Kicking @ THF

Let me guess, distance is no excuse or reason to miss a field goal either right? That’s why it’s routine for kickers to hit 109 field goals into the wind. :roll:

I was at the Argo vs Cats game with a real eye to our kicker. He was awesome on every kick except on miss placed kickoff. Every FG attempt that day was dead straight as an arrow right through the middle with no hook or fade at all. My fears about our kicking game were put to rest completely. I was out of town and unable to catch our home opener. Saw he was 0-3 and was shocked. Did he miss them to the same spot? were they hooking? Just wide or WAY wide, bad snaps? 0-3 is a disaster.

I've been a ST holder for 40 years and the wind at THF, IMHO, is more erratic than IWS ever was. If there is a strong wind from the west it seems to hit the back of the west stands and swirl around onto the field. The last game (and one game late last season) you could look at the goal post flags at each end and they'd blow in a different direction at the same moment. And at field level, it was way worse than sitting in the west stands.
It's early in the year and whether people want to accept it, THF when the winds blow as bad as they did last game, it's a tough go to figure out how the wind will affect the ball. The game last year was so windy that it bent the goal posts. They were swaying pretty good last game.
It's almost like golfing into a strong wind. Is it 1 club, 2 clubs or even 3 clubs more to get to the green? How far left or right will a ball drift on approach. Not an easy task.

Both teams need to play the game, whether its kicking or passing. One team gets to practise there, which is where our kicker must excel. We have a handicap in that KA does not believe in running the ball, where wind is not a factor, (and gives the opposition a leg up, in that they can expect a passing attempt, on any given play).

I can recall Ronnie Lancaster calling CFB Moose Jaw to get "weather reports" about what the wind was going to do by the hour at old Taylor Field in order to make some judgement calls about which side of the field to chose...the Riders of that day always seemed to prosper in the third and fourth quarters, when, mysteriously, the ball would sail in the correct direction. (Go figure!) I don't know if he handed out free tickets and valet parking, or exactly what (and having George Reed as an RB and Clyde Atchison to blow a hole through the line didn't hurt, either!), but the meteorologist guys at the Base were always very accommodating!

Is Hamilton Airport not on KA's speed dial?

In Lancasters day in Saskatchewan , there was no Accuweather. No need to call Hamilton airport .

You seem to think kicking is easy. You seem to really question KA.

What coach have we had in recent memory where we've had winning teams so consistently ?

I don't get it!

You get your ass on the field and give it a go. I have and it always looks easy. It's not.

Give them a few more games, then criticize if it's still bad. Hell, I'll be the first to call for Maher head. But, let's not get too stupid here, how many kickers are out there to bring in?

Yes, Lenny...I really do question Austin on who got out coached in last Friday's game.

You can jump along, free as a bird, and wonder why we had to cut guys this week (I didn't see BC do this?)

You can have ACCUWeather, along with your GPS, but its those guys at the Airports and Armed Forces Bases that supply them their data (in the rare instance that you might have actually given it any thought)(its not like ACCUWeather employs a lot of meteorogists around the world. You get local info wherever you can.

Ron Lancaster was more recently "our" Head Coach, so no big need to pull out your history books for me. He was a great player and QB (just like Austin) and played his career there (just like Austin), and did quite well in Hamilton, should you be old enough to remember and respect that fact.

Kicking is a skill. Some people have it, 99.9% of people (if not more) don't. I don't argue that. I simply suggest that you should be able to "own your own field" because you practice there and play there more than anyone else. What's more, you get coached there, and if the coaching fails, then you probably do, too. As a player, you can't do much about your coaching, but that's another story.

"Get out on the field" and show anyone anything? I was quite easily in the top ten athletes in my various sports in my Province, and I know exactly how hard you had to train and work to get there and advance. Yes, it looks "easy", as you say, because nobody understands just how hard you are working!

Being a referee or a coach (I've done both) is even harder. Football is only slightly easier than Basketball.

Blah blah blah, self-promotion, chest thumping, baseless boasting, blah...

IF you bothered to actually WATCH the game, you would know that Leone missed FGs as well. Tisdale was cr@p and DESERVED to be released. Hoffman-Ellis LOST his position during camp and the first 2 weeks of the Regular Season.

The winds at game time on Thursday are forecasted to be from the SW at 13 km/h.

No excuses in this weeks game. We will see.

