I think players are that skilled on the 'banana kick" or 'checkside' these days, that the need for kicking both sides of the body has lessened. I'm not in agreement with that fact, but it is how it now is.
But yes, 30 years ago, some of the kicks they do today would have been frowned on, and, your chances of playing high level football were almost determined by being able to kick both feet.
Not now though, I think, and if you watch some of our blokes, I'm not certain the ability to kick at all, is rated very highly!
What really gets me about todays skills, is the propensity to skid the ball through the goals rather than belt it through on the full. Obviously, someone has worked out the odds are better?
But geez it drives me nuts when they miss. And - I dunno - there seems to be a lot of stuff ups when they do it that way.
There other footskill that is missing from the game - I reckon - is the good ol' Torpedo punt.. If it is now a game that is about 'meters gained', surely the torpy has a place in todays game. ??
But you'd barely see 2 or 3 a year these days.
And in our case, if you are having trouble finding someone inside 50 to kick it to,( let alone the knowledge that theres probably 34 players there ready to pounce on it if the kick inside doesn't come off), I dont understand how you wouldn't just "Malcolm Blight' it from 50 or 60 out and 'have a go'.
Be a whole lot better than the potential stuffed up mark or duffed kick( - theres a fairly high percentage that that occurs these days- ), and geez, the torpy is a pretty great crowd pleaser.
Why has it been left behind??? It cannot be any riskier , or more fallible, than some of this checkside stuff, or dribbling/skidding the ball through??
Bring the Torp back!!
