Barry Breen has the most famous kick in Australian football. His “Hail Mary” wobbly punt kick late in the 1966 VFL grand final broke the deadlock against Collingwood with the most decisive behind ever scored.
To this day, it remains St Kilda’s only premiership-winning kick.
Barry Breen kicks the winning point to land St Kilda their only flag
Yet, if the game was loaded with statisticians and analysts as it is today, Breen’s kick would be classified as “ineffective” … because it did not register a goal, the supposed true objective of any kick at goal.
Same with Tony Lockett for that after-the-siren behind that sunk Essendon in the 1996 preliminary final at the SCG. Sometimes a miss with a kick at goal is just as effective to the team’s objective as a Malcolm Blight bomb that scores a goal after time is called at Princes Park.
The game is loaded with great kicks.
And it is now being overloaded with cheap kicks that are distorting the game’s statistical history. They are also misleading critical insights into the game’s evolution. This will – as any who thought Breen had an ineffective kick at the end of the 1966 grand final – confuse future generations when they try to analyse the different trends in the game’s growth.
The analysis has shifted from basic counting of kicks, marks and handballs. Every act on the field is now turned into more complex data, such as measuring scores from turnovers and a team’s ability to stop the opposition from scoring from defensive transition.
And then there are those “effective” and “ineffective” kicks.
Champion Data – the AFL’s official statistician – even has a rating for every listed player. North Melbourne midfielder Luke Davies-Uniacke is the highest-rated player in the season’s first month. Western Bulldogs ruckman Tim English is second, Collingwood’s Nick Daicos is ranked third.
Where is the problem? It is in the definition of a kick. When is a kick a kick?
Collingwood young gun Nick Daicos.Credit: Getty Images
Some player records are under threat while the interpretation of a kick is being manipulated. There has never been a time in the game when it has been so easy to get a cheap stat.
Before the 2020 season, the AFL changed the kick-in rules. The man on the mark was forced to stand an extra five metres back. Players could run from the goal square without first kicking the ball to themselves. The eventual kick counts as a statistic. It is a blight on the game and its history.
In round three, Sydney’s Jake Lloyd became the 10th Sydney player to surpass 5000 disposals. At just 29, Lloyd is the third-youngest Swan to achieve the milestone. At face value, it is a good achievement for the dual club champion. However, Lloyd has benefited more than most from the ridiculous kick-in rule.
It is hard to determine how many of Lloyd’s 5000 disposals have come directly from this tactic, but in the past three seasons a conservative estimate would be 10 per cent, based on breaking down his disposals this year. This season Lloyd has had 94 disposals – and 13 have come from kick-ins. That is more than 12 per cent. This is a farce.
Of course, Lloyd is not the only player benefiting from a rule change that has not been correctly adjusted by the statisticians.
Second-year sensation Nick Daicos has had his statistics distorted too. Daicos has taken 14 kick-ins this season, playing on every time – meaning 10 per cent of his 138 disposals this season have been gifted, not earned.
You would hope the umpires consider this when voting on the Brownlow Medal.
No player in history has had more disposals (127) in his first four games than North Melbourne sensation Harry Sheezel. However, that record would still belong to Geelong’s Mark Bairstow (121 disposals) had Sheezel not received a statistic for the nine kick-ins he played on from.
West Coast veteran Shannon Hurn.Credit: Getty Images
It is something the Rising Star selectors will have to consider when assessing the red-hot field for the award this season.
West Coast veteran Shannon Hurn is closing in on Matthew Priddis for the all-time disposal record at their club. Hurn only needs 337 more touches to eclipse Priddis’ mark of 6279.
Hurn, a prodigious kick, has been the designated kicker for the Eagles throughout his 18-year career, therefore allowing him to play on at will and pad his statistics.
This season alone, Hurn has played on 29 times after a behind, whereas Priddis rarely, if ever, was allowed the same fortune.
As a result, the statistics at West Coast do not accurately reflect how each player has earned his place in the club’s records books.
St Kilda champion Robert Harvey holds the AFL/VFL record for the most disposals with 9656. Across Harvey’s distinguished 383-game career, it would have been rare for him to take a kick-in. If he did, it was under the previous set of rules which made it more challenging.
Harvey’s mark will soon be overtaken by former Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury, who is only 300 behind and on the current tracking, with the benefit of the kick-in advantage, Daicos will smash Harvey’s mark.
The AFL must stop counting playing on from a kick-in as a disposal. It should rescind those stats from the players who have done it since 2020.
Every kick in football should be earned, not gifted. And some kicks do mean more than others. Ask Barry Breen.
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