Melbourne devote extra time to goalkicking after horror run

Poor goalkicking isn’t Melbourne’s only concern after a star midfielder left training early putting his return from an injury layoff in doubt.

Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin says more minutes than ever are being devoted to goalkicking at training. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

The scoreboard during Melbourne‘s form slump has not escaped coach Simon Goodwin, who says his players have “given more minutes than ever before” to goalkicking after their worst performance yet in front of goal against GWS.

The Demons have lost four of the past six games on the back of poor scoring but also without gun midfielder Clayton Oliver who could again miss Saturday’s clash with St Kilda after failing to get through training.

Oliver has missed the past five matches with a hamstring injury and before training Goodwin said he needed to get through the session to be in contention to play.

“If I can be as honest as I can be, he’s got one session that he needs to get through in terms of ticking off a marker,” Goodwin said.

“We’re really hopeful that he gets through this (Wednesday training) and he’ll be available to put on the Melbourne jumper on Saturday night.”

BUt the one-time Brownlow medal favourite only go through the warm-ups before leaving the track with a full assessment to come.

Clayton Oliver didn’t get beyond the warm-ups at training (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Another week without Oliver would compound issues for the Demons had a staggering 73 inside 50s in Alice Springs but kicked horrendously for a return of 5.15 in their two-point loss, played in wet and cold conditions.

It was the fourth consecutive game the Demons had kicked eight goals or fewer, with a return of 18 goals and 61 behinds in that stretch.

Their forward line has also taken a massive hit following an ankle injury to leading goalkicker Bailey Fritsch.

Goodwin said strong opponents and difficult conditions had played a role in his side’s struggles but acknowledged the pattern of scores was now a glaring concern.

Alex Neal-Bullen and his Demons teammates are working hard on their goalkicking. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

He said head of development Mark “Choco” Williams was pushing the list hard outside of regular training hours to address their inaccuracy woes.

“If you can look outside right now, and this is prior to training, we’ve got 30 blokes out there having shots at goal, running around poles,” he said on Wednesday.

“We’ve given more minutes to goal kicking than ever before in the history of our footy club.

“Choco is driving a really big program for us … our high performance team are very supportive of how much goalkicking we do.”

It comes as the Demons expect to lose Fritsch until finals as he recovers from foot surgery, but Goodwin said the issues in attack could still be resolved.

“We want to be a team that scores more on the back of some of the unbelievable work we‘re doing defensively and in our contest work,” he said.

“At some stage, it’s going to turn and we’re going to start to get bang for buck.”