AFL 2023: Every team’s best and worst goal kickers based on Champion Data statistics

New analysis by Champion Data goes beyond the raw numbers to reveal who wins games off their boot and has left the most points on the table this year.

The art of goalkicking has rarely seemed so important.

Compare the emotions of soggy saviours Dan Houston (Port Adelaide) and Josh Kelly (GWS) with the likes of Robbie Fox, Isaac Heeney, Tom Hickey (Sydney), Darcy Parish, Sam Weideman (Essendon) and Christian Petracca (Melbourne).

Miracle men Houston and Kelly thumped wet Sherrins through the big sticks to steal famous victories for their clubs after being kept alive by their inaccurate enemies.

Champion Data’s ‘Expected Scores’ – which factors in the location and pressure of each kick to generate the expected accuracy based on that shot over the past decade – had Kelly’s expected score 2.5 points and Houston’s 1.8 points.

That formula does not factor in conditions – making Houston and Kelly’s golden goals even more remarkable.

St Kilda recently hired part-time goalkicking expert David Wheadon, who published the book The Art of Goalkicking last year.

Previously, the Saints invested in sharpshooter Ben Dixon’s two-year goalkicking program while Sav Rocca was once Levi Casboult’s goalkicking whisperer at Carlton.

But in the race to September there is one club – and one player at that club – that stands out as needing a crash course in finishing school.

Petracca’s expected accuracy sits at just 41 per cent because he has attempted such difficult shots. But his actual accuracy is well down on that number — at just 26 per cent.

That is Melbourne and its sparkling jewel Christian Petracca.

The Demons averaged 107 points from rounds 1-9 when Petracca spent 30 per cent of game time forward.

But Petracca’s time spent forward has plummeted to 4 per cent from rounds 10-16, when the Demons have averaged a feeble 64 points.

Petracca did not spend a single minute as a forward against the Giants on Sunday – he kicked 0.4 playing 100 per cent gametime as an onballer.

Contested beast Clayton Oliver is obviously missing. But do the Demons really need Petracca in the guts when his poise as a permanent forward could be a game-changer?

They have Jack Viney in good nick, Tom Sparrow emerging and Angus Brayshaw keen for more midfield minutes.

They won contested ball by 44, clearances by 20 and inside 50s by 27 on Sunday – so it is not as if it is a case of no Oliver, no Demons.

So the question for premiership coach Simon Goodwin is this – can he trust an engine room without Oliver (injured) or Petracca (playing forward)?

Petracca kicked 0.4 against the Giants. He was expected to have kicked 11.1 points – which would’ve been handy in a two-point loss.

In fact, Petracca’s expected score for the season is 130 points.

That is more than has been expected for the likes of full-time forwards Michael Walters, Isaac Heeney, Jade Gresham and Cody Weightman.

But Petracca has kicked 12.19 (91) from 46 shots. That is 12 goals from 46 attempts.

His expected accuracy is already a low 41 per cent, because he takes incredibly hard shots bursting out of the midfield, and his actual accuracy is a far more deflating 26 per cent.

Would a role change reward Petracca with easier looks?

Adelaide’s Riley Thilthorpe has an expected accuracy of 62 per cent because the 200cm target generates so many set-shots near the goalmouth.

Still, he is kicking above expectation at 68 per cent.

Plenty of Crows are.

They’ve made a habit of creaming Twenty20 cricket scores at Adelaide Oval this season – kicking 117 points (against Port Adelaide), 111 (Fremantle), 118 (Carlton), 121 (St Kilda), 174 (West Coast) and 138 (North Melbourne).

Compare that with the Blues, which kicked 7.15 (57), 6.15 (51), 6.8 (44) and 6.16 (52) in a month of boring losses.

The Crows (17th) and Carlton (18th) have generated the second-hardest and hardest shots on goal this season.

But the Crows are 7th for accuracy and Carlton is 18th. You suspect that is because Adelaide has so much polish and firepower forward of the ball.

Chayce Jones and Luke Pedlar’s expected accuracy is 37 and 47 per cent respectively. Their actual accuracy is 50 and 54 per cent.

Coleman Medal leader Taylor Walker is the third-best set-shot in the game. Walker’s 168 points from set-shots is 40 above expectations.

Carlton is crying out for that kind of class.

The expected and actual accuracies at the Blues makes for unpleasant reading – Harry McKay (45 per cent vs 37 per cent), Jack Silvagni (46 per cent vs 36 per cent), Patrick Cripps (39 per cent vs 25 per cent) and Oliver Hollands (50 per cent vs 29 per cent).

