Solution to Trav's kicking inaccuracy

[RatsaK]

My 2 cents:

Cloke drops the ball from too high and leans back - easily fixed by a lower ball drop and being more over the ball when he kicks

He never watches the ball onto his foot which means contact with the ball is random - watch the ball

[RudeBoy]

Seriously, I'm over all this psycho babble. The problem is his technique. He doesn't need psychologists and he doesn't need head phones with crowd noise. His problem is that he drops the ball from too high and leans back when he kicks. Please get rid of the psychologists and get someone like Dids to work on his technique. Seriously, it aint rocket science.

[watt price tully]

[Woods Of Ypres]

we should have got Sav Rocca to help
now he is helping Carlton!

[Medieval]

[Johnno75]

The property steward should put a taser in the GPS sack of his jumper that zaps him every time he misses, failing this then it might help if he isn't looking up at the seagulls when he kicks the damn ball.

[September Zeros]

[3.14159]

[Neil Appleby]

I heard Lloydy on 3AW last Saturday. He said he didn't think Sav would be much help at Carlton because he has started too late. He suggested that Sav should have started in November if he hoped to bring about any real change.

Regarding Clokey, I've always thought the problem was the ball drop. I remember Malcolm Blight saying that Cloke drops the ball inconsistently and from too high. On Friday night the ball drop was all over the place.

I'm with Tannin though; Cloke's had psychoanalysis, reiki, homeopathy, laughing-yoga and advice from famous surfers. He's worn gloves, long shorts, short shorts and even a head band but his kicking is still crap. It will always be crap. Thank goodness we have Jesse White tearing it up.

[BEAMER09]

[stui magpie]

[35forever]

Clokey is actually a very good kick, especially from distance, but even close in he can kick a perfect drop punt straight over the umpires headgear. His only problem is consistency inside 50. The most noticeable thing about his shorter set shots is that when he shanks it he REALLY shanks it. he seldom hits the wood or misses by a few inches, he just scrapes in for a point, or puts it ootf.

The obvious takeaway from this is that the problem is above the shoulders. His confidence disappears and he doesn't believe he'll kick it. He's actually quite similar to both Roccas, especially Pebs, he was better outside fifty (or outside the stadium).
When I played I was similar (though my 'long' kick was about 45). I was less confident with set shots from 20-30. My workaround was to select someone in the crowd in line with the goal and about 50m away (or a tree etc on the quiet days) and simply pass the ball to them. Not sure if this would help Clokey, but its probably worth trying. The other thing about kicking from 50 or beyond is that there's far less pressure. No one's going to shit-can you if you just miss from that far.

I simply don't believe that mechanics is the problem, or to be more specific, his mechanical problems are the result of pressure and lack of confidence. It's all in the mind. I personally never found kicking at goal difficult, and neither did my teammates, mainly because there wasn't 80,000 people watching! (Although I wish we had Ryan Lonie helping Clokey, he was the purest kick I ever saw.)

My best advice would be to reverse his training technique with the crowd noise in the phones. If he could convince himself that he was just kicking the pill around at training I know his 'yips' would abate, if not disappear.

And fer gawd's sake let's not ever forget that it aint just Clokey missing set shots, it's a problem the whole side shares. I'm so f***n sick of seeing scores like 5.19, and we've been doing it for half a dozen years or more. The year we kicked straight we won the silverware.

I've been banging on and on and on here for nearly ten years about kicking the damn ball. I kept saying that one day a side will specialise in kicking 10% better than the rest, and that side would dominate the comp. for years. Now Hawthorn is actually doing it and it pisses me off no end! Most of us could do it quite well by the time we were 6, but when we start playing for real something happens in our brains and suddenly we miss targets as often as we hit them. Why? How do you change it? I was stunned to learn that we don't have a specialist kicking coach, and don't spend time on this most basic and important of skills. WTF? There's flags up for grabs if you get it right!
We are the richest club, we should have a whole kicking department!! Just go through the last few years results online and see where we woulda finished if our bad scorelines were reversed (IE: 15.9 instead of 9.15). I've done it and I can tell you we would've won about 30 more games, and finished top 4 each year including 2014. And all we have to do is kick straighter! It couldn�t be simpler!!!

[woodys_world69]

pretending like hes kicking from 50 does NOT work....his long kicks swing around a bit, so kicking like that from up close will definitely miss

[John Wren]

i'm just pleased he is getting the ball for his accuracy to be an issue. that, and free kicks.

[Pies2016]

He knows his kicking is a sideshow all on its own.
He is defeated in the head before he goes back to take the kick, perfect ball drop or not.
Im sure he still has time to improve his technique to a slight extent but surely the question that has to be asked, is why is his action still so bad after all those years. Lets hope we have learnt a valuble lesson for the future.