St Kilda needing a kickstart or risk getting left behind

St Kilda may find a temporary solution on Saturday to the goalkicking woes.

St Kilda coach Alan Richardson is struggling to improve his team’s goalkicking accuracy. Picture: Michael Klein

St Kilda may find a temporary solution on Saturday to the goal-kicking woes that have frustrated fans and cruelled their season.

The 16th placed Saints’ accuracy kicking for goal has been lamentable this season, with the club booting 61.89 in their seven matches.

Their inability to kick at least 10 goals in a match continued on Sunday when they were trumped by Melbourne at Etihad Stadium, with St Kilda again booting more points than goals. But in a year where the goalkicking accuracy rate sits at 51.9 per cent, there is a ray of sunshine for the Saints across the Nullarbor, where they face Fremantle on Saturday night.

While Optus Stadium has attracted criticism this year for the hardness of its surface, the evidence to date suggests it is having a positive impact on forwards.

Amid consternation across the competition about the state of the game, the amount of congestion around stoppages, the general skill level and goalkicking inaccuracy, matches at the league’s newest ground have generally been entertaining.

And in the eight matches at the AFL’s newest ground, the accuracy rate sits at 59.8 per cent.

This shades the next best rate at Adelaide Oval, which began hosting matches in 2014.

While the Saints have booted more behinds than goals in their past six games since starting the year with a win over Brisbane, that scenario has occurred only twice for teams playing in Perth this year.

The Dockers booted 13.18 when trumping the Gold Coast in round 3. The following day, Geelong kicked 11.14 when overrun by West Coast.

Eagles player Jack Darling, who sits third in the Coleman Medal behind Ben Brown, has kicked 18.6 at an accuracy rate of 75 per cent. He said it was critical for forwards to make the most of any opportunity they receive, a point St Kilda coach Alan Richardson will be reiterating.

“Up forward, we’re trying to be as accurate as possible,” Darling said. “It goes up and down. We had a bad game against Carlton (at the MCG) with behinds, but kicked a bit straighter this weekend.”

Former Hawthorn sharpshooter Ben Dixon has been added to the staff at St Kilda as a kicking coach this year and is working to correct the malaise.

After the loss to Melbourne, Richardson described his angst at the Saints’ sinning in front of goal.

“I get incredibly frustrated for us. I get incredibly frustrated for the players,” he said. “You are not going to beat anyone given how even the competition is unless you can take advantage of your opportunities. You start to think about what it is doing to the rest of them and clearly it’s something we have to fix.”

ACCURACY RATES 2017 for the eagles

St Kilda’s woes in front of goal — their only positive ratio this season occurred in round 1 when they kicked 16.11 in a win over Brisbane — has contributed to the low accuracy rate at Etihad Stadium. The multipurpose ground and the SCG both have accuracy rates below 50 per cent. The scrappy affair between North Melbourne and Sydney on Saturday night contributed to the rate dipping at the Swans’ home ground.

The struggles in front of goal this season have puzzled coaches and drawn some radical ideas from pundits. Former Bulldogs champion Brad Johnson pondered whether the place kick could return to the game.

On Fox Footy’s AFL 360 last week, Jason Dunstall lamented the decline in accuracy.

“The biggest frustration is I watch players every week whose run up is wrong,” he said. “Some of the players don’t even want to kick drop punts anymore. On a 45 degree angle, 30 metres out, they’d rather kick it around the corner than a drop punt.”