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Scott Pendlebury of the Magpies plays on to advantage and kicks a goal only to be call back by Umpire Shaun Ryan during the AFL Round 08 match between the Geelong Cats and the Collingwood Magpies at the MCG, Melbourne. Slattery Images
In the dying seconds of the 1977 Grand Final, Collingwood’s Ross ‘Twiggy’ Dunne prepared to kick, requiring a goal to level the scores. Despite being only twenty metres out, he chose the kick usually reserved for the long distance roost: the technically difficult and notoriously inaccurate torpedo punt.
Belying his team’s ‘collingwobbles’ label, Dunne casually slotted the goal.
Beautifully executed, the kick sent the ball straight over the goal umpire before launching it into the upper tiers of the Ponsford Stand. Two policemen squatting on the boundary looked up as if it was on its way to the moon.
Dunne’s choice of kick, especially for such an important goal, would today be deemed an act of laconic stupidity.
It’s easy to be amused watching players of the distant past taking shots at goal.
As a child I was given a book entitled How to Play Football. On its cover is a photo of a footballer in thick woollen jumper and high lace up boots in the act of executing what is probably a drop kick.
Both legs are in the air and with his hefty fuselage and outstretched arms he resembles an Airbus A380 attempting takeoff.
In the professional era the kick demanded by coaches is the easier and supposedly more accurate drop punt.
According to the official AFL book on Skills of Australian Football, “kicking skills have improved immensely over the years as players have more time to practise and perfect hitting targets”.
And last year Mick Malthouse said: “Has our goal-kicking improved over 20, 30, 40 years? Of course it has. Go and have a look at some footage”.
The problem is, goal-kicking hasn’t improved. The modern full-time footballer uses the drop punt exclusively, plays on carpet-smooth surfaces, and has a fifty metre line to gauge distance from goal but these things haven’t helped his rate of conversion. Why?
The set-shot is a conundrum for the modern player – a runner who does weights. He covers distances unprecedented in the history of the game and can kick with aplomb to a leading teammate forty metres upfield but put him in front of the goal posts and he goes to water.
Today you can tell a player is going to miss a set-shot. The nervousness, the reticence, and downright disbelief in his own ability to complete the task are written all over his face. He may be thirty metres out on a slight angle but still hopes to give it off. The furtive eyes are still working as he runs in. Often he’s lucky to get it inside the point post.
And it’s not just the poor unfocused preparation; it’s also the kick itself. He’s used to kicking the ball ‘up’, over zones or walls of opposing players, to unmarked teammates. He is not required to pass to teammates with the flatter more powerful trajectory required in goal-kicking.
Instead of putting his head over the football, making contact close to the ground, and kicking through the ball with the foot pointed towards the goal he tends to lean back and kick upwards which allows the ball to lose momentum and fade away; or attempts to steer it towards the goal with a limp foot, or by jabbing at the ball, causing it to veer off course.
It’s strange that while most aspects of human endeavour have become more specialised, football has become less so. Players are constantly on the move, fulfilling a variety of roles. During a match a team can have up to ten different players taking shots at goal.
Out of breath from their marathon stints and with minds preoccupied with their coaches’ strategies and systems they’re not in the best place to execute the delicate art of kicking for goal. Most don’t see themselves as goal-kickers and often appear unfazed after missing shots.
Essendon great Matthew Lloyd has questioned the committment of teams, who are mainly coached by ex-defenders, to improve goal-kicking. Reasons given by coaches for not practising have ranged from fear of injury to the inconvenience of retrieving the balls.
The new game has seen the death of the greatest specialist: the power full forward. The goal-kicking gurus who were born – or trained themselves – to belong in the Shangri-La of the inside fifty.
Having the ball delivered to them exquisitely by champion centremen and on-ballers, they would begin their eccentric procedures, in their own good time. Whether it was throwing grass in the air, descending into a meditative state, or simply aiming at the goal umpire’s head, it would bring a quietness and a calmness to proceedings – a welcome state in today’s skittery style. Whether they used the torpedo, the flat punt, or the drop punt, the result was always the same. They would drill goals.
I don’t know, perhaps goal-kicking can’t be taught; you either have the hunger or you don’t.
There are those referred to today as ‘large forwards’. Some are just resting ruckmen there to block out the sun but the running versions such as Franklin, Goodes, Riewoldt, Pavlich and Brown are mesmerising to watch when they get it right. And thankfully there appears to be a resurgence of the small forward, or goal sneak.
I’m dying for the day, though, when a player lining up for a goal to win the grand final spurns the orders of his coach and sends a torp to the moon.`
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