ESSENDON was amid a furious Cale Hooker-inspired fightback on Friday night when the 2014 All Australian defender plucked another mark inside 50.

Hooker had already booted back-to-back goals to cut Richmond's lead to 21 points – with almost half the final quarter to go – and wound up to take one of the 'infamous' set-shot snap attempts.

Steve Johnson and his former Geelong teammates popularised them, and they've slowly infiltrated the rest of the 17 clubs.

Champion Data first started tracking set snaps in 2002, when there were 108 such shots at goal. That tally increased to 159 in 2008, 254 by 2012, 325 by 2015, then 403 last season.

LADDER PREDICTOR Where will your club finish?

Still, the trepidation in Channel Seven commentator and all-time great Wayne Carey's voice once he realised what Hooker was doing was obvious.

Hooker went on to pull his kick to the near side for a behind, and Carey's critical reply went as follows: "I'll tell you why (he did that), because he wanted an excuse if he missed it."

So, while AFL footballers are using the goalkicking method at a higher rate, Carey's remains a typical response.

Matthew Lloyd, one of the most accurate set shots ever, shares this view.

It's why last year's No.1 draft pick, Cam Rayner, was so criticised when he missed from a similar spot to Hooker – trying the same thing – on what would have been the match-winner against North Melbourne in round 20.

Renowned goalkicking guru David Wheadon, who worked with Johnson at the Cats, Lloyd at Essendon and Saverio Rocca at Collingwood among the five clubs he coached, takes a different view.

For Wheadon, all that matters is the end result – and whether a player can consistently get a good one from the technique they prefer.

"(Four-time Coleman medallist) Peter Hudson said people stopped kicking torpedo punts because they didn't look as nice as a miss with a drop punt," Wheadon told AFL.com.au.

"Anything that's progressive and new is usually unpopular at the start.

"Contact is the only thing that affects flight, so for some people that ball pointing up and down for a drop punt is a very nervous object … having time to think about failure is difficult."

Wheadon's philosophy on goalkicking being an individual art should be considered here, but what do the stats tell us about Hooker's miss and where he was kicking from?

This was the first time Hooker attempted any sort of set shot from that spot.

As for the rest of the AFL players this year, they kicked a combined 29.16 (64.4 per cent) on set snaps from Hooker's range and 36.22 (62.1 per cent) on traditional set shots.

How about we widen the span to the past five years? Normal set shots add up to 202.111 (64.5 per cent), while set snaps are 153.65 (70.2 per cent).

Those numbers might raise some eyebrows, and should open a few minds to fresh ideas.

THINGS WE LEARNED There's room for two All Australian rucks

"Because the ball's laying more across your boot (on a set snap); there's a bigger surface area or contact area, and more boot on ball and ball on boot," Wheadon said.

"It's not a hard kick, because you're kicking at right angles across your body and you get the back-third of the ball, and it spins end over end every time."

Further comparisons can be made in other positions where both options are used semi-regularly, meaning we've removed attempts from beyond 40m, acute shots along the boundary, and those directly in front.

In 2018, once those angles are taken out: traditional set shots accumulated 908.452 (66.8 per cent) and set snaps tallied 126.49 (72 per cent).

That's further food for thought, although it must be acknowledged there are almost eight times as many attempts of the former as the latter.

But the point here is there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Swooping season

Collingwood's final-quarter assault on Port Adelaide at the MCG on Saturday not only put the Power's season on the brink, but set a season record.

The Magpies racked up a whopping 26 inside 50s for the term, the most in any quarter this season, edging out Greater Western Sydney's 25 in the fourth term in round one against the Dogs.

It was the 11th game since 1999 that a team had 26 or more entries in a quarter.

Sticking with the black-and-white theme, NAB AFL Rising Star favourite Jaidyn Stephenson was involved in eight chains of play at the weekend and all resulted in a score.

The 19-year-old is the only player this season to have a perfect scoring rate with at least seven chain involvements.

Jaidyn Stephenson has been a revelation in his debut season. Picture: AFL Photos

One-man band?

No one should be pointing the finger at Nat Fyfe for Fremantle's failings against Geelong in round 22.

The 2015 Brownlow medallist's 37 disposals were the equal eighth-most in a team suffering a triple-digit defeat and he was also involved in eight of the Dockers' 10 scoring chains.

Geelong's Mr Efficient

He might not be part of Geelong's so-called Holy Trinity, but Mitch Duncan continues to make a case to be considered among the game's elite midfielders.

Duncan leads the competition for metres gained assisted in the past four rounds, with his total of 1914.7 more than 100 clear of second-ranked Bulldog Lachie Hunter (1812.4).

In the same period he is averaging 27.5 disposals (8.3 contested), six marks, 3.8 inside 50s, 3.3 tackles, 2.8 clearances and two goal assists.