Cripps has kicked 4.9 from 15 shots – a record helped by his 3.0 against Gold Coast.

But, based on expected scores, McKay is the second-worst set-shot in the sport as he rotates his technique almost by the kick.

Harry McKay has scored 132 out of his 189 points from set-shots. But that is 25 points below expectation, making him statistically the second-worst set-shot in the AFL.

Buzz Bulldog Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is third-worst, leaving 24 points on the table.

But Ugle-Hagan’s Dogs might not mind the Sherrin in Darcy Cameron’s hands on Friday night.

The Collingwood ruckman has kicked 0.5 (5) from set-shots when 4.1 (25) had been expected.

Geelong generates relatively straightforward shots and converts them well.

You wonder whether Adelaide’s method is sustainable. Can the Crows keep relying on their lethal forwards to kick unlikely goals?

It has hurt them against Collingwood – twice. On expected scores the Crows should have led 70-39 at the last change – and Jones slammed home the first goal of the last quarter.

Instead it was 6.15 (51) to 5.5 (35) at the last change. The last thing you want to do against the Pies is leave the door open because they will barge through it.

Aaron Naughton’s 1.2 (8) from four shots against Gold Coast should have been 17 points, given his expected accuracy was 64 per cent.

The next week against Geelong the culprits were Ugle-Hagan, Bailey Williams and Lachie McNeil.

Jamarra Ugle-Hagan has scored 130 points from set-shots — 24 points below expectation. Ugle-Hagan, who has had his technique questioned by Matthew Lloyd, is 40 points below expectation overall this season.

They returned 12 points under the roof at Marvel Stadium when they were expected to return 30 points. Ouch.

Remember Rhyan Mansell’s set-shot in Dreamtime?

With Richmond leading by five points deep in the fourth quarter the youngster only needed to score to ensure the Tigers banked some premiership points in what would be Damien Hardwick’s final game as their coach.

Mansell’s expected score was 3.4 points. But his kick sprayed out on the full, and Sam Durham’s last-gasp winner clinched a one-point win for the Bombers.

Two weeks later Marlion Pickett had a flying snap on the run with scores level at the 37-minute mark of the final quarter at Giants Stadium.

Pickett’s expected score was 2.6 points – but he drilled the goal to deliver Andrew McQualter his first victory as interim coach.

Later that day Durham’s Bombers played another heart-stopper.

This time it was another mid-season draftee, Massimo D’Ambrosio, who had the final say against North Melbourne.

Commentator Dwayne Russell exclaimed: “You’d almost take a point now” as Jake Stringer followed up his inspirational smother with a desperate tackle to turn the ball over.

Will Snelling shot a handball to Andrew Phillips, who fed D’Ambrosio for the matchwinner.

The super sub had an expected score of 1.9 points when he slammed the Sherrin on to his left boot from 40m.

But D’Ambrosio curled it through at the 31-minute mark and the Bombers held on by six points.

In round 4 Oliver Florent’s after-the-siren shot had an expected accuracy of 36 per cent (2.6 points).

Florent celebrated – but it was stopped before the line by Aliir Aliir, securing Port Adelaide the first of 12-straight wins.

Giants captain Toby Greene’s expected accuracy was 23 per cent when he snapped a stoppage goal against Sydney.

The king of clutch sank it and sunk the Swans in an SCG epic.

Nick Larkey has kicked 34.5 (209) from set-shots in 2023. That is 30 points above expectation, ranked No. 6 in the AFL behind Oscar Allen, Taylor Walker, Tom Hawkins, Jeremy Cameron and Charlie Curnow.

What about the weekend’s villains?

In the second and third quarters Essendon had been expected to outscore Port Adelaide by 37 points – 8.6 (54) to 2.5 (17).

It should have been game over.

But the Bombers kicked a wasteful 5.10 (40) to 4.2 (26) in those quarters – followed by Sam Weideman’s sprayed set-shot early in the last quarter – as Port Adelaide, and then Houston, flexed.

Sydney’s Robbie Fox, Isaac Heeney and Tom Hickey combined for 0.7 from 10 shots on Friday night.

Fox’s 0.3 included hitting the post from the goalsquare when kicking for the lead in the final minutes. He had been expected to convert 13 points.

Heeney’s five shots were tough – but he was expected to net 12.8 points instead of just two behinds.

Hickey’s two set-shot pokes from close range had been expected to score nine points instead of two.

Those three players had been expected to kick 35 points. Instead scored seven behinds – a 28-point shortfall in a drawn game.

The total match score of 108 points (54-54 draw) was 62.9 points below what was expected – the worst discrepancy since 2013.

As they say, bad kicking is bad football.