Buddy at his brilliant best is a daunting prospect for any opposition side. Given he has scored four goals and 10 behinds, at a conversion rate of 28.6 per cent, the potential for improvement is there for all to see.
Goal-kicking accuracy across the board in 2011 is at a record low of just 54.7 per cent. It is staggering to think that in this elite competition, our best professional athletes have little more than a 50/50 chance of scoring when they kick for goal.
Much discussion this week has linked poor goal-kicking with increased player fatigue, which is said to have resulted from the substitution rule. This seems like a cop-out to me. A more likely explanation is that players aren’t placing nearly enough value on the importance of accuracy at set shots on goal.
Players who turn the ball over regularly in their own backline can find themselves quickly out of the side; yet strangely we’ll take a more positive view of a forward who’s kicked 2.5, believing that his goal-kicking form will magically sort itself out. In short, we are far more ready to forgive a poor set shot at goal than we are a poor field kick.
The coaching trend in recent years has been to load up the backline with the best kicks in the side. When you think of Luke Hodge or Lindsay Gilbee setting up scoring opportunities from out of defence, it is easy to understand the rationale behind this thinking.
Increasingly though, it is players like Andrew Walker at Carlton and Andrew McQualter at St Kilda who are getting moved out of defence - partly due to their poor foot skills - and are being relied upon to score goals as forwards.
A number of people have expressed the view that Karmichael Hunt should learn the game as a forward. The role of defensive forward and specialist tackler has some merit, but surely common sense would also include an ability to kick accurately as an essential quality for a player in attack.
Incredibly, there are still large numbers of AFL players who don’t have a consistent goal-kicking routine. They simply run in, take aim and fire without any real understanding of what went wrong when the ball sails through for a behind.
The increased influence of sports science and fitness staff has impacted on players’ opportunities to practise their goal-kicking. Speaking to Matthew Lloyd earlier this week, he found it necessary to directly approach the senior coach and demand that he be given the time to work on his accuracy.
Picture Lloyd, Jason Dunstall and Tony Lockett, three of the all-time great goal-kickers: they each had simple, consistent routines. Like practising a golf swing, when they missed a set shot you could see them making mental adjustments for the wind direction, checking their ball drop or follow through, and trying to get a clear understanding of what went wrong. Not surprisingly, it was rare for them miss two in a row.
Buddy Franklin had more than 200 shots at goal when the Hawks won the premiership in 2008, kicking 113 goals at 56 per cent. With Shaun Burgoyne, Cyril Rioli, Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell up and running, I suspect that Buddy is going to have the ball in his hands within scoring range a lot again this year.
It might sound simplistic, but his accuracy at set shots could determine whether this group of Hawks can find the Holy Grail again.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs
