The skillz thread

Why can’t we handball?

Handballs to feet, handballs behind the player, handballs too far in front, handballs too hard straight at the man from short range. Never the nicely floated one ahead of the moving player for them to run onto.

Costs us multiple goals in both directions each week. Big part of the reason we make hard work of scoring is because we make basic skill errors when the overlap is on.

Drives me insane.

Feel free to unload on decision making and kicking and just general dumbness in here too. May not be a necessary thread, mods call…

A few dumb play nominations for this week:

-Towner spoiling a ball on the forward flank back to centre wing instead of over the line

  • McKenna volley attempt with spare bombers everywhere
    -Hibberd hard blind handball backwards into the crow 50 for a goal
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Is this an old 2012 thread ??
or 2015…
or 2018 …

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It’s a millennial thread

Agree. I think the skill is underrated, we talk about kicking all the time. But handball is the key to working through congestion in the modern game, and we’ve got a few player who aren’t very good at it.

We are a team of blue collar grinders. There’s just very little class.

Gotta love back pocket plumbers!

Are we… too fast?

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A new innovation is the Devon Smith handball back over his head to no-one

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I didn’t completely mind them. I just thought it hilarious that he did so legally, not via a Crow Throw.

My daughter has Cerebral Palsy.

I swear to god she can catch a football better than most of our players. Ridley excepted.

Yes, it’s not perfect. But I will say this, I watch a lot of games every weekend and most other sides are no better. Most games become somewhat of a slog with what you would call poor skills, even with the better sides. Seriously, it’s not just us.

That patch where we broke off a turnover and fumbled and humbled it up to a contest 25m out (which we lost) with free men streaming everywhere followed by Adelaide running it up the far side of the ground and managing to pick out the one Essendon player between two Adelaide players who were 60m away from each other was the best

I felt Conor McKenna was a microcosm example of EFC players skills.

Sometimes amazing… often horrific.

You mean that patch that was the entire game?

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I think we are the best by hand that ive seen in many many years.

AFL is just such a congested game these days and everything is done under extreme pressure.

Except all the bits that aren’t.

There was a bit of play today where Ridley was running the ball out of defence. He had Redman running with him boundary side. They were jogging and there was only one opposition player near them. Ridley draws the opposition player and handpasses to Redman. It was a good handpass. Redman drops it cold.

Typical of the day. Typical of the season.

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Oh god so many times players running into space and we handballed behind them or at their feet… and that one. That one was just perfect.

So, here’s two other things that ■■■■ me.

  1. We move the ball forward through the middle of the ground. A player runs toward the front of the square and should kick it into the forward line, but no, apparently there must be a team rule that every player must get to touch the ball. So instead of kicking the ball, the player handballs to a teammate running along side of him in no better position. One of two things happen. They muck up the handball/handball receive or the second player has an opponent closing in an thus can’t deliver the ball. If you have the opportunity to deliver the ball into the forward line (or kick a goal) take it.

  2. We just seem to handball for the sake of it. I think the players think it’s a game of keepings off with dinky little 2-3 metres handballs that go around in a circle. We need more handballs that release a player or handballs to players out wide or who have run forward to space.

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I think you’re wrong here Ivan.

We are exceptional in our inside 50 disposal. In particular the ‘kick just over the head of the leading player’. Seriously we are amazing at that kick. Not only is the precision amazing - each kick just touches the forward’s fingertips, every single time; every single player on the list also kicks it the same way. Remarkable consistency!

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