Kicking critics should 'shut their mouths', says Cloke

[Lazza]

[eddiesmith]

[MagpieMad]

[35forever]

Trav is NOT a hack of any kind, and if anything is highly underrated! He is a phenomenal mark and If he only had to deal with one opponent each week he would take a helluva lot more marks and kick a helluva lot more goals. I'm sick of hearing that this or that full back did a top job on Clokey. If they watched the damn game they'd know the full back had an awful lot of help, not least from the maggot bastard in green!

Most importantly, his kicking average isn't significantly worse than the club as a whole, this is a fundamental problem which affects every player we have after a while, and which the club seems unwilling to address in a meaningful way.
Frankly I'm as sick of banging on about it as many of you are doubtless sick of reading it, but I just don't get it!!!

WHY????

We are the richest club, we have the most resources and the best players, but we refuse to do anything about the fact that we are kicking ourselves out of matches, INCLUDING GRAND FINALS!!! Its been going on since Leigh Matthews days, it was even present in the premiership year 2010 when we lost or damn near lost games with showings like 4.17 which cost us the StKilda game when we weren't able to manage a goal for the second half, missing or falling short an amazing 14 times to go down by 28 despite more scoring shots!. That was the famous Mick/Milne fight game and we should have won it fairly easily. I believe it was a big part of the reason we let them fight us to a draw in the Granny, (that and our 1.5 in the third!!) after all, we disposed of them with great ease later in the year at the 'G by 48, winning all 4 quarters, and again in the GF replay by a club record margin. We could easily have gone down to Geelong late in the season which would have cost us the Minor Premiership, especially after a 3.13 second half damn near cost us the Adelaide game in Rd 21 when we snuck home by 3, then a 1.5 first quarter, followed by a 3.5 last DID cost us the next and final H&A game, going down to Hawthorn by 3 and stumbling to the Minor Prem by the smallest possible amount. How very close we came to a very different season. If we'd lost a couple of those displays of horrendously bad kicking, or Daisy Thomas hadn't saved our arses in those dying seconds against Melbourne, (and that was only necessary because we kicked 1.9 in the third!!!) it could easily have been yet another 'almost' season, finishing third, and bowing out in the Prelim for the third year running. As it was it required one of the most awesome displays I've ever seen in that incredible Prelim when even the great Gazza couldn’t prevent us burying Geelong by half time!

Most of the Magpie faithful think of 2010 as the greatest season they ever saw, and yet we so VERY nearly kicked ourselves out of it several times.
Kicking will continue costing us glory, happiness, and even Silverware until we get serious about it and stop blowing it off like its not the biggest, stupidest, most unnecessary thing any team has done to themselves in football history!!!!

[Jezza]

I think it's evident that Travis is frustrated by his recurring kicking problems in front of goals and the criticism towards him has finally dawned on him somewhat. I do think it's been valid especially with the way amount of money he earns from the club but I have no doubt in my mind that he's been practising hard to atone for these errors in his game.

The best way Travis can silence the critics is kicking goals for the team! It's really that simple to be honest and the best way he can start doing this is to kick a bag this week against the Suns.

[Piesnchess]

[HAL]

Under what circumstances?

[September Zeros]

I still want our forwards to stop missing sitters. Premiership sides don't miss easy goals with such regularity. But I liked this article focusing on cloke, primarily due to some nice stats.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-05-12/forget-about-fixing-travis-cloke-lets-just-enjoy-the-ride

I particularly enjoyed the line.

"Surely the time has come for everyone, including the No.32, to just enjoy who he is: a flawed forward with many more strengths than weaknesses. "

Sums it up for mine.

[Cuthbert Collingwood]

I'd say Trav usually wins us about 2 games a year off his own boot, and maybe loses us one every two years (that's where you can single him out and say he lost the game, like Young's dropped mark against GCS). He often kicks his bags against poor teams, but generally is incredibly consistent in providing his 2 goals a game. Gee it'd be great for him to bring that average up to 3 for the remainder of his career, and hopefully something will click there one day, but I also would love to see him regain his marking form from 2010-2013 where he at least gave himself a lot more chances at kicking goals.

[E]

I agree that the kicking critics have gotten completely out of control. The media coverage of Collingwood games is ridiculous. Every commentator is now crapping on about it every time he marks the ball. The disappointment when he calmly slots one from 55 out is crazy.

Not enough is made of the goals he kicks that actually very few players can kick.

He is now expected to be perfect with EVERY single miss scrutinized. People who bag him for his kicking are also remarkably silent when he has a good kicking day (like he did this weekend).

[RudeBoy]

What pisses me off, is that despite all the talk about him working on improving his goal kicking, his technique remains the same. Even when he slots them through, he still leans back, drops the ball from up high and looks at the goal instead of watching the ball onto his boot. Until I see some significant change in his technique, I remain totally unconvinced that the club and Cloke are actually addressing the problem. Sack the psychologists I say and employ someone like Dids to work on his technique.

[HAL]

That may take a while.

[magpieazza]

I think he allows for the left to right draw when 50m out and is at ease with it. Its simple to him at that distance but it confuses him when he is close. I think he tries to work out the path the ball is taking and allows for the draw when he doesn't really need to.

Watch him make the hand gestures and look down the line when misses.

BTW I haven't missed a goal since 1995.....

[think positive]

[David]