"We talking about practice. Not a game. Not a game. Not a game. We talking about practice."
It has been 15 years since NBA star Allen Iverson gave his famous press conference rant "about practice".
It is ironic that the anniversary coincides with a period of poor goalkicking in the AFL.
Goalkicking has long been derided by former players and experts as 'the only skill that hasn't improved over time.' That may or may not be true, but what is true is that poor kicking at goal too often proves the difference between winning and losing. Of the 72 games completed in the 2017 season, 11 have been lost by teams that have had more scoring shots than their opposition. The latest victim of goalkicking self-sabotage was Geelong against Essendon on Saturday night.
After Port Adelaide butchered chances against West Coast in Round 7, Power coach Ken Hinkley said that his side's finishing was a work in progress.
In Round 6, Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge said he was "hopeful" the Dogs' goalkicking would improve after losing to Greater Western Sydney despite six more shots, while Essendon coach John Worsfold said he knew his young forward Joe Daniher was "doing the work" in practice despite his 1.6 performance against Melbourne.
So it begs the questions: Do AFL clubs and their players take goalkicking seriously enough? And how is goalkicking practiced at present?
Practice makes perfect
If you attend an open training session of different AFL clubs, you will notice variations on a theme. There are slight differences in warm-up routines, drills and focusses. But for the most part, a standard main midweek session will run to a particular structure.
Most clubs will have either a giant countdown clock or a coach with a clock overseeing the session. Drills rarely last more than eight to 10 minutes with everyone moving on to the next drill once the clock resets. Very little time is wasted.
There are goalkicking components in main drills, particularly ball movement and match simulation drills. But often coaches and players are more focused on how the ball has transitioned from back half to forward half, and the forward's shot at goal is an afterthought.
Clubs will have 10-15 minutes of specific goalkicking structured into most, if not all sessions, either at the start, in the middle or at the end. One club official described it to ESPN as "organised chaos". It seems that way at most clubs. Bags of footballs are poured out inside a 50m arc and forwards and midfielders take shots at random. Teammates or coaches or cardboard cut-outs might casually man the mark. Players very rarely practice shots on the run or shots under pressure in stoppage scenarios inside 50s. They are often left to their own devices.
Insiders at two clubs emphasised that strength and conditioning staff would never overrule players if they wanted to do more goalkicking.
One assistant coach told ESPN that his club would occasionally have two teams of 10 taking one shot each in a pseudo penalty shoot-out to add some pressure. He also said players would have side bets of coffees or lotto tickets in separate head-to-heads.
In terms of volume, the assistant estimated his two best goalkickers would consistently have 15 shots in a session, which adds up to 45 shots at goal in a week. But he added the pair would nearly double that in pre-season.
But other players on the list don't come close to matching that. The curious part about that is, more than 85 percent of players who have played for that team this season have had at least one shot at goal. One experienced player was routinely spotted at goalkicking sessions last year practicing drop kicks and torpedo punts. As a percentage, more than 80 percent of players at most clubs have had at least one shot at goal in games across the season to date.
By comparison, former All Black Tamati Ellison told ESPN that most Super Rugby kickers would do goalkicking practice on Monday post-game, "as it's a lighter session," on Wednesday on a standard "team day off," and again on Friday during the "captain's run" as well as going through their set routines during pre-game practice.
He said volume in these sessions could range anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes depending on how players were feeling. The emphasis was placed on quality over quantity. Kickers are aiming to kick at 78-83 per cent strike rate in games - Highlanders kicker Marty Banks has landed 29 of 32 conversations and penalties this season including a streak of 24 straight. He did, however tell stuff.co.nz in April that the secret to his success this season was less practice. He would have 10 shots during the week and eight pre-game, mainly to save his hips.
The pursuit of perfection is far more insatiable in individual sports. When men's world No.1 tennis player Andy Murray suffered a shock loss in the second round of Indian Wells to Canadian qualifier Vasek Pospisil in March, he was furious. He lost the evening match 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), with his serve to blame. Murray sent down seven double faults and was broken four consecutive times having led 4-2 in the opening set. Cameras then spotted Murray on the practice courts later that night hitting serves for more than 45 minutes.
Australia's world No.2-ranked doubles player John Peers will have two on court sessions a day during tournament play that features at least 100 serves, 50 in each session. Peers is considered a very mechanically sound server and doesn't do anywhere near the volume other players do on tour.
Jamie Dwyer, one of the world's greatest hockey players, told ESPN that his goalscoring practice was meticulous throughout his illustrious international career. Dwyer scored 243 goals in 365 appearances for Australia including the match-winner in the 2004 Olympic final in Athens. He was also named world player of the year five times.
Dwyer said the Australian team had match-intensity sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays that were under coach control and there wasn't much repetitive goalshooting or short corner rehearsals. But he said Tuesdays and Fridays were individual sessions where players were left to their own devices and Dwyer said he devoted "at least half" of those sessions to goalshooting, penalty strokes and penalty corners, including deflections.
