taking, playing too slowly and waiting for options and therefore making kicking seem worse, and sorely missing lockyer and scotland from the side are all contributing factors.

[AbsoluteTallant]

I agree with angel

Whilst there may be factors contributing to the situation, the players angel mentioned, although I'm not yet certain about Lokan, are sub-standard kicks.

I agree confidence plays a part and can be characterised as part of the mental technique of kicking, however I feel the key thing is the physical technique and unfortunately there's obviously a lot of junior coaches out there who would rather see their kids enjoy/participate in their footy at a young age, when these skills are developing, and will not address these skill deficiencies for fear that kids will find the game too difficult.

If only McG's dad, who apparently taught him how to kick, could have done a better job, though nobody has fully answered the nature/nuture question yet have they? The key problem (there are a few) with McG's action, IMHO, is that he takes both hands away at the point when he drops the ball. The classic style uses one hand to guide the ball down onto the foot and the other should be to well out to the player's side to give them balance.

Whilst there are plenty of players out there with non-standard kicking actions, the vast majority use the tried and true physical technique. When a player is using a non-standard action and their kicking is a problem, I would tend to blame the action.

There are mental kicking techniques that contribute to a player's kicking effectiveness though. These obviously are influenced by confidence. For example, selection of targets and picking where to place the ball when trying to reach those targets is a big thing. Many players come in and probably are overwhelmed by the speed of the game. These players are familiar with kicking passes that they know will take X seconds to get to a point where they are dropping 10 metres in front of a leading teammate. Then you get players like Tarrant who leads so fast that new players get their targets wrong. By the time their pass reaches where they think it should start dropping onto a teammate's chest, the teammate has already run under the pass.

Johnson suffers from this problem a lot. It is exacerbated in players who run distances at high pace and then start to think about kicking the ball. They tend to want to kick the ball with the same pace and energy that they run. This rarely works. Johnson's physical technique problems are essentially an inability to consistently kick accross his body and seemingly an inability to control the depth and height (trajectory) of his kicks. This to me indicates insufficient control of his foot timing and pressure when connecting with the ball.

McG should largely remodel his kicking technique on that of Heath Scotlands who is a very technically correct and effective kick on either side of this body.

The weird situation with McG is that his kicking ability is equally as average on both sides of his body. He's not afraid to use his left foot but it's no better (or worse) than his right.

I have no doubt that until we can recruit players with the three attributes of athleticism, skill and football understanding we will stuggle to improve as a club.

Those with dodgy skills should never get on our list. It has always been one of Collingwood's true failings I feel in that we tolerate those players with sub-standard skills who fight hard to make something of themselves. Unfortunately no matter how hard a player fights or works on various matters, if you can't deliver the football, you shouldn't be on the senior list, let alone in the senior team.

has anybody been able to get a good look at the kicking abilities of Nixon, Shackleton and co? If we've picked u pmore sub-standard kickers I'll freak out!