Number Crunch: Wasteful Essendon shooting itself in the foot like never before

CAN’T kick, can’t play! The old footy adage holds true for suspension-ravaged Essendon this year, reports Andrew Capel. Replay Capel’s blog here.

Joe Daniher laments a missed shot ... a critical problem at Essendon, says Andrew Capel.

CAN’T kick, can’t play!

The old footy adage continually trotted out by the Jarman brothers, Darren and Andrew, holds true for suspension-ravaged Essendon this year.

While the one-win Bombers — denied 12 players through the supplements scandal — have been competitive in many matches in their extraordinary year, their kicking has been nothing short of a disaster.

And it has probably cost them a couple of victories.

Bottom-placed Essendon, which will play the Crows at Adelaide Oval on Sunday, is statistically the worst goalkicking side in the AFL this season by a country mile.

No other club comes close to being as bad as the Bombers in front of the sticks.

Exclusive data released by Champion Data shows Essendon is twice as bad as any other club when it comes to goalkicking.

It’s shot at goal kick rating of -6.6 per cent is 3.5 per cent worse than the next-worst ranked club Brisbane (-3.1 per cent).

In contrast, the most accurate goalkicking side by kick rating, Greater Western Sydney, boasts a +4.1 per cent rating.

Champion Data says shot at goal rating — rather than pure goals and misses — is the best measure of a player and club’s goalkicking accuracy.

It is the one used by the clubs to determine their best and worst kicks because it takes into account degree of difficulty and how much pressure a player is under when having a shot.

The Bombers’ overall goalkicking accuracy percentage of 50.2 is 5.3 per cent worse than the 17th-ranked Lions (55.5 per cent) and 13.7 behind leader Melbourne (63.9).

Joe Daniher kicks a point. Picture: Wayne Ludbey.

Essendon has kicked 154.153 off the boot for the year. It also has 34 rushed behinds.

But it’s the goals it has missed — behinds and out-of-bounds — that it should have kicked that illustrates how bad the Bombers have been.

Essendon has kicked more goals than behinds in only three of its 17 games this year.

In the past three weeks it has had more scoring shots than a rival and still lost — a Bombers club record.

Essendon does not have one player who has had a minimum 30 shots at goal — Champion Data’s rating point — who has a positive shot at goal ratio.

Exciting small forward Orazio Fantasia is its best kick with a -0.5 shot at goal kick rating.

Brisbane is the only other club to have its best sharpshooter in negative territory.

Key forwards Joe Daniher (-4.5) and Mitch Brown (-8.2) have been erratic in front of the sticks.

Daniher has another shot at six points. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

Essendon coach John Worsfold acknowledged his team’s woeful kicking after the loss to the Lions at Etihad Stadium on Sunday when it kicked to 12.19 to accurate Brisbane’s 20.8.

Worsfold said the Dons’ kicking is so bad it has become a “full-time job’’ to fix.

It is enough to make the Jarman brothers, former Roosters and Crows who were renowned for hitting targets by foot and hand, pull their hair out.

“If we brought someone in to try and address our kicking for goal, on how bad it is at the moment, I’m saying it would need someone to put in a lot of hours,” Worsfold said post-match.

“It would be a fulltime job at the moment, not a part-time job for us, where we’re at.

“We’re going to have a look at why we’re spraying our kicks so much because we’re conceding our opportunities through inaccuracy.

“Shots for goal obviously, but some field kicking that isn’t good enough when we set up great opportunities to go forward and score and the kick through midfield wipes that opportunity or makes the opportunity to score a lot harder.

“That is a pattern over the last six weeks, we’ve started to create ball-winning and ball movement to get the ball inside 50, but we’re not finishing the job off as we should.”

Champion Data’s shot at goal ratings reveal Hawthorn superstar Cyril Rioli has been the best in the business this season.

Adelaide’s Charlie Cameron has been the most erratic of all players to have had at least 25 shots.
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