Free-taking techniques.

[dundrumite]

Does anyone have any ideas how to kick the ball further off the ground? I can score from anywhere inside about 35 metres but I'd like to be able to get it from further out.

I would always have thought that Maurice Fitzgerald and Bryan Sheehan's techniques ( Sheehan based his on Maurice Fitz, they are from the same club) were as close to perfection as you could get.

But Cluxton kicks the ball in a very different style and has a very very good record. He cuts across the ball where Sheehan and Fitzgerald would kick the ball at a point just below the big toe. His go straight at the goal in a direct line over the balckspot where Fitz/Sheehan curl in from a point outside the black spot of the crossbar. Cluxton aims at the blackspot where Fitz/Sheehan do not.

For the Sheehan/Fitzgerald style

Head down all through (until well after you've kicked the ball. When you lift the head, as in golf, the whole kick/swing plane changes)
Kick the ball with a point on the foot just below the big toe (this will come with practice though)
Keep the same number of steps in the run up ( five is enough I think, no need for Charlie Redmond/Anthony Tohill Riverdance type run ups)
Approach the ball at about a 45 degree angle

That's a lot to be remembering!

Just keep kicking and the natural kick will find itself. It's like when you're practicing kicking off the hands after not kicking for a while.

The first few shots might be poor, then you'll kick one over. You'll try and replicate this good one and again and again. Muscle memory will then kick in and say 'here is the correct body position and foot point for kicking the ball'

I think the same principle is true of all sports. The likes of Dave Alred (an England rugby kicking coach and one of life's chancers in my view) giving advice to the likes of Kildare players like Johnny Doyle (I think this happened) is complete madness I feel.

I could give you all the techniques you like, but your body will automatically do the right techniques if you practice enough!

My fee is $100 a word!

Do you know the man? Johnny Wilk and O'Gara seem to have a high opinion of him

[catchandkick]

Do you know the man? Johnny Wilk and O'Gara seem to have a high opinion of him

Good luck to them. I think he's a chancer.

[dundrumite]

You didn't answer my question. On what grounds do you think he is a chancer?

[catchandkick]

That wasn't your original question.

To answer your second question, I think he's a smooth operator who, I'm sure, puts across various confidence tricks and visualisation techniques to players. I would imagine he's a bit of a cheerleader for the players, who become somewhat reliant on him.

Think they'd do as well without him.

Just my opinion.

He's more of a poor man's Enda McNulty / Jimmy McGuinness than a good kicking coach.

Recently moved into golf, acting as coach to Harrington. Ridiculous in my opinion. Why can't Harrington trust himself?

http://www.independent.ie/sport/golf/harrington-backing-rugby-guru-to-help-kickstart-his-revival-2989262.html

[dundrumite]

That wasn't your original question.

To answer your second question, I think he's a smooth operator who, I'm sure, puts across various confidence tricks and visualisation techniques to players. I would imagine he's a bit of a cheerleader for the players, who become somewhat reliant on him.

Think they'd do as well without him.

Just my opinion.

He's more of a poor man's Enda McNulty / Jimmy McGuinness than a good kicking coach.

Recently moved into golf, acting as coach to Harrington. Ridiculous in my opinion. Why can't Harrington trust himself?

http://www.independent.ie/sport/golf/harrington-backing-rugby-guru-to-help-kickstart-his-revival-2989262.html

That's a no to my original question I assume.

You may be right, he could in all well be a chancer. However, the fact that these guys are actively seeking him out  must mean something.
Chancers are nearly always get found out. Either he is a very talented chancer who has yet to be found out, or he maybe is good at whatever he does. However, without seeing him in action it is hard to gauge an opinion on him, which was what my original post was about.

[catchandkick]

Here's a bit from an interview with him.

On his website there's a reference to Gaelic football, and Alred's attention to detail begins with the most obvious element.

"One particular thing is that the Gaelic football is quite like a little pellet — it's not like a soccer ball, it's slightly smaller and the sweet spot is closer to the ground. If you could have the luxury of teeing it up a little, it'd be a little easier to hit. Also, the Gaelic ball still has three panels in the squares on the surface, so I'm not sure it flies particularly true.

"You can line a kick up, it'll spin perfectly and feel good off the foot, but it may not fly quite true sometimes. As a result you try to put more foot on it, and that puts sidespin on it — hence right-footed kickers like kicking from the left side.

"Gaelic football is very interesting — a lot of the players kick around the corner when kicking out of hand, and in coaching them it can be quite a sea change to get them to work on the body shift when kicking rather than wrapping the foot around the ball. I enjoyed a session I did with Gaelic and rugby players in Omagh, the interaction between the players was fantastic."


Bit rich of him I think to come along, with zero experience of Gaelic football, and lecture a guy like Johnny Doyle of Kildare ( I think this happened), who has spent thousands of hours honing his technique.

That's my spin on it (ha!)

[catchandkick]

That's a no to my original question I assume.

You may be right, he could in all well be a chancer. However, the fact that these guys are actively seeking him out  must mean something.
Chancers are nearly always get found out. Either he is a very talented chancer who has yet to be found out, or he maybe is good at whatever he does. However, without seeing him in action it is hard to gauge an opinion on him, which was what my original post was about.

No. I don't know him. He features prominently in the Lions 2005 video. That's where I formed the impression he was a guffer. Massive self-confidence, a guy like Harrington who spends so much time in his own head he must be going mad, would be right down Alred's street.

He's more of a smooth cheerleader than a good kicking coach in my view.

Good luck to him, his smoothness has got him an MBE.

[catchandkick]

http://www.cricketeurope4.net/DATABASE/ARTICLES2/articles/000051/005166.shtml

An MBE in waffle is what he should have got!

