Just who is the best field kick at Carlton, at least in terms of accuracy? Carlton Assistant Coach (forward) Brad Green has volunteered two players’ names because he can’t separate the pair.
To keep you in suspense, the former Melbourne forward reveals all later. For the moment though, Green has the forum to reflect on his role at the club so far.
Now readying for his third season at Visy Park, Green is under no illusions – he, and indeed all the assistant coaches, must work within the parameters set by Senior Coach Michael Malthouse in terms of how the latter wants this group of players to play.
That said, there are certain concessions.
“Mick’s a fantastic coach and he put the framework up for the style of play he wanted, but within that framework he has allowed us to go for it,” Green said in an interview held in the Justin Madden Room recently.
“With the forward line group you’ve got to be flexible . . . you have to keep finding players to kick goals, blokes coming down like Judd, Gibbs, Murphy and Bell. and that all comes down to ball movement, style of play, inside 50 entries, your opponents on the day (‘do we play two talls, do we play three talls, do we go in with a defensive forward?’). The mechanics are constantly changing as do the methods, even if the philosophy, the processes and the structures do not.”
In reflecting on the season gone, Green cites a genuine growth in the front half and the many and varied players employed there – from Levi Casboult to Troy Menzel, both of whom, according to Green, have taken their game to new levels and can only further those welcome trends.
“Then you look at Lachie Henderson and you think, ‘Gee, if Lachie can get in a full pre-season and came into the year fully fit then we’ve got a very good player, a four or five-goal-a-game player there – and everyone knows how capable ‘Hendo’ is in playing both forward and back,” Green said.
Jarrad Waite’s departure obviously forces change on the forward dynamic, but change is the one constant here, and who can predict what sort of impact a fully fit Matthew Kreuzer – a ruckman-cum-forward in Green’s opinion - could make up front?
“Waitey’s departure will be a big loss, but no player is irreplaceable,” Green said. “That said, the mix of who I’ve got and what I’ve got is always challenging and that’s a challenge I enjoy.”
Malthouse has already declared Kreuzer Carlton’s No.1 recruit of 2015. So where and how does Green perceive that Kreuzer will be serve the team?
That will be determined by so many variables. As Green said: “It’ll come down to balance and where Mick sees best fit”.
“No doubt there’ll be heated debate with ‘Kreuze’ and how Robert Warnock and Cameron Wood become involved, how Kreuze’s form is and whether his form warrants him staying forward, and how he’s travelling having missed a year of footy,” he said.
“These are the things that have to be weighed up and these are the debates that go on in match committee – and that’s healthy.”
Green’s 254-game career through 11 seasons at Melbourne yielded the former forward 350 goals, most of them on his trusty left. Little wonder he takes a particular interest in the fortunes of Menzel.
“I see a little bit of him (Menzel) in me or me in him, whichever way you want to put it,” Green said. “He’s a left footer, he’s a forward line player, he likes to mark on the lead, can sometimes crumb the ball and hopefully eventually will go into the midfield,” Green said.
Troy Menzel booted 26 goals in 2014. (Photo: AFL Photos)
As for Casboult, Green sees the raw talent on show and considers the player a work in progress.
“Levi’s trod the stepping stones into AFL footy and he’s now more confident than he was previously. He can take that big mark, but he’s still got work to do and it may take a year or two before we see that full-on consistency,” Green said.
“But he’s got the makings of a very good key position player. He’ll’ always have a funny ball-drop because that’s what’s he’s been brought up with, that’s how it is and it’s very hard to change habits. But he works harder at his kicking than any player I know, and with goalkicking it comes down to what you’re most comfortable with and of generally being at ease to kick the goal.
“The worst thing you can do is panic – to worry about the crowd, worry about the scoreboard, worry about missing – when you start thinking about those things you’ve just got to get them out of your head, so with Levi it’s more ‘routine, routine, routine’ and being able to relax.”
It is here that discussion turned to the career of Hawthorn’s Peter Hudson, whose 727 career goals came at a 69% conversion rate, which put him level with Matthew Lloyd at 69% and second only to Tony Lockett at 70.
“Huddo” made the flat punt an art form, and yet the kick has all but disappeared.
Why?
Green, like Hudson a fellow Taswegian, was asked whether there was merit in the unique kick’s reintroduction.
“The hardest thing about our game is the shape of the ball and of hitting the sweet spot all the time,” Green observed. “It’s why ‘Stevie J’ (Geelong’s Steve Johnson) goes on the side because he feels that the kick is the easiest and most accurate for him, and a lot of the Geelong players have followed suit.
Green with Coach Mick Malthouse. (Photo: AFL Photos)
“But I’ve often wondered why they don’t do that from straight in front rather than go the drop punt? Perhaps it’s because you look stupid if you miss, and people and commentators heap a lot of pressure.
“I think you have to be the right player to take all that on and knowing Levi I’m not sure that he can be a Peter Hudson and go the flat punt or the Stevie J and the ball over the shoulder. In saying that, there’s no reason why the flat punt can’t reappear.”
Having spent a month of his teenage life at Old Trafford with Manchester United and a brief foray with lower division club Walsall, Green talks with some authority when he says Australian Rules is socceresque in terms of players basically push up and back and the integration of every line.
The evolution of the game is perhaps another story for another day. For the moment though, drumroll please . . .
Green’s best two kickers at Carlton, so far as accuracy and decision-making is concerned, are the reigning John Nicholls Medallist Bryce Gibbs and the bloke in the No.13 guernsey Chris Yarran.
“It’s one or the other,” Green said. “Nine times out of ten, something will open up or unfold when they kick it.”