"There were two main ways I practiced," Dwyer told ESPN. "One was I'd try and do it perfectly. Every single time I'd get the ball in the right position and try and smash it where I wanted to smash it (into the net) and then I'd re-adjust if my feet weren't right or my head wasn't right or my follow-through, I'd try and re-adjust until I got it right."
Dwyer said doing repetitions in all parts of the circle, both conventional and reverse stick, helped. He focussed mainly from seven yards out, statistically his highest scoring areas.
"(After) I made sure I got that right, the second part was I'd try and put myself under as much pressure as I possibly could. I tried to put myself under pressure so when it happened in a big game I was already prepared for it."
Dwyer said he visualised scoring the winner in an Olympic final for over a decade before it happened and had practiced the winning penalty corner thousands of times.
Routine, routine, routine
Australia's newest PGA Tour winner Cameron Smith stood over a 58-yard pitch on the fourth playoff hole at the Zurich classic in New Orleans two weeks ago. The stakes could not have been higher for Smith. A win would yield US$1.02m, but more importantly a two-year exemption to the Tour. Second place was a healthy $412,000 but no guaranteed starts. It is a golfer's golden ticket - assured job security for two years regardless of results. The equivalent of a guaranteed contract for an AFL player, which the majority of touring professionals globally don't get.
Smith surveyed the lie, selected his lob wedge, his standard for this particular shot, went through his regular pre-shot routine, which had been the same all week and didn't change for the high-pressure moment. He visualised the shot, committed to it, stood over it and executed. He pitched to three feet, knocked in the putt, and won the tournament.
Compare that to an AFL player with a set shot deep in the pocket. How often do you see a player walking in, still unsure of whether he will kick a drop punt, a checkside on his preferred foot, or step out and snap across his body on his non-preferred - or possibly try to pass off to a teammate in a better position. Players without a set routine or a solid understanding of what kick they will do from certain spots on the grounds is a bug bear for coaches.
One club official said you could straw poll his entire list about whether they had a set-shot routine and estimated that only half the players would raise their hands to say yes.
The assistant coach said fatigue was a factor at times and some players simply forgot to go through their routine and mental checks. But one could make the argument that the majority don't practice them enough to make it automatic. The coach said it was left to players to devise their own routines and work out their own process in conjunction with the coaches and a sports psychologist if need be.
Marginal gains
Only three AFL teams are kicking at higher than 53 per cent this season after eight rounds - Adelaide (57), Geelong (56.4) and Melbourne (56.2). Adelaide and Geelong have combined for 11 wins and five losses and sit in the top five on the ladder. The Demons appear to be an outlier at 4-4 in 10th spot but they have ironically lost two games when having more scoring shots than their opponents.
Five of the past six premiership sides have been in the top three for goalkicking accuracy - the Western Bulldogs were the only exception last season, ranked a staggering 16th. Hawthorn topped the charts in their hat-trick of flags and kicked at 57.1 per cent in 2014, the highest of any team in those six years. No team has kicked at 60 per cent since St Kilda in 2004. The Saints won 17 games that season and lost a preliminary final to eventual premiers Port Adelaide by just six points. Port kicked at 57.1 per cent for the 2004 season.
Accuracy can be misleading because it is often dependant on where shots are being taken from inside the 50m arc and it also includes set shots and shots in play. Teams that collapse back in defence and score from turnover out of the back half will often be more accurate due to space inside 50m compared to pressing defensive that lock the ball in their front half and get repeat pressured or wide shots at goal.
But accepting that as a reason for inaccuracy seems a cop out.
Twelve months ago, American golfer Dustin Johnson was ranked No.8 in the world, had never won more than twice in a single season and had not won a Major.
He is one of the longest and straightest hitters on tour but was not capitalising on his length by hitting the ball close on the greens. In February 2016 he made a strategic investment, purchasing a $19,000 Trackman device used to monitor exact yardages, spin rates, flight path and launch angles.
The idea was to get better control over his wedges. In 12 months he has lowered his average proximity to hole from the 125-150 yard range by two metres. That closer proximity has led to more holed putts and he has won six times in 12 months, including a Major, and has risen to No.1 in the world.
AFL coaches and players will tell you that it is impossible to replicate pressure scenarios in practice. But Johnson can't replicate capacity crowds, huge global TV audiences and high-pressure situations on an empty driving range either. But hitting thousands of wedges and monitoring the data in that environment has made him the best player on the planet.
Some AFL players do use video analysis and Collingwood went to the length of getting earphones for former forward Travis Cloke to replicate crowd noise. Goalkicking coaches like Sav Rocca at Carlton and Tony Lockett at the Sydney Swans have been hired to help players but a lot of clubs haven't made that specific investment.
Goalkicking will continue to be talked about until the numbers improve in games. Maybe it's time to start talking about practice.