We've improved since the Richmond game!

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

Listening to a socceroos coaching bloke ( I think it was coaching)on radio the oher day and when askd what he thought the difference between AFL and soccer in cpoaching was he said he was amazed at how little the afl footballers spent on skill development. This is why Synners (or one of the reasons) has a poster of Neil in his bedroom. Neil understands that with skill comes confidence not the other way round.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Noticed this stat

Bret Thornton for Carlton has the best disposal efficiency of any player in the League to have played every game this season – 92.5% efficiency.


It surprised me as last year Thorton seemed to turn the ball over a lot

Has anyone noticed Brett working on his kicking

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

Thornton does a lot those unpressured sideways chip kicks while the opposition flood back to our half forward line waiting for the inevitable bomb.

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There's so much I could say...

Stewart Leowe and Warren Tredrea are prime examples that with work you can go from a shithouse kick to a reasonably reliable kick at goal. I can't see why field kicking would be much different.

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"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." - Frank Zappa

Has anyone noticed any players working on their kicking (other than the Irishmen)?

He's not as good as Luke Livingston (which proves what a meaningless stat it is with all the sideways chipping and whether players are prepared to take risks).

Interesting topic as we seem to discuss skills but from what i have seen a lot is confidence alot is not picking up the correct option ie Kicking to unwinable contest with a 2 to 1 in favour of the opposition.

If you look also at a lot of kicks it appears we are kicking under pressure which is there in a lot of cases but in many cases the player is free but still disposes under pressure by foot and by hand. Of course this probably comes back to confidence and if we strung some wins in a row we may see better decision making and better disposal.

Key is we have to be confident we can win have to confident that the person disposing the ball is making the correct choice and the person being targeted is reading the play and getting into a position where they have the advantage.

I guess that kicking under pressure in a drill would be of great benfit.

There are exceptions IE FEV shooting for goal is so confident you know he will nail more than he misses.
Murphy was also confident in his ability and could read the play and was great at targeting Fev on a lead.... but Deluca has improved you see him play on and scan around and not really know where the best option is. This is probabably a failure on many other players to.

Anyway just what i have seen from the games.

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CFC TAC Squad everyone over 25 must be traded sounds like Loguns Run

Ill tell you why were clueless and we are struggling with skills.
People that know me .. know that i have a few pet hates.
One is that after training the senior players immediately piss off up the tunnell into the showers and home....

Leaving the kids doing kicking training.

Today was no different.
The senior statesmen pissed off.. but the kids stayed on....spending 40 minutes trying to do a Carazzo... and not doing the percentage kicks.... (except The Irish.. they only do % stuff)

But i cannot believe we have staff and leaders that just leave allwoing the kids to waste time in things they might only be called upon to do once in a lifetime. comparwed to once each 2 games.

Pathetic..

Nothing changes!!!

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Pretty unbelievable really isnt it sinners.I agree with you practice makes perfect .As kids we used to practice at the local oval.Short long kicks,kicking to leads sideways,diagonal leads straight leads Shots at goal.Kicking with against the wind sideways to the wind ,on the run set shots Do I need to continue.The most important skill is kicking always was always will be even more so today as teams ( good teams are more ruthless on the turnovers) make you pay for a mistake.Where does everbody go after training.To crown or something.

What gets me down is that the kids wouldnt stay back the extra half hour if they didnt want to improve....

But they are wasting their time... doing the Carazzo(formerly the Daicos ) or bananas from the boundary pocket is a waste of time.. and the only person that seems can see that is me...

I really dont get why a coach or a senior player cant focus them to practice the % skills work.

Next time im there im going to hop on down behind the goals.. jump the fence and tell them myself!!!

I swear!!!....

Go back to the forty and take shots from there.....Thats where theyre more likely to get scoring opportunities from... and if you do it enough times you wont kick it into the man on the mark....because your mind will be conditioned to know youve done it a thousand times before ..

Right now its like theyre all in the slips and they dont want the ball to fly off the edge to them...

Thats why theyre kicking from the boundary... it doesnt look as bad if they miss.

Again i ask where are the coaches????.. and the leaders???

just cos the bell has gone doesnt mean its hometime!!!

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I'm with you here synbad. The most important facet of a footballer's profession is using the ball. If I was as bad at my main skill, not only would people die, I'd be bloody sacked and/or charged. It's simply not good enough for our skills to be this bad - they're paid to use the football, they should bloody well practise it.

Someone should tell these guys the story about Bradman hitting the golf ball with the cricket stump against the water tank...

what happened to those fake men they'd set in the turf in an arc around the 40 meter arc and then take shots? Digby and Skinny won those all the time.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Sir Alex Ferguson was asked by an AFL coach (cant remember who - but he was on a study tour of Football clubs through Europe -could have been Grant Thomas ) and he asked him how do you work on improving the kicking skills of players on your list who are deficient and the response was "there aren't any players with poor kicking skills on the Man U list."

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

I'm about as confident of this as I am that we will be working on our tackling in the off season

Most of us would also remember Earl Spalding. Terrible kick towards anything. But under the guidance of Ken Judge he gradually improved his disposal and became more than a fair kick. Remember the '95 Grand Final?

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The more people I meet, the more I like my dog!

I used to cringe when he had a set shot early on at Carlton. He turned it around enormously. I remember Earl to be a very reliable kick in his later years. If he can do it anyone can with a bit of help.

One was delisted and plays for Essendon*.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Jumped in at the end here guys, so abuse (oops, I mean excuse) me if this has already been suggested, but:

How about we teach these 'kids' how to move off the ball and work together to provide an option that doesn't require kicks to 50-50 or worse situations that ultimately, embarrass our players?

How about we teach them to not kick to stationary targets in an era where players are faster and more agile than ever?

How about we teach them to not provide a stationary target in an era where players are faster and more agile than ever?

How about we remind the veterans that they should know better than to not follow the simple rules above?

How about we teach these 'veterans' to not run past a bloke (who has taken a mark, or earned a free kick) for yet another a handball receive when they've got no better options?

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.