VFL Rd 14 2025 Carlton vs Port Melbourne

Re: VFL Rd 14 2025 Carlton vs Port Melbourne

Reply #105 – July 04, 2025, 02:43:33 pm

Quote from: LP – on July 03, 2025, 05:32:32 pm

The idea that someone like Saad can make it through a whole AFL career and still be effectively a unilateral ball user is a condemnation on our club and the AFL system in general. It's a fundamental high level skill that is almost completely absent in our list.

Saad is competent with his right foot but so much better with his left. Even when wrong-footed, he's able to hit targets with kicks that may make purists wince but do the job. How many times did Kade Simpson or Buddy Franklin kick on their right?

Paul Roos actually discouraged his players from kicking with their non-preferred foot:

"I'd rather the 10 non-preferred kicks go out on the full and the 90 preferred hit someone on the chest. That's my philosophy. I have a very different philosophy to some people.

You can practice on it. But if you're trying to practice now at AFL level, and wanting to be proficient, unless you're doing a heap of extras, it's never going to work.

I certainly wasn't worried as a coach if blokes couldn't kick on their wrong foot. I played 369 games and to be perfectly frank I reckon I kicked on my left foot 20 times.

It wasn't something we were focused on when I coached. Some of the guys could do it, and some were terrible. It was embarrassing how bad they were. So what do you do [by then]?"