Where have all the goal kickers gone?

What captures the imagination of the footy public more spectacularly than anything else? A champion goal kicker of course.

Midfielders are a dime-a-dozen. Defenders are dour and lack in creativity. Ruckman are slow and lumbering.

But a tall, high leaping, strong marking, straight kicking forward knows how to bring a crowd to its feet.

He is the rock star of the competition, the player most likely to have his number stitched on the back of young Johnny Supporter’s replica guernsey and the one who more often than not will have an action shot appear on the back page of the newspaper.

His extraordinary feats are the mainstay of highlights packages and sports reports; his face more recognisable than the ever reliable back pocket who has been at the club twice as long and for half the money.

He is the man, the marquee player, the marketing department’s dream.

He is Pratt, Coleman, Hudson, Capper, Lockett, Dunstall and a multitude of others. He has held us spellbound throughout the ages and we love him dearly, especially when he kicks a ton.

Remember that? A full forward kicking 100 goals in a season?

Remember the anticipation in the weeks leading up to the milestone moment? How sometimes our beloved goal kings could get bogged down in the 80s and 90s and seem to stay there for ever before finally, breathtakingly, breaking through that magic barrier of 100 goals?

Remember counting down the goals on match day?

Five to go, four to go, three to go…wondering if there was enough time to get the final couple…watching the team try and feed him the ball…hoping that you would get the chance to invade the ground and join 50, 000 others in swamping your hero as number 100 sailed on through?

Doesn’t happen much anymore does it.

Buddy Franklin was the last with 113 goals in 2008 while Fraser Gehrig chipped in with 103 in 2004. It has been slim pickings since though. Buddy’s bag in 2008 was followed by 89 to Brendan Fevola, 80 to Barry Hall, 82 by Franklin again and last year, a paltry 69 to Matthew Pavlich.

This year’s goal kicking race will bring similar tallies.

There was a time though, back in the heady days of the 1970s, 80s and 90s when full forwards ruled the roost.

Not only was the 100 goal milestones met most years, but sometimes by multiple players.

Take 1970 for example when Peter Hudson (146), Peter McKenna (143) and Alex Jesaulenko (115) filled the first three positions on the goal kicking table. Or 1993 when it was Tony Modra (129), Gary Ablett snr (124) and Jason Dunstall (123). What a shoot out!

Matthew Lloyd (109 and 105 in 2000 and 2001) was the last in a long line of big name forwards to regularly kick 100 goals.

His reign as a century goal kicker ended a glorious era for sharp shooters that stretched way back to 1968. Only seven times in that 33 year period was the 100 game barrier not broken. In the ensuing 11 years, that figure has already reached nine failures.

So will we ever see another centurion?

There are a couple of candidates among today’s players but with defence being more accountable than ever and coaches preferring an even spread of goal kickers across their teams rather than total reliance on one key forward, it is becoming increasing unlikely.

But the game has a habit of changing and what is this decade’s style of play might not necessarily stand the test of time and be carried into the next. Trends do change.

If there is a shift in focus then Greater Western Sydney’s Jeremy Cameron and Sydney’s Kurt Tippett appear to be the players most likely to give the ton a nudge over the coming years.

Cameron is a remarkable young talent. That he leads the competition’s goal kicking table with West Coast’s Josh Kennedy and Hawthorn’s Jarryd Roughead is nothing short of phenomenal. His cellar-dwelling team have the second worst attack in the league (with regards to total points scored) and yet, despite a limited number of inside fifty forays when compared to his more highly positioned opponents, he has managed the same amount of shots at goal!

Kennedy has skipped and stuttered towards goal on 80 occasions for 60 goals, 20 behinds. Roughead has had 83 shots for 60.23, while Cameron’s 84 shots have brought him 60.24. Remarkably similar statistics given the markedly different environment that Cameron plays in.

Granted, Roughead shares goal kicking duties with Franklin and Kennedy with Jack Darling, so neither are their team’s sole target, but even so, put Cameron in a more highly ranked team with an increase in forward fifty thrusts and surely, even at worst, it would be worth at least one more goal per game to the talented youngster?

Using his current season goal average and assuming that he plays the last two rounds to take his games tally to 21 for the year, he will end up with 66 goals. Add an extra goal per game (as discussed above) and you have 87. Add an extra half a goal per game on top of that for natural improvement and you have 97.5, a total that is beginning to reach the dizzying heights of his goal kicking forebears.

Could the hundred beckon for Cameron? At just 20 years of age and in just his second season of AFL football, you bet that it can.

Tippett is also just entering his prime. The man mountain has kicked 32 goals in nine games this year at an average that is better than those leading the Coleman medal.

But it is his last three games that have everyone talking. 17 goals including two bags of six and one of five show that the big man is approaching his potent best.

If he can stay fit and maintain that type of form and confidence then there is no reason why he can’t be the next century goal kicker. He certainly has the potential to do so.

His enforced lay off due to sloppy contract negotiations with Adelaide has perhaps been a blessing in disguise, allowing adequate time to overcome a series of concussions that threatened to derail his football career before it had really started.

He has certainly come back to the game hungry for success.

We’ll learn a lot about Tippett over the next few weeks, but if he can add a successful finals series to his resume and build on the confidence that comes out of it, he can certainly give the magical 100 a nudge over the coming years.

And that has to be good for football!