Can Cloke's kicking be fixed?

[BEAMER09]

Message to Collingwood ALL coaches

Cloke’s Kicking Action - Analysis for Correction -

1. His shoulders are not square on approach to goal.

2. His left shoulder falls away when left hand is released – mainly causes ball to go left of target (this is partly due to the fact that he leans too far back).

3. His hips are not square either – he has a tendency to slightly rotate the left hip inwards which causes the ball to go right. This seems to happen more so when he accelerates his left leg more than he should when kicking for goal.

4. On approach to goal, he leans too far back – must be a bit more upright and this can alleviate the above problems as his shoulders and hips will be more square to the ground and less margin for error. And his left arm needs to be a bit more more relaxed.

5. His right foot must not be planted either as it should be flexible enough to adjust while in motion of kicking with his left foot. Having the right foot planted you become static and can cause problems with shoulders and hips as outlined (being flexible allows fluent kicking action and follow through).

6. His biggest issue is his left leg. If you think of a pendulum, it mainly swings up and down in pretty much a straight line. With Cloke, his left leg becomes ‘cocked’ at the knee and more so with his left ankle which makes goal kicking that little bit harder because as the left leg follows through to kick the ball, the cocking of the leg/ankle has to straighten up when impact is made with the ball. As that being Cloke’s kicking style and even if the above 5 steps were corrected, he would still have that slight problem kicking for goal due to his ‘cocking’ but atleast he will have a better goal return than he currently has now (needs to correct the ‘cocking’ and thats won't be easy).

7. The other minor issue that I can see is his approach to kicking for goal. As they say, the way you line up to goal is the way the ball will travel. Looking at Cloke, even though it appears he gets his kicking actions right at times and all looks good, his approach to goal is not in a direct line as it looks, therefore, the ball will travel in the line you have taken (that’s easy to correct). With Cloke being a left footer, he should line up between the inside left goal post and the centre of the goals as you have to allow a little bit of left to right generated by his kicking style providing the above steps are met.

You can work on the above to correct your kicking actions. It doesn’t guarantee you 100% (nothing does) but the return will be much higher than it currently is. Basically, it’s no different to a golf swing and if the stance and rhythm aren’t right, neither is the swing.

[swoop42]

No.

Next.

[eddiesmith]

[woftam]

[magpiemike]

Yes, well at least it could have been. I'm a big believer in performance based contracts. Instead of giving him the 5 million dollar gift, give him 3.5 mill, then reward for what he's paid to do. Take today for instance, with Frawley out, most people expected him to kick a bag. He would have too, if he had 5 or ten grand riding on each kick at goal. His first goal today outside 50 was pretty to watch, and he's shown us he's more than capable. All that other crap he dished up just isn't good enough.

[Underdog]

No

Under 50% is not AFL standard

If he was a V8 Supercar driver & only finished 1/2 the races would he be a Star ?

No

If your job is to kick goals, you need to kick them, Trav has failed

Fact is Trav is a very ordinary footballer

[buzzlightyear]

Travis will never be an accurate kick or overly reliable. You don't think that Collingwood has already addressed, spent time on his technique. One of the best contested marks but not a great kick. Almost cost us the 2010 GF I. Flawed genius maybe? Then again, who would have thought Lindsay Thomas would have an accuracy rate of 68.6 this year, given his career accuracy is 54.8%

He is 29-29 this year and has been less than satisfactory. Within, the top 40 goal kickers this year, Cloke is ranked 38th in accuracy. Beaten by Justin Westhoff (15-19) and Mark Lecras (17-18 )

Cloke's career accuracy is 53.7% compare that to Lance Franklin 55.6%.

NB I never know why they don't also have OOF stats or nil scores from shots from goal.

[fan4collingwood]

Mr J has been saying for years to anyone who will listen (or pretend to) that the non kicking foot should be pointed at where the kick needs to go, not just for Travis, but all players.

Look out lads, you are in Adelaide in a couple of weeks. Mr J will be hunting you all down!

[Darkstranger]

It is frustrating when we have all the play and don’t convert, we are a shocking team for set shots, when Cloke has the ball I automatically think are we covering the kick outs, I'm sure the opposition think that?

[HAL]

Should I know frustrating when we have all the play and don’t convert we a shocking team for set shots when Cloke has the ball he or she think are we covering the kick outs he or she'm sure the opposition think that are a shocking team for set shots when Cloke has the ball he or she is?

[BHPIE]

Yes fan 4 collingwood,MrJ is right....one thing i did notice was when CLoke kicks he lifts his head almost as he drops the ball,...big mistake,must keep ya head down right through the follow through,kick that is.

[Collingwood 4 eternity]

About four minutes into Matthew Lloyds Hall of Fame Speech from last week he talks about how Robert Shaw confronted him about his wayward kicking and that it would cost them a Premiership.

He practiced his new routine for hundreds of hours.

Cloke could do similar

Lloyd video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWrMogi_6ME

[robfyffe]

[Beast]

Have a sneaky suspicion his kicking woes are due to his mental state i.e. at the start of the year he seemed to be enjoying life and was very enthusiastic on the field but lately his demeanour has changed for the worst significantly IMO.

[Troppo]

Pretty much, BEAMER09 has got it spot on re Trav's kicking-for-goal issues.

So often we have seen him, and hear the commentators say about him, dropping the pill too high resulting in him making contact with his instep rather than the toe or lower lacing. Result = waywardness. Has to be.

Yes the main game needs to be won in his mind.

I was always a great fan of Tim Gallwey's little book called the 'Inner Game of Golf' and I see there is now stuff out on Football too (the round ball game, of course), but if you examaine the parameters involved, what Gallwey is on about is so close to Trav's issues it's not funny.

What is The Inner Game?

“There is always an inner game being played in your mind no matter what outer game you are playing. How you play this game usually makes the difference between success and failure.” -Tim Gallwey

Check out http://theinnergame.com/.