Dear MCLeody, thank you for your inspired wisdom. As I recall the stab and drop kick were fazed out when we still played on the mud heaps of the 1980's when professionalism was just beginning in our sport. At the time such kicks were considered dodgy due to the poor execution by many of the players of the day. I can neither confirm nor deny that we have been practicing such moves behind closed gates at secret venues in and around Perth.
I can say however, that we have been conducting random tests for the stab/drop kick gene amongst our younger players and have been delighted to discover that while it is a recessive gene it is nevertheless held by a number of our players today. A private firm has also been conducting autopsies on past players and it should be no surprise to learn that the incidence of the stab/drop kick gene does not seem to have changed over the years.
Proposals have been made by various ex players to reinstate specialised training into the archaic arts of such and certain board members at our beloved club have looked upon these proposals favourably.
May god maintain your shadow.
Regards Mark

Dear Mark , I thank you for taking the time to read my note.

With all due respect mudheap grounds is a Victorian phenomenon and somewhat alien to we West Aussies .

The stab pass is not particularly difficult to execute and although you say it was doomed by the type of football in Victoria and the conditions there I still contend that it could and should be resurrected particularly given that there remains no mudheap grounds being used today.

Further, Mark if you check the shower cubicle in the South Freo changerooms you may find a hair left from John Todd from which you could extract a DNA sample.

He was a great exponent of the stabpass too.

Please don't dismiss this letter as the ramblings of a past passionate football Dinosaur but keep your mind open and take a close look at the kicking style of some of our youngsters like Stephen Hill, Nic Suban , Hayden Ballantyne , Rhys Palmer , Paul Duffield and also Dave Mundy, although he isn't a youngster.
Their kicking technique is what the entire squad should be copying.

I am sure you can relate to Too much by too few for too long but we now have a foundation of skilful youngsters on which to build our team .

P.S. Mark if that was you with some of our boys practicing kicking passes at Davilak
Oval recently , please disregard my note . Obviously I neither expect you to
confirm nor deny it was you.
Love ... ya mate MCleody.

I've got a feeling, MCleody, that telling Harvs to take a close look at Toddy's pubes won't have strengthened your case.

Dear MCleody, The life of an AFL coach is difficult enough these days without having to restate my position time and again. Read my response carefully and demonstrate the same wisdom that you showed earlier or are you really just a Worst reporter undercover? We may have lost a couple of players last weekend and a couple of technical experts moonlighting in the middle east recently but our resources are not endless and neither is my patience.
Regarding the matter of Mr Todd's follicular qualities - we were onto that some time ago. Nuff said.
Please be more measured in your future correspondence or it might be more than your shadow that you will be missing.
Sincerely
Mark

coincidentially if you google drop kick + coach you get a link to dockerland and that photo of malaxos and judge.

Dear Mark, on closer reading of your reply I would like to say that I am really impressed with your handling of our young players.

I recall you saying just prior to the 2008 draft , in response to a ridiculous question from a television interviewer , that the main attributes you were seeking in your players are ;
" A good kick, fast runners and thinkers, ability to read the play and efficient disposal "

I want to stress I wasn't being critical and that I was probably just swept up in a wave of optimism. It's been a rough road cobber.

I understand now that not every young player that we recruit is going to be a magnificent kick like Hill, Suban, Palmer, Duffield, Ballantyne and Mundy from the outset and that they may take a couple of months to get it to the standard of those I mentioned.

Once again I apologise ; My expectations may be high but I blame it on my youth.

Love.....ya good mate MCleody.

Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic, but I've got a feeling that calling Harvs 'cobber' won't necessarily work in your favour.

ah the dropkick/stab pass -what wonderful memorys.
i remember ray sorrell turning in a wide arc and sending a beautiful drop kick from the centre of east fremantle oval to the chest of big bob johnson standing in the goal square.
other drop kick specialist were john todd,david hollins,graham melrose,barry cable,darren ramshaw from perth who used to kick in after a point was scored and put the ball in the centre circle.
when graham melrose went to north melbourne coach ron barassi told him not to drop kick because he felt it was too risky.
seeing players train most days now a few lessons on the drop kick would not go astray.
please dont give me this shit that the game is now to fast for the drop kick,the drop/stab pass goes faster and at a lower trajectory than the drop punt and therefore reaches its target sooner

I'm a romantic, too, Claudius, but we'll never see one of the game's most beautiful skills come back into fashion. The dropkick requires too much precision, and therefore introduces too much risk of error. It's a glorious thing when executed properly but seriously fugly when it's not.

In a game that's all about eliminating, or at least minimising risk, there's no future for the dropkick. Dropkick = Dodo, I'm afraid.

But I also think we can remember the past wrongly. Not everyone could dropkick properly in days gone by, as proven by the fact that your list contains only a small number of players. (But you should probably add Dennis Marshall to that list.)

It's also true that, in days gone by, players couldn't 'Daicos' a goal nor 'Farmer' the ball sideways on the run. So it's not like skills haven't evolved, and it's not like some players today (probably around the same proportion as those in the past who could dropkick properly) can't kick daisy-cutter drop punts.

And the daisy-cutter drop punt is just as fast and just as flat as a Steve Marsh stab pass. It's just different in terms of execution, is all.

The game is now way too fast for the drop kick.

Wish I'd said that. Would have taken a whole lot fewer words.