Sometimes I think I'm watching different games than people on here (and I'm guessing that view is shared). We were one of the better kicking teams last year, especially in the backline. Our disposal efficiency and uncontested possessions were among the very few stats we we were better than average.
We have in my opinion the best kicking backline that Freo has ever had, and one of the better backlines in the league. Wilson, S Hill, Ryan are very good field kicks, and for bigger guys Hamling and Pearce are very good. They aren't good kicks because we trained them in kicking more than, say, the forwards. It's because we recruited and played good kicking defenders.
Where we fell in a hole was in contested ball, and our entries and marking in the forward line. We were bottom four for both.
People have made Lyon into a straw man who doesn't believe in skills. Outside of that figment of people's imaginations, no-one considers that skills aren't important, or that they shouldn't be trained. The question is how do you tweak your time to address your biggest failings. Where do you spend your limited time? Complicating things is that no-one on here knows how much time Freo spend on any of this stuff, so it's an argument so far removed from reality as to be meaningless.
I think goad coaches would tweak their training based on where the team most needs help. Based on last year, I would spend a little more time on the positioning and transition from the middle of the ground to the forward line. I would probably try to build some of our midfielders up a little. So, where we practise skills, for me it would be more in game situations where we also drill into the forwards where to run, and the mids where to expect them and hit them up.
I might not need for that to happen on the Gold Coast, but it seems that's what the club is doing. Maybe Tabs and Cox will over time learn how to not butcher the ball, but in the meantime, getting them to the right spots is just as much of a priority, if not more.