[thewobbler]

I've come to the belief that everyone has a natural kicking length that they can't exceed - and some people happen to be naturally longer than others.

That's baloney. That's like saying everyone has a natural speed or strength that they'll never exceed.

Playing every night with your friends might do little to increase your kicking power but an intensive workout programme aimed at increasing your flexibility, particularly of your hip along with targetted weights workouts will increase your kickout length.
Our goalie increased his kickout length by 20 yards after an 18 month programme where he was doing workouts up to 3 nights a week along with lots of work on his technique.

I've seen many things in football over the years, but I've never seen an adult player get noticeably quicker at sprinting, only slower. You can practice sprinting all you like, perfect your technique all you like, but it's nearly all down to some natural equation between your calf muscles and hamstring muscles that actually decides your speed. If it was anything else, professional rugby and all its science would be churning out sub-10 seconders in every pro team.

then you've never been coached properly. Or you were but you didn't do what the coach wanted.
speed is a skill
it is coach-able
when can it be coached? all the time.
When do humans take most benefit from it - at 7-8 years of age for speed of foot movement (amount of steps in a set distance) and 13-15 for stride length
However even adults can improve their speed. it is all down to proper training and technique (which are both coach-able)

so on that, yes free taking is coach-able
as is golf. why then would anyone take it up in later years?

Neil, I'll refer to my earlier statement. Professional rugby is a full time game that utterly leans on sports science for any edges it can find. But the fellas who were put on the wing as kids because of their speed are still the quickest on the team as fully grown adults. That, my friend, has got f**k all to do with speed coaching.

[catchandkick]

Neil, I'll refer to my earlier statement. Professional rugby is a full time game that utterly leans on sports science for any edges it can find. But the fellas who were put on the wing as kids because of their speed are still the quickest on the team as fully grown adults. That, my friend, has got f**k all to do with speed coaching.

Would agree mostly.

Saw a documentary about Ajax Amsterdam running trials for thousands of kids about six or seven years old from around Holland

What the coaches looked for, they said, in a player was SPIT, that means, in order:

Speed
Personality
Intelligence
Technique

The characteristics were in that order deliberately i.e they felt speed was something they could not alter very much and so kids who didn't have it, didn't make the cut.

[DuffleKing]

Aldred worked with armagh in the early Joe years

[blanketattack]

I've come to the belief that everyone has a natural kicking length that they can't exceed - and some people happen to be naturally longer than others.

That's baloney. That's like saying everyone has a natural speed or strength that they'll never exceed.

Playing every night with your friends might do little to increase your kicking power but an intensive workout programme aimed at increasing your flexibility, particularly of your hip along with targetted weights workouts will increase your kickout length.
Our goalie increased his kickout length by 20 yards after an 18 month programme where he was doing workouts up to 3 nights a week along with lots of work on his technique.

I've seen many things in football over the years, but I've never seen an adult player get noticeably quicker at sprinting, only slower. You can practice sprinting all you like, perfect your technique all you like, but it's nearly all down to some natural equation between your calf muscles and hamstring muscles that actually decides your speed. If it was anything else, professional rugby and all its science would be churning out sub-10 seconders in every pro team.

If rugby was solely about straight line speed over 100m then I'm sure you'd see sub-10 seconders on every pro team but it also requires strength, ball handling, tackling, non-linear speed, balance, speed over 5m, 10m, 30m, etc.

This study shows that speed can be improved with training...
http://www.sjss-sportsacademy.edu.rs/archive/details/full/the-effect-of-40-m-repeated-sprint-training-on-physical-performance-in-young-elite-male-soccer-players-393.html

[Niall Quinn]

Saw a documentary about Ajax Amsterdam running trials for thousands of kids about six or seven years old from around Holland

What the coaches looked for, they said, in a player was SPIT

That would explain Frank Rijkaard

[CorkMan]

Does anyone have any ideas how to kick the ball further off the ground? I can score from anywhere inside about 35 metres but I'd like to be able to get it from further out.

I would always have thought that Maurice Fitzgerald and Bryan Sheehan's techniques ( Sheehan based his on Maurice Fitz, they are from the same club) were as close to perfection as you could get.

But Cluxton kicks the ball in a very different style and has a very very good record. He cuts across the ball where Sheehan and Fitzgerald would kick the ball at a point just below the big toe. His go straight at the goal in a direct line over the balckspot where Fitz/Sheehan curl in from a point outside the black spot of the crossbar. Cluxton aims at the blackspot where Fitz/Sheehan do not.

For the Sheehan/Fitzgerald style

Head down all through (until well after you've kicked the ball. When you lift the head, as in golf, the whole kick/swing plane changes)
Kick the ball with a point on the foot just below the big toe (this will come with practice though)
Keep the same number of steps in the run up ( five is enough I think, no need for Charlie Redmond/Anthony Tohill Riverdance type run ups)
Approach the ball at about a 45 degree angle

That's a lot to be remembering!

Just keep kicking and the natural kick will find itself. It's like when you're practicing kicking off the hands after not kicking for a while.

The first few shots might be poor, then you'll kick one over. You'll try and replicate this good one and again and again. Muscle memory will then kick in and say 'here is the correct body position and foot point for kicking the ball'

I think the same principle is true of all sports. The likes of Dave Alred (an England rugby kicking coach and one of life's chancers in my view) giving advice to the likes of Kildare players like Johnny Doyle (I think this happened) is complete madness I feel.

I could give you all the techniques you like, but your body will automatically do the right techniques if you practice enough!

My fee is $100 a word!

Thanks catchandkick, that's sounds great.