No, DCF...not quite.

You expect the opposing kicker to miss one or two, and admittedly we have a challenging stadium to kick in.

That Tisdale was hired, let alone Hoffman-Ellis by this Coaching staff comes into question.

That the game pan was so flat, and we were seriously beaten in every aspect of it argues that our GM should be giving the HQ the butt kicking of his life (oops, I guess that's the same guy?) Then the Director of Football Operations, should do it (am I just having a tough time on who to pin this one on, or what?)

Answer honestly...do you think C J Gable is the answer to the ground game? Marvellous blocking skills, can break the run on the odd occasion where we rarely use him, but the run game is essentially a flat tire in the Cat's game, and everyone knows it.

I am disappointed to tell you that I indeed did watch the game, through its entirety. I wasn't terribly happy (can you tell?) and am going through a week of lip kicking as a result.

We've got Winnipeg this week, and the Carter-less/ S J Green-less Allouettes for the next two weeks to toughen it up a bit, and I suggest we do.

We are certainly getting the carpet rolled out for us, as, as others have mentioned, Drew Willy isn't the guy that is going to pick your D-Backfield apart, and you can try out some new arrangements at low cost. Montreal, missing two premium recievers, will be struggling a bit, and give you a bit of wiggle room to get it straight, and understand that when you have such a wealth of receivers, that you could risk Owens or Banks running the ball (shall I call them "scat-backs"?) every once in a while...I know, it will bring KA to tears to allow such plays, but would bring a smile to the O-Line, who might know which way to block, and give us something past the one dimensional appearance that we have.

Creeker, a few things to keep in mind:

  1. No team wins every game. Sometimes you lose, and sometimes the score will be lopsided.

  2. The other team also has coaches and professional athletes playing for them. In BC’s case their coach is one of the best ever. He had a game plan too, and it’s quite conceivable that he out-coached our guy this time.

  3. Our guy has won a lot more than he’s lost since he’s been here. He can’t be that bad.

Well put Sir! I agree 100%!

Here are the official wind stats/direction for the 9 regular season games & EDSF for 2015.

Note, they are taken just prior to kick-off.

Further more before I get the question: “No” … I do not know where they are measured from!

KPH	Direction

1 10 W
2 25 NE
3 10 SSW
4 5 NW
5 20 SW
6 45 SW
7 60 NE
8 15 NW
9 45 SW
10 25 W

I watched the three field goal attempts again this morning. On the first one, they showed a close-up of Maher lining up his kick, and you could see his sleeves flapping quite quickly in the stiff breeze, as were the telltales. That one would have been tough for anybody. (Yes, anybody.) Not sure what happened on the second one, near the end of the half - wind was still pretty strong - but it didn't miss by much. But on the one near the end of the third quarter, the wind appeared to have died down, and the telltales were hanging almost straight down. But while the ball was in the air, it looked like the telltales fluttered a bit - and the ball tailed off in that direction. Was it that a gust of wind came up at just that moment? If so, not sure what could be done to account for that. Perhaps if the gusts are always pushing the ball the same way. But if their direction is unpredictable?

I was sitting on the 10-yd line near the North end zone, and it felt like there was a mini-tornado with the wind hitting me from 3 different directions. The FG attempt at that end looked like the one in Guelph that died before it reached the goal line, the wind was so strong...

Just watched them again, and it was the second field goal attempt, not the third, where the wind gusted just after the kick. The telltales were out a bit from the goal posts, but just after the kick went up, they both ended up going straight out and then up - as the ball sliced off in that direction.

On the third attempt, the telltales were hanging straight down and didn’t seem to move at all during the kick. No idea why he missed that one.

I guess we will find out tomorrow if Medlock is still the Yoda and Maher the Luke Skywalker at THF? I hope it doesn't come down to a FG battle with Medlock winning the honours. That I would hate! :x

May the force be with US.

Those field goals were bad kicks nothing to do with the wind.

Not letting that one go are you Garney :smiley: ? Just plain misses, misreading the wind, or missing because of the wind, ultimately it doesn’t matter. Given the opportunities, Maher has to outkick, or at least keep pace with, Medlock on FGs.
So far, it looks like Maher can out punt him.

As of now, we don’t know what Maher can do, but we do know what Medlock can. But let’s be realistic, we have Maher, we don’t have Medlock. No use pining over what might have